EW Spaces-II

[Ashermusic]

Piet, all I know is that in a dense orchestral template that I did a piece with. I had 5 instances of Altiverb 7, each assigned to a section of the orchestra. I didn’t tweak positioning, ERs or anything in the IRs. When I got Spaces, I replaced them in an similar manner and again didn’t tweak them . To my ears the sound was less muddy. I called Nick and he explained why. I don’t care if his explanation was correct. What I care about is that it sounds better to me.

If you have both try that test and tells me if you don’t agree.

[Guy Rowland]

...but Jay, that's meaningless. The IRs are different, so what on earth can be deduced otherwise?

Piet's explanation and comments made total sense to me. Piet also said that some of the early Altiverb spaces weren't great and were indeed muddy. Spaces clearly has good IRs perfectly suited to orchestral work. Terrific. IMO there's simply no need to over-reach and make the claim the engine is better if the IRs are great.

[Ashermusic]

What it implies to me, Guy, is that when Nick says that the engine is in fact cleaner, he is probably correct.

[Guy Rowland]

....whereas when Piet hears perfectly good non-muddy IRs in Altiverb (not the early ones), he needs his ears checked? Or perhaps there's just a bit of hyperbole from the proud developer?

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter, except I wouldn't want someone to feel that they should buy a magic plugin that that "just sounds better" when there is no evidence to support it. Good IRs alone explain everything, and if you like the ones in Spaces more than the ones you have, then by all means buy Spaces.

[general observation.... there's more fake claims and gunk talked about reverbs, eqs and compressors than in a year's output of QVC....]

[Ashermusic]

In terms of ears, Piet has great credibility with me. But Nick told me that before it was released, and was not hyping me, and I assign his ears even greater credibility because of the tons of great sounding libraries he has produced and his great sounding compositions.

In no way am I putting down Piet but also we do have a history of hearing things rather differently.

BTW, Nick posted this on VI Control:

"In spaces 1 So Cal Hall (we didn’t have permission to use the real name sorry) is a strong all around large Hall sound. Panels in the Hall were controllable and we dialed in the sound. It is the only venue where we used our instrument specific impulsing process.

In my old so cal template I use the true stereo strings front mics impulse for bus 1. True stereo brass front mics impulse for bus 2. Stereo winds front mics impulse for bus 3. True stereo percussion impulse for bus 4. True stereo choir impulse to bus 5. Hamburg Cathedral A 4.0 for bus 6. And Acme 2.0 for bus 7.

Various sounds use the busses that you expect, but I tend to send the sounds to bus 6 as well, to get a bit of massive Hollywood sheen. I use bus 7 to beef up percussion sounds.

If you use the surround impulses instead of the front mics, you could probably skip Hamburg Cathedral.

In Spaces 2, Reynolds is probably the most similar to So Cal. Similar size Hall and similar process.
But still has a unique sound. Right now, I’m liking Reynolds better than So Cal. It’s amazing that this Hall exists in Las Vegas. They spent a ton of money on it, but there is almost no classical music scene there. A hidden gem.

Davies Hall is great if you want a slightly more epic and slightly darker sound. Reverb time is a bit longer. You can really hear differences in the impulses in this Hall. Use the surround impulses for a really epic sound. Davies is one of the best halls in existence, but is a bit too epic for some music, even when they employ the sound panels in the Hall. Is fantastic as impulses because you can control the sound.

Abravanel has a very natural, slightly smaller and noticeably darker sound than the other halls.
If you want your strings to sound really natural and not notice the reverb, use this Hall. You can mix and match with other halls by the way. That’s what film scores are all about.

Angels Cathedral has my favorite long reverb time sound I’ve ever heard. It’s 8 seconds, but the sound is so natural that you barely notice that. Try all impulses, we did instrument specific in the churches too.

Grace Church is a beautiful all around sound and a good alternative to Hamburg Catherdral."

[Guy Rowland]

I think I'll leave it there...

[Ashermusic]

I think I'll leave it there...

Again, let me stress that I mean no disrespect to anyone, especially Piet, who hears it differently.

[Muziksculp]

Hi,

I purchased Spaces II as an upgrade from Spaces I.

So far, I like it. and it is quite CPU efficient.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

[Ashermusic]

I did a quick comparison between Spaces 1 and 2 that people on VI- Control seem. to be finding helpful.