Reverb on Mic Channel

[Reid Loessberg]

I'm sure someone else has asked about this, but I haven't found it.

I'm hoping to apply a reverb to a mic channel through QLab. I have the mic channel working great, on/off, levels, EQ, etc. What I can't get to work is a reverb on the mic channel. What I have found seems to indicate that the mic channel is a mono channel, the reverb is a stereo effect, and they don't combine well.

Is this the case? The Apple AU reverb seems like the one to use because of simplicity and low computing needs. But, is there a different reverb that would actually work on a mono mic channel?

I would love to be able to control the reverb and even cue changes without having to run outboard gear.

Thanks!

[Christopher Ashworth]

On Sep 26, 2013, at 7:33 PM, Reid Loessberg <rlfo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm sure someone else has asked about this, but I haven't found it.
>
> I'm hoping to apply a reverb to a mic channel through QLab. I have the mic channel working great, on/off, levels, EQ, etc. What I can't get to work is a reverb on the mic channel. What I have found seems to indicate that the mic channel is a mono channel, the reverb is a stereo effect, and they don't combine well.
>
> Is this the case?

Yes, I believe so. The way the audio flow is connected right now has a couple of awkward implications for certain kinds of effects, as applied to certain places in the chain.

I'm hoping that with 3.1 I'll be able to make some adjustments to smooth out those awkward spots and let folks get back to inserting effects wherever they please without these caveats.

(No promises yet, though, and no ETA. :-) )

Best
Chris

[Reid Loessberg]

Any chance there's a different 3rd party reverb that works? We're working with a touring group (showing Hamlet) and we need the ghost to have some reverb. But we don't always use the same board depending on the house sound setup.

As the ghost is the only one with a mic because of this interest in having reverb, we're running it as a QLab cue.

Thanks.

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[Kelly Schmidt]

Don't forget to think outside the box. There could be reverb effects in your audio card etc. Or a mic could pass through another device before it enters your audio card.

[sam kusnetz]

I have used Freeverb 3 successfully on mic cues. Not the best sounding verb in the world, but certainly acceptable for some cases and you can't beat the price. 

Cheerio

Sam

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Sam Kusnetz

QLab Support Operative

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On Sep 27, 2013, at 7:25 AM, Kelly Schmidt <kellys...@gmail.com> wrote:

Don't forget to think outside the box. There could be reverb effects in your audio card etc. Or a mic could pass through another device before it enters your audio card.

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[micpool]

Could you post a link. I can only find VST versions of Freeverb 3. I found a AU of original freeverb but it's not 64 bit.

Mic

[Sam Kusnetz]

micpool wrote:
>
> Could you post a link. I can only find VST versions of Freeverb 3. I
> found a AU of original freeverb but it's not 64 bit.

You know, Mic, you're exactly right. I had misremembered.

TAL reverb 2 and TAL reverb 3 are the free verbs I landed on after
discovering just as you did that Freeverb 3 is 32 bit only.

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-reverb

They're... how do I put this. They're not general-purpose reverbs. They
have character. And if the character is appropriate for your show, then
that's wonderful. Otherwise, I think there's a great market opportunity
for someone who wants to make a gorgeous mono AU reverb!

Cheerio
Sam
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Sam Kusnetz
QLab Support Operative

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[steve payne]

Voxengo makes a free reverb in a Mac version and also PSP,  Pianoverb has one. Don't know if they'll work on Qlab but I've used them on Reaper/Macmini. The Pianoverb is alot of fun because you really make alot of different adjustments to it. Very colorful.

Steve Payne

[Andy Lang]

Hey everybody,
Just a quick tentative update on reverb for mic cues. I spent some
time this morning and afternoon digging around to try to find a decent
64-bit reverb that plays nice with mic cues, and I believe I've found
it in PSP's EasyVerb. In my initial--very limited--testing, it works
on a mono input device, and sounds pretty decent, too!

It's only $69, so not too bad at all, and has a free 14-day demo. I'd
appreciate it if anybody who's had trouble finding a viable reverb for
mic cues would take a few minutes and download the demo and let me
know if it works for them, so we can add it to the wiki and file it
away for next time somebody writes in to ask.

Product page:
http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/reverbs/psp_easyverb/

Demo direct download link:
http://www.pspaudioware.net/release/PSP_EasyVerb/OSX/native/

Thanks,
Andy

[Peter]

Dear List 

As a frequent ProTools User i have been sent this offer: 

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/deals/2013/10/8/exponential-audio-reverb-plug-ins-aes-special-offer.html

I did´t try it myself but thought it could be interesting for you to have a reverb which can be used in PT incl. Version 11 and in Qlab.

There is a 21 day demo here: http://www.exponentialaudio.com/R2/R2Demo.php

Specs:

10.6.x (Snow Leopard), 10.7.x (Lion), 10.8.x (Mountain Lion) and 10.9 (Maverick). But you must be using Macs with Intel processors. 
Exponential Audio support AudioUnits (32 and 64-bit), VST (32 and 64-bit), AAX (32 and 64-bit) and RTAS (32-bit)

http://www.exponentialaudio.com/Support/StereoFAQ.pdf

Not directly. I found that the majority of DAWs don't really have much support of 
direct MIDI routing into a plugin (unless it's a virtual instrument). But most 
workstations do support a form of mapping, where you can assign a controller to a 
particular parameter. All PhoenixVerb and R2 parameters fit within a 7-bit range 
(128 values) so that MIDI controller assignment works nicely.

i have no connection to Protools Experts nor exponentialaudio 

Peter

[micpool]

A quick test shows it doesn't report it's tail time correctly so stopping a cue stops the reverb dead. It sounds quite good though.

It works fine in mono on a insert in the edit device page although something weird is going on (as it is with most reverbs applied like this.)

TEST Play audio through an output with effect inserted./Stop audio/ effect inexplicably stops dead/ play another audio cue/ reverb from original cue starts playing again from the point  the reverb cut off. END TEST

As with most reverb plugins, its very difficult to use on the effects tab of a mic cue, as it is very difficult to predict how your interface is going to appear to the plugin in and whether it will process, pass or block any signal paths that do not match the IO configuration of the plug in.

I haven't found any consistent or reliable way to use reverb plugins in Qlab and I must have tried over a dozen plugs now. There is probably a reason why other programs attach effects to signal paths rather than individual bits of audio (unless pre-rendering them). Even when utilising them in Qlab signal paths as in  the example above there are clearly fundamental problems with the Qlab plugin architecture which give rise to some unexpected things happening.

With reference to mic cues if someone can explain how a stereo i/o plugin maps to a microphone cue that (with my interface) matrixes 10  mic inputs to 10 Qlab outputs then I might begin to have an understanding of how this was meant to work.

Mic

On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:48:07 PM UTC+1, Andy Lang wrote:

.

[fishmonkey]

i haven't tried this, but hosting the reverbs inside something like DDMF's MetaPlugin might do the trick...

[micpool]

I can't get DDMF  to work.  There are 3 problems

It doesn't pass audio (I just connected the ins to the outs directly before attempting to use it with any loaded plugs.)

It doesn't remember patches (You set one up on a cue, goto a different cue and back and the patch has disappeared)

It crashes Qlab with some plugins.

It's a shame, because it looked like it may be possible to hook midi into the shell. I was looking forward to using it to construct a MIDI controlled sampler cue.

One thing I would be interested to know though: Why does this show up OK in the Effects List in Qlab when Plogue Bidule doesn't. Is there something that Qlab uses to differentiate effect plugins from instrument plugins?

Mic

[Dominic Hargreaves]

Just had a look at EasyVerb as well as TAL reverb 2 and I couldn't get
either of them to work with a mono mic cue. In fact, about all I *could*
get working that I have available to me is the Apple AuDistortion
plugin. For all the others I just get to hear either the unaltered
sound (the plugin meters are dead) or nothing at all. I'm wondering
what I'm doing wrong, especially since QLab crashed when I was playing
with EasyVerb :(

Cheers
Dominic.

[Jeremy S. Bloom]

I'm having similar issues and could use some help resolving them. 

I have yet to find a working traditional reverb. I got some of Michael Norris's spectral plugins working to get a reverb effect, but fading the mic cue's input kills the effect's output. Does anybody have an update of a working reverb and a fix for the above issue? 

Andy's suggestion of PSP easyverb manages to pass audio but it remains dry with no sound affected.(It does seem to work on normal audio cues however) 

J

[Reid Loessberg]

I've managed to get this one working. Free and simple. Kinda sounds like some bad ideas…but it is a functioning reverb.

http://www.airwindows.com/freebies.html

The Dual Mono Verbs plug-in. The mono is the key point.

Cheers,

Reid

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[Jeremy S. Bloom]

Thanks! This works- I added it to the Wiki. Next is figuring out how to fade the input without muting the reverb tail. . . 

[micpool]

Put the reverb in the MIC SETTINGS/ EDIT PATCH /CUE OUTPUTS.

That's one ghastly sounding reverb though!

Mic

[Andy Lang]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Jeremy S. Bloom <jeremy....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks! This works- I added it to the Wiki. Next is figuring out how to fade the input without muting the reverb tail. . . 

Have you tried putting the plugin on a cue output, as if it were an aux send, rather than on the mic cue itself? This also works around some of the channel count limitations that currently exist in Mic Cues, since the cue outputs are mono sends.

-Andy

[Reid Loessberg]

Yeah, beastly bad. But reverb it is. 

[Jeremy S. Bloom]

Thanks Andy and Mic: That did the trick. 

I'm feeling everyone's pain on the quality of Airwindows verb, but it sounds better than all the others I've tried which don't sound at all. . . 

Jeremy

[fishmonkey]

here is another workaround, which i have up and running as i type.

whether or not it's worth the extra complexity would depend on how important hosting a reverb or other effects that don't work hosted inside QLab is to you...

what i have done is use Audio MIDI Setup to create an aggregate audio device that cobbles together my audio interface and two virtual Soundflower channels. note that once you have done this, you need to use Soundflowerbed to reassign the Soundflower outputs to the correct channels in the aggregate device.

in QLab, i have a mic cue that takes audio from the channels that correspond to my audio interface in the aggregate device, and outputs that audio to the Soundflower output channels.

once you have this setup going, you can then take the Soundflower audio into another plugin host, in this case i am using AU Lab.

the simplest setup is to then have the plugin host send its output directly the the hardware outputs of the aggregate device.

you could instead use a 64 channel Soundflower setup and then send the audio back to yet another pair of Soundflower channels, which you could then control directly from QLab using a second mic cue (essentially this is a post-fader effects return). i started setting that up earlier but i couldn't be bothered reassigning all 64 Soundflower channels...