Lexicon announces Native Reverb plug!

[KEVORKIAN]

Also, some have complained that the Lexicon sound is not as natural as a convolution reverb. Well, true. But that's not why I buy Lexicon stuff. There is nothing like the sound of a drum kit through a 480/960/96. That's a very different sound than a convolution space. Convolution absolutely has it's place, but naturalness is not always what is needed.

Well said... I that is going to be an important distinction for many. I love Altiverb, but I went looking for an in-the-box algorithmic verb because somehow Altiverb's impulses were not always the right sound. I'm not completely certain why this is the case, but when using Altiverb's lexicon impulses on drums, I was not always getting the sound I am familiar with from the hardware, where switching over to Aether and IK Classik algorithmic verbs can often get me the desired effect.

[frankymax]

There is nothing like the sound of a drum kit through a 480/960/96. That's a very different sound than a convolution space. Convolution absolutely has it's place, but naturalness is not always what is needed.

But if the convolution reverb is sampling a Lex 480 (or any other hardware unit) wouldn't it be very similar (minus the modulation fx that the hardware unit may have)? I have a Lexicon PCM90 and I tend to use Altiverb more (mainly for convenience) but also because I have sample IRs of a PCM 90 and I don't hear that big of a difference between them. It could be my ears just aren't refined enough to hear the difference!

[Shooshie]

I have a Lexicon PCM90 and I tend to use Altiverb more (mainly for convenience) but also because I have sample IRs of a PCM 90 and I don't hear that big of a difference between them. It could be my ears just aren't refined enough to hear the difference!

Your ears and mine, too! If it were a double-blind study, I don't think I could identify the moment the reverbs were switched, much less tell which one was which. Maybe there are applications in drums -- hi-hats, for instance -- where the "real" Lexicon might have an edge, but I'm guessing, based on others opinions. I haven't heard that difference myself (but haven't had an example of it to listen to).

But different folks have different sensitivities. Someone with whom I used to work would pick up on even 1/10th of a beat-per-minute change in tempo. That's one beat per 10 minutes change. Even now it doesn't seem possible, but we actually got into fights about it, and he was always right. 100% of the time. On the other hand, even though he had "perfect pitch" and could name or play any note, I could tell him the relative pitch of each string of a note on the piano (3-strings per note), and could listen to a scale and tell where every note was placed, to within a few cents of pitch for each note. He did not understand how I could do that, but I basically trained myself from playing woodwinds in chamber music where I needed to know everyone's pitch tendencies in advance of the note playing, so I could nail it with them.

So, I concede that some people may hear a difference that I do not, just as I can sometimes hear differences that others do not. We train our ears to hear things that we need for them to hear, and it's uncanny what we can learn to perceive. (his time sense still troubles me to this day; it was like being around a superman or something) I've no doubt that some engineers have trained their ears to hear exactly the difference between their various hardware/software units, some of which I can hear, some of which I can't. But I've learned to stop short of saying "you're wrong! No way you can hear that!" But I'm happy with my ears. If they are too insensitive to tell the difference, chances are they're saving me some money on software!

[KEVORKIAN]

... I have sample IRs of a PCM 90 and I don't hear that big of a difference between them. It could be my ears just aren't refined enough to hear the difference!

Your ears and mine, too! If it were a double-blind study, I don't think I could identify the moment the reverbs were switched, much less tell which one was which. Maybe there are applications in drums -- hi-hats, for instance -- where the "real" Lexicon might have an edge, but I'm guessing, based on others opinions. I haven't heard that difference myself (but haven't had an example of it to listen to).

Here is what I am thinking matters to a great degree with this comparison: The source material and the style of music being played.

The material that sends me looking for algorithmic verbs (that "Lexicon" sound) is largely heavy rock and metal music. So what I have is an extremely loud, compressed and busy rock mix happening and in some instances, when I use Altiverb impulses, the sound appears to stand away from the source material in the mix when I'm looking for something to embellish and fill out certain frequencies.

When I am dealing with acoustic material and a more spacious mix (Jazz, Classical) the incredibly natural spaces that Altiverb provides step to the front for me.

That is just me... My feeling is that this is something that may not jump out at you if you rarely deal with gained out guitars and 32nd note fills but I could be completely, stinkin, wrong about that.

[newrigel]

Add this one to your list, it's too good for the money they are asking to overlook:

http://www.galbanum.com/products/aether/

IMHO... it's rather metallic. The IK stuff is just as good if not better IMO. Warmer, and more musical. Aether is a bitch to get dialed in and the presets are Avant Garde sounding.
Great for techno or anything like that but it doesn't have that warmth and intimate quality to it where the verb is part of the source so to speak... it just sticks out there like a sore thumb!

There are some VERY great IR's out there for Altiverb... but they do cost some $$ too!
This whole environment processing thing is about $$=quality so it's going to take $$ any way you look @ it. Sure you can make your own IR's but you need the hardware and some skills to boot. It's all about $$ in the end...

You know how to tell a great reverb? When you turn it on you DON'T notice it! You just focus on the performance instead of listening to the effect. It assimilates into the source material as one entity...

[KEVORKIAN]

Add this one to your list, it's too good for the money they are asking to overlook:

http://www.galbanum.com/products/aether/

IMHO... it's rather metallic. The IK stuff is just as good if not better IMO. Warmer, and more musical. Aether is a bitch to get dialed in and the presets are Avant Garde sounding.
Great for techno or anything like that but it doesn't have that warmth and intimate quality to it where the verb is part of the source so to speak... it just sticks out there like a sore thumb!

Well... I tried It's cool that you tried it out in relation to all this talk.

IMO, Aether is deceptively easier to dial in than it looks. Choose a preset, Turn up the wet mix and then you can click on the picture of the modeled Space to cycle through some types.

There are actually two ways that presets appear to be grouped. If you click the "preset" button at the top and select some from the "Musical" "Natural" or "Drum"" groups you may find some that are less sound design oriented (the preset browser is more design oriented).

Check out "Small Time Studio", "Medium Hall", "Big Time Studio" (roll of some highs), any of the EMT patches, "Drum Chamber" and "Drum Expander" but honestly you have to tweak them too.

[Armageddon]

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PCM96/

This is the link I referenced from your previous post and Sweetwater has the PCM96 at $2999.

Sorry about that, I was dropping a lot of links at once and something got scrambled up in the process. For some reason, I thought it was closer to $2K, not $3K!

I went to the Lexicon page and retrieved this blurb as well:

http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=147
"Designed for the modern studio, the PCM96 can function as a control-only insert or FireWire streaming audio plug-in inside Mac RTAS, VST and Audio Units software..."

Also, this is IMO, but... a full spec AU/VST plugin should only be limited only by your computer's processing power, not by the amount of inputs and outputs an external processor has. So to me this signals that the reverb processing is not being done by the computer's processor but by the Lexicon unit. In that case (and IMO) the AU is functioning as a control and recall interface more than as an effect but this is semantics really... My point is that the plugin removes this fixed limitation.

Well, that's what I meant by "powered plug-in"; it operates a lot like a PowerCore or a SSL unit. Unlike a PowerCore, however, you're processing reverb (or any other FX the unit offers) through a real Lexicon processor, not a computer simulation of one, or even a processor designed to augment unspecified plug-in software processing like the PowerCore. You're actually streaming digital audio through two hardware Lexicon processors and back into your rig. And you can unhook the unit from your computer and plug it into a studio mixing board or use it in a live rig like a traditional Lexicon processor (which is also what it is). I get what you're saying, and I understand your side of the argument completely. If you like using reverbs as inserts rather than sends inside your DAW, you'd be screwed by this setup. However, the tradeoff is, it's the real thing, not software, which makes it a lot more useful beyond the studio, and it's a full-on Lexicon processor, not just the reverbs.

A lot of old-school cats like me are used to setting up a single room and a single hall reverb send per a full mix and bussing tracks to them accordingly (or, if times were particularly tight, one stereo send to your MIDIVerb ... or, if times were tighter than that, one mono send to your buddy's rackmount digital guitar processor), and for people who mix in that fashion, and who want Lexicon sound in their mixes, it would be the ideal arrangement. Maybe even more ideal than $1,500-$2,000 for a reverb-only native plug. I realize a lot of people don't mix that way anymore, though.

I agree with you (and Shooshie) here 100%.... I don't think it's going to sound 1000 (or more) dollars better to most people. I also can't justify the purchase.

I think that's the core problem here. I could see it being the price for the ProTools version, because those guys pay out the wazoo for everything, but people with native rigs are used to paying about $300-$600 for a really nice plug, tops (and I'm putting Altiverb at the top end of the spectrum). Consider that you can buy the entire IK Multimedia product line for around $1,400 or so if you buy the "Total" bundles -- and I mean everything, including all the VIs, Amplitude, T-RackS 3 and Classik Reverb (which does a pretty fair Lexicon imitation for about $319 purchased by itself) -- and it puts things into perspective. Why not at least price the plug competitively with Altiverb?

[Kubi]

But if the convolution reverb is sampling a Lex 480 (or any other hardware unit) wouldn't it be very similar (minus the modulation fx that the hardware unit may have)?

To me the reason to use algorithmic over convolution are those times when you want to edit the details of the reverb. Algorithmic allows you to get far more inside the reverb tail than convolution does. In dense mixes you can gain an incredible amount of clarity while keeping a real sense of space by fine-tuning details within early reflections vs. the rest of the reverb.

So I don't think comparisons between this Lexicon reverb and Altiverb are very meaningful - it's like comparing sampling (convolution) with synthesis (algorithmic.) Depending on the desired end result, one is indeed superior to the other. (Convolution for the emulation of real spaces or for the creation of completely wacked-out new effects, algorithmic for the detailed creation of artificial spaces.) In the end, you probably should use both and pick the right process for the job case by case.

But regardless, I don't want to spend some $1800 on a plug-in.

[HCMarkus]

I own Altiverb and Lexicon hardware (OK, not the high-end stuff), but quite honestly prefer eVerb for all my reverb needs.

[David Polich]

I own Altiverb and Lexicon hardware (OK, not the high-end stuff), but quite honestly prefer eVerb for all my reverb needs.

Good one!

+1 on iK Multimedia's CSR. It's modeled on the Lexicon reverbs and
sounds great (to me).

[Armageddon]

I own Altiverb and Lexicon hardware (OK, not the high-end stuff), but quite honestly prefer eVerb for all my reverb needs.

I'll hold out for a $2000 Holy Grail software emulation (complete with an automated "virtual foot" feature you can use to kick it with) -- I've tried other reverbs on my stuff, but nothing's the same as hearing your drum tracks hit some honest-to-God Flerb!

[wurliuchi]

You think Lexicon would have ventured into this without doing market research? They must have gotten numbers back that told them people would pay $1400 street for this plug-in. I wonder what year they did that research? I have to say I'm completely perplexed by this. Not that I wouldn't love to have that plug, but I'm still waiting for the price of Altiverb to come down.

I wonder if there's going to be a stripped-down version that sells for less.

[frankymax]

Well this whole discussion got me thinking about reverb and so I just downloaded a demo of the Sonnox Oxford Reverb plug-in and I just spent about an hour trying it on stuff, and all I can say is... Mamma Mia! I really love the sound of this reverb! It really has some nice presets but my gawd, you can really edit so many parameters and customize the sound of it. It sells for around $370 and now that I'm trying it, I may have to buy it! Damn Lexicon for making me think about reverb!!!

[Armageddon]

Well this whole discussion got me thinking about reverb and so I just downloaded a demo of the Sonnox Oxford Reverb plug-in and I just spent about an hour trying it on stuff, and all I can say is... Mamma Mia! I really love the sound of this reverb! It really has some nice presets but my gawd, you can really edit so many parameters and customize the sound of it. It sells for around $370 and now that I'm trying it, I may have to buy it! Damn Lexicon for making me think about reverb!!!

I completely forgot about Sonnox's reverb. Also, I believe it's even available as a PowerCore plug, like the rest of their line. PSP's EasyVerb is another one that sounds pretty nice, and I've always been a huge fan of Waves' TrueVerb (probably not as appropriate as a "musical" reverb, but adds an extremely convincing "real space", and the rock guitar room/studio verbs add a lot of realistic depth and air to your synthetic drums and guitars -- I buss the drums and guitar through an aux channel with TrueVerb on it, turn off the tails and have the TrueVerb channels's output going directly into the general room reverb) and, to a lesser degree, their Renaissance Reverb. TC also had a really nice reverb with their Works line ... damn, I wish they were still making those native plugs. I know I keep asking, but did all of their Works stuff get ported over to PowerCore?

[David Polich]

I think some of their reverbs made it to Powercore. After all,
they started life as the "other" reverb company.

Yes, there are other reverbs in this world besides Lexicon, and
they do sound good, and for less money. Apparently the marketing mavens at Lexicon have overlooked this.