Fiedler Audio / Stage (placement and stereo-toolkit plugin)

[Piet De Ridder]

From the announcement:

Exclusively available through Plugin Alliance, Fiedler Audio has released Stage, a new plug-in that enhances the inherent ambience in any source signal by applying advanced spatial and stereo panning algorithms, adding valuable texture, depth, and nuance to stems, mixes, or masters. (...) By using sophisticated stereo panning, delay lines, and phase modulation, stage smoothly serves up what would otherwise require routing schemes of a complex nature and multiple plugins to achieve.

Features:
▪ Versatile acoustical enhancement for a large variety of sources – from single tracks to full mixes.
▪ Remarkable stereophonic augmentation that expands the potential of internal M/S processing while increasing perceived depth, size and texture.
▪ Input section, with stereo corrective tools like M/S blend and L/R tilt, easily and quickly changes the balance between mid, side, left and right information of the source material.
▪ Pan section with two sophisticated algorithms that allow for accurate panoramic adjustment of mono and stereo sources.
▪ Ambience section that facilitates subtle or extreme stereo width enhancement, tone coloration, and creative frequency modulation effects.
▪ Perceptually optimized and source-dependent Colour module that features four intelligent filters for fine tuning the processed sound.
▪ LFO module features two LFOs that can create anything from subtle motion to wild modulation effects.
▪ GUI contains a virtual soundstage to intuitively visualize and adjust all spatial parameters.
▪ An innovative routing system that allows for the wet and dry signals to be monitored either in tandem or separately.

Stage is available — as an AU-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting plugin for Mac OS X (10.8 through 10.12), Windows (7 through 10), and Pro Tools 10.3.10 (or higher) — from Plugin Alliance for an introductory promo price of $99.00 USD until August 31, 2017, rising to $179.00 USD thereafter. A fully-functional, 14-day trial is available to anyone registering for a free Plugin Alliance account.
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[Lawrence]

Can't wait for the Piet review, as one of the preeminent SPAT users around.

[jneebz]

Can't wait for the Piet review, as one of the preeminent SPAT users around.

+1

[Piet De Ridder]

Spent some time with the demo and I don’t really know what to say. I suppose that, when given the right sort of material, Stage is quite a useful plugin to have, but I fear that what qualifies as ‘the right sort of material’ may be a bit limited. Definitely nothing orchestral or anything that requires a more or less believable space in order to convince.

Put somewhat bluntly, Stage is basically a panner/width controller (of an MS-conversion of the input signal) which is then fed into a delay — ‘Ambience’ is far too ambitious a description for that particular section of the plugin, I find —, the wet signal of which can be modulated and coloured. A formula which allows for quite a lot, yes, but again, very little in the area of believable placement and spatialization. If you were hoping to be able to place, say, a horn or a harp at the back, or to one side of a virtual hall with this plugin: you can’t.
(The majority of the factory presets are either slapback delay sort of settings, or all kinds of wobbly FX-presets with LFO-driven detuning. Which should be an indication of what sort of processing the developer had in mind for this plugin.)

I think this might be a rather satisfying tool to help make, for example, backing vocals a bit richer-sounding than they were recorded, or to do interesting things to all sorts of sounds in non-orchestral productions — brass tracks in pop productions might benefit from it too, come to think of it — or to add additional life and motion to guitar tracks or whatever … but anyone who is looking for an affordable alternative to SPAT: this most definitely isn’t it.

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[Raymond_Kemp]

Does this mean my DMG TrackControl will do just fine for such jobs?

[heisenberg]

With that out of the way, does anyone recall if Flux/IRCAM typically has a sale of their products including Spat during the Black Friday sales period or otherwise?

http://www.fluxhome.com/products/plug_ins/ircam_spat-v3

[Lawrence]

Thanks Piet-I suspected as much as I kept waiting for their object oriented GUI to move things towards the back and never saw it happen. SPAT still seems to stand alone.

[givemenoughrope]

SPAT forever! (Until SPAT 2: Revolution, of course...)

[playz123]

SPAT forever! (Until SPAT 2: Revolution, of course...)

I do understand that SPAT is very good, but alas, because of the cost, it's simply not affordable for some. That was another reason many people have tried VSS2. I am aware that opinions on that plugin are mixed, especially on this forum, so I also know there is an opening there for other plugins that do the same sort of thing, but at a better price. I would have thought SPAT might have dropped in price by now as well, but that doesn't seem to be happening, even with Revolution.

[heisenberg]

The site that sells Spat, FLUX will, maybe twice a year have their IRCAM plugin bundles for sale at a significant discount. I am hoping that they will be doing the same with SPAT. There is supposed to be a new version in the wings. Hopefully, they will put the present version on sale before the new one rolls out.

[Linos]

"Spat Revolution is a tool for professionals, so it will cost around 1000$" - didn't the IRCAM guy say something like that in the video? If you can't afford Spat, have a good look at Magix Independence Origami. It doesn't hold up to Spat feature-wise - it is closer to VSS in that regard - but if sounds very very good if you have good impulse responses to load. And there are many more effect plugins included, some of which are very good as well. The stereo version is included in Independence free. 65$ if you want to upgrade to the surround (and true-stereo)-version.

[wst3]

The IRCAM tools are remarkable. They are also way out of my price range.

I have Virtual SoundStage version 1, and I do use it for placement, sometimes. Version 2 is much easier to use, but I haven't made the upgrade yet. i don't expect it to sound as good, or work as well, as SPLAT, but I don't find it to be without merit.

And of course one can always do most of what SPLAT does through judicious use of delays, pan pots, M/S matrices, more delays, and different reverbs. Frankly that level of realism is no longer worth the hours of tweaking, even if the hours of tweaking is kind of fun.

I downloaded the Fiedler plugin demo, I am curious to see what it can do, but I'm not expecting a replacement for SPLAT.

[tack]

Since we're on the topic, I have to again plug EAReverb2 as a lower cost alternative to SPAT.

[Markus K]

I would encourage you guys to take a look at the kvr forum- sales site every now and then . I got a lot of great stuff there for a fraction of the original price. For instance Spat I got there for 450,-€. (Financed that by selling my MIR license at vi control.) Recently Lexicon pcm bundle for 150,-. Never had an issue with any seller. Always when I think I need something I watch the site and usually it doesn't take long for almost anything that is sellable to pop up. Obviously a lot of guys have a lot of stuff they want to get rid of for whatever reason. I got the tip from another musician who said he got most of his stuff from there.

[wst3]

Thanks Tack, I had forgotten about EAReverb2. I tried an earlier version, and at the time I much preferred VSS. I've just downloaded the current EAReverb demo and I will spend some time with it. $100 for the upgrade to VSS2, $150 for EAReverb2, and frankly at that point they are roughly the same financial investment (certainly less than SPLAT<G>!). I know I'm growing tired of wrestling with placement, so one of these might do the trick.

Anyone have any tips, or gotchas I should consider?

[Quasar]

Since we're on the topic, I have to again plug EAReverb2 as a lower cost alternative to SPAT.

Same here. I think it's great, but I've never had anything like SPAT to compare it with. I also have Virtual Soundstage 2, the Lite version with which I've really only used the "open field" for spacing.

[Piet De Ridder]

Someone's selling SPAT for $500, over at V.I..

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[Piet De Ridder]

Andrew (Heisenberg), congratulations on your purchase!

[heisenberg]

Blown away! Just trying stuff out and going through the manual which is thin and makes it easy to grasp the essentials so you can just dive in. Right now I am noodling with an electric piano that has the typical swish phasing thing going on (to make it a bit challenging for the plugin) and using SPAT to locate the sound. Being able to adjust the sound spread on each source, move stuff in & out, up & down in such an intuitive manner is something to behold. Really, really impressed with the reverb as well. Some may not realize this, if you haven't used it but Verb v3 is essentially part of the Spat tool matrix (you don't have to leave Spat to use it). The reverb sliders combined with the visualizer and the visual cues in the UI make it super easy to dial in subtle reverbs in no time flat. CPU usage for what I am doing — both sound relocation and reverb — is much smaller than I anticipated. Even lower than many of the reverbs I use.

Thanks for pointing this out Piet.

[Piet De Ridder]

Andrew, if, over the next couple of days, some of SPAT's parameters should have you scratching your head, we have a few videos that go over most of the features and functions that are of immediate practical use. But maybe you have watched those videos already, in which case you can of course completely ignore this post.

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[Markus K]

Isn't it funny how regardless of the thread title most threads about room placement/reverb end up at SPAT and Piets great videos. There must be something about it.

[playz123]

As an outsider, SPAT looks complex and perhaps tricky to program because of all those controls. But is it? Can one place an instrument on a stage quickly and easily? Seems as if everyone feels the results are fairly realistic.

[Piet De Ridder]

Frank,

Once you’re familiar with those SPAT’s parameters that matter to how most of us would use the software, and provided you understand how SPAT needs to be used — I mention this because a surprising number of people keep confusing it with a reverb — SPAT is, in my opinion, dead easy to work with. Seriously.
Much easier in fact, I find, than any possible combination of reverbs and additional plugins which many of us rely on to create/suggest space and depth in our mixes, precisely because (1) SPAT is an all-in one-stop solution and (2) it’s frighteningly good at what it does.

Insert SPAT in an instrument channel in your DAW, define the environment (type, character and size of the virtual room) and you’re ready to move the source around that virtual room in any way you like, and it’ll always sound convincing and sonically uncompromised. All this in a matter of under half-a-minute. Honestly.

Sure, you can tweak things as long and as deep as you like, if you want, and exploiting the full power of the software — like, for example, automating the width and orientation of the projection of the source (to simulate the ‘mic technique’ of professional performers) or bringing in parameters beyond the handful of essential ones — does perhaps require a bit more time and knowledge, but that’s a next-level usage of SPAT which certainly isn’t required for most day-to-day spatialization challenges that come our way. Truthfully.

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[heisenberg]

Andrew, if, over the next couple of days, some of SPAT's parameters should have you scratching your head, we have a few videos that go over most of the features and functions that are of immediate practical use_

Thanks Piet. Had not seen that thread. Will be pouring over that material over the next few days.

I see from a quick view of it that SPAT is not new to a good number of the stalwarts here. And further to one of the points you made in the older thread, I tried SPAT on a Spitfire French Horn patch yesterday and the results were oh so yuk. In hindsight it makes sense when you are dealing with a "blooming" sound that repositioning is going to be tenuous.

[playz123]

Frank,

Once you’re familiar with those SPAT’s parameters that matter to how most of us would use the software, and provided you understand how SPAT needs to be used — I mention this because a surprising number of people keep confusing it with a reverb — SPAT is, in my opinion, dead easy to work with. Seriously.
Much easier in fact, I find, than any possible combination of reverbs and additional plugins which many of us rely on to create/suggest space and depth in our mixes, precisely because (1) SPAT is an all-in one-stop solution and (2) it’s frighteningly good at what it does.

Insert SPAT in an instrument channel in your DAW, define the environment (type, character and size of the virtual room) and you’re ready to move the source around that virtual room in any way you like, and it’ll always sound convincing and sonically uncompromised. All this in a matter of under half-a-minute. Honestly.

Sure, you can tweak things as long and as deep as you like, if you want, and exploiting the full power of the software — like, for example, automating the width and orientation of the projection of the source (to simulate the ‘mic technique’ of professional performers) or bringing in parameters beyond the handful of essential ones — does perhaps require a bit more time and knowledge, but that’s a next-level usage of SPAT which certainly isn’t required for most day-to-day spatialization challenges that come our way. Truthfully.

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Thanks so much Piet, for the reassurances. Okay, I'm convinced. While I'm am not always looking for "quick and easy" or endless presets when it comes to a plugin, I also find, that with plugins that have an over abundance of controls, it often takes an enormous amount of time to get suitable results. Having many parameters that can be adjusted can be a good thing sometimes, but not if they totally interfere with one's workflow, especially if time is of the essence. In any event will keep an eye on sales or whatever in the future, and hopefully some day be able to purchase and explore SPAT more thoroughly. Also, good point previously about trying to relocate instruments that have been recorded 'in place' and also include reverberation. That is a challenge faced by any stage placement plugin, including SPAT.