User guide (V1.0) - Soundart Chameleon
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1. Di USER S MANUAL soundart Roomverb M1 ei Chameleon Stereo Reverb Processor Udio revision 2 03 2004 soundskin version 1 0 www soundart hot com Copyright 2001 2003 Soundart www soundart hot com www spinaudio com Soundart makes no warranty of any kind expressed or implied with respect to the contents or use of the material in this document or in the software and hardware it describes and specifically disclaims any responsibility for any damages derived from its use Hardware and Software may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications Soundart reserves the right to revise and modify the topics covered in this document periodically which are subject to change without notice This document may be reproduced and distributed freely provided no alterations of any kind are made Soundart software is subject to the terms of the Soundart Tools Software license Third party software is subject to the terms of their respective owners license Third party trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners Table of Contents T MOV ATVI PEE 1 1 1 Main Features Tee 1 2 The RoomVerb CONcepPt ccccsssrccccsssssscccssssscccssssscccsssssssssssssssees 3 2 1 Virtual Room Modeler 00002222000000000000000000nnsnnssnsnnnnssnnnneeee 3 2 2 R verD EngIne dvds eid Rat neve Veo hag Rae UR 5 2 2 1 EARLY REFLECTIONS PROC2. Each equalizer has two filters Low Shelving EQ and High Shelving EQ with controllable mid point frequency gain and slope Using these EQ s you can shape the colour and tone of the reverb quite dramatically The mixer is the Roomverb block that mixes the Dry signal with the Early and Late reflections for the Chameleon stereo output It also allows you to adjust the level of the input signals MASTER Gain In The mixing proportions are set by three parameters wet dry balance ER gain and LR gain These are very important parameters as the proportions Roomverb M1 User s Manual 7 between the dry signal early and late reflections greatly affect the sound and spatial feel of the reverb Basically the wet dry balance is used to set a perceptual distance of a sound in a mix The more reverb and less original signal the further away sound source is perceived to be by our ears ER and LR gains allow you to control a balance between the definite ER and the diffuse LR parts of the reverb Note if you set up RoomVerb as an auxilliary send on your mixing desk you should set the wet dry value to 100 This is because you can set the wet dry mix yourself using the aux return level on your desk Reverb Engine Chapter Preset Mode From here on we now describe how to control Roomverb from the front panel of the Chameleon Preset Mode is the default start up mode when you turn on the Chameleon with Roomverb loaded It will sho
3. User s Manual 5 example of a distinctive acoustic space that can be recreated in using a digital reverb like Roomverb 2 2 1 EARLY REFLECTIONS PROCESSOR The Early Reflections processor uses the Impulse Response data of a virtual room which is calculated by the Virtual Room Modeler block There is only one parameter Pre delay REVERB Early Predelay Pre delay allows you to introduce additional time shift between direct sound dry signal and Early reflections Note that there is already a delay incorporated into the calculated Early reflections pattern that corresponds to the virtual room dimensions So use this parameter for producing artificial effects 2 2 2 LATE REFLECTIONS PROCESSOR The Late Reflections processor produces the diffuse reverberant field that is also known as the tail of the reverb Like the early reflections it also uses the Impulse Response calculated by the Virtual Room Modeler block though in a different way It has three sections Impulse Response related controls Decay and Modulation 2 2 2 1 L R Impulse Response Related Controls The controls in this section determine how the Impulse Response data is used by reverb engine to create the late reflections The pre delay parameter REVERB Late Predelay sets a time delay between direct sound dry signal and Late reflections Note that the LR pre delay has nothing to do with ER pre delay they are completely independent Pre delay is necessary to s
4. reverb tail dacay times at different frequencies Roomverb offers a special damping filter The damping filter consists of two equalizer filters Low Shelving EQ and High Shelving EQ REVERB group The gains of the filters are displayed in reverb time multiplier scale so you can easily figure out the actual reverberation time at a given frequency by multiplying the overall reverb time REVERB Late RevTime to the multiplier 2 2 2 3 Reverb Modulation Modulation allows to add dynamic and live feel into reverb tail In real rooms this is caused by fluctuations and micro variations that are always present in the air adding some subtle dynamic movements into the sound of an acoustic space This can be simulated by using a special modulation technique Roomverb offers 6 different pre defined modulation types REVERB Late ModType that differ in their modulation depths rates and stereo image widths This simple modulation works best in mid sized rooms on melodic instruments such as pianos Note however that it should be used carefully as medium and deep modulation types may produce unnatural pitch shifted reverb tails on melodic instruments 2 2 3 TONE CONTROL SYSTEM 2 2 4 MIXER The tone control system allows to change frequency content of Early and Late reflections before they are mixed together at the Chameleon s output It consists of two independent 2 band equalizers for the Early and Late reflections respectively MASTER Shf
5. 4 Early Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Gain 15 Early Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Slope 16 Early Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ On Off 17 Early Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Mid point Frequency 18 Early Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Gain 19 Early Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Slope 20 Early Reflections Output High Shelving EQ On Off 21 Late Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Mid point Frequency 22 Late Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Gain 23 Late Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Slope 24 Late Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ On Off 25 Late Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Mid point Frequency 26 Late Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Gain 27 Late Reflections Output High Shelving EQ Slope 28 Late Reflections Output High Shelving EQ On Off 29 Reverb Decay Low Shelving Filter Mid point Frequency 30 Reverb Decay Low Shelving Filter Gain 31 Reverb Decay Low Shelving Filter Slope 33 Reverb Decay Low Shelving Filter On Off 34 Reverb Decay High Shelving Filter Mid point Frequency 35 Reverb Decay High Shelving Filter Gain 36 Reverb Decay High Shelving Filter Slope 37 Reverb Decay High Shelving Filter On Off 38 Early Reflections Pre delay 39 Late Reflections Pre delay 40 Reverberation Time 41 Reverb Modulation Type 42 Inter microphones dis
6. E LIGHT M LIGHT S MED M MED S DEEP M DEEP S Lo shelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 0 1 1 0 Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF Hi shelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 0 1 1 0 Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF CONFIG Input STEREO LEFT RIGHT DUAL MIDI MIDI Channel 1 16 MIDI Thru ON OFF MIDI ID 1 128 MONITOR Input view meters Output view meters In ON MUTE Dry SOLO ON MUTE Wet SOLO ON MUTE Early SOLO ON MUTE Late SOLO ON MUTE Menu Reference Chart Chapter Interface Notes Some further notes on the particular Roomverb interface 5 1 Menu Wrapping All menus in Edit mode wrap around as you go through the options to speed up the editing process 5 2 Input Configurations RoomVerb supports four audio input configurations Stereo Stereo to Stereo Use this for stereo input signals Left Right Left Right to Stereo Use it if you have a mono input signal at either the left or right input Dual Dual Send mode Use this configuration if you would like to process two mono sends from your mixer Note that Input config is a global parameter and is not saved with the preset 5 3 Clip Indicator As well as using the horizontal stereo level meters in the Monitor section of edit mode to see the input levels RoomVerb can detect clipping of input and output signals in Presets mode If clipping occurs there is an c icon displayed for a second in right corner of the Chameleon LCD display To
7. ESSOR ns 6 2 2 2 LATE REFLECTIONS PROCESSOR ii 6 2 2 3 TONE CONTROL SYSTEM cine 7 ER MIXER Sele Rachael NE SEGA SAGS 7 3 Preset Mode uan bad eter ret fet SFO EN ele d REED en tiens 9 3 1 Selecting Presete s eoe ae ae see 9 3 2 Preset Management and MIDI Dumps ee ee eene eee 9 A Edit Mode u T I 11 4 1 Menu Reference Chart eese eee e eene eee eee eee eee ee etnnuu 11 5 Interface NOLES nein 13 5 1 Menu Wrapping nie 13 5 2 Input Configurations eeeeeeee eee e e eene ee eee eene eee tenen etnu 13 5 3 Chp IndiCdtor sens sen eae FER eae pend pe au eee Pepe 13 5 4 Bypass MOdG iuste YE RSEN E ERMET VETE E enedes 14 5 5 Edit LOCK Mode oie rte p Re ae sets ym rera rea Poen gebe tue 14 5 6 Preset Loading ee 14 Loading th SII soeben t s 15 B Specifications se Nate eue 16 MIDI Controller Messages ccsssssscccssssssccessssscccessssccscesssseceseees 17 Chapter Overview RoomVerb M1 is a studio quality true stereo reverb processor soundskin for the Chameleon It has been ported to the Soundart Chameleon by Spin Audio from their respected VST reverb plug in It is based on their Virtual Room Acoustic modeling techniques These allow the Chameleon to simulate a wide variety of acoustic spaces from small bathrooms to large halls using a single set of parameters Such an approach provides a unified way of controlling reverb and remo
8. age Width ROOM Misc Stereolmg because its main effect is perceived as increasing of stereo image width So far we have been describing the virtual room geometrically However there is one parameter in the modeller that does not correspond to geometrical properties of acoustic space This is the wall s absorption ROOM Misc Absorb This parameter determines an amount of sound energy absorbed by room surfaces The higher the value the faster sound reflections decay in volume with the number of progressive reflections Virtual Room Modeler NOTE Any change made to Virtual Room parameters causes RoomVerb to recalculate the Impulse Response for the reverb engine which takes about one second to complete During this time there is an hour glass icon displayed in the right corder of the Chameleon LCD display 22 Reverb Engine The Roomverb Reverb Engine is the block that actually processes incoming audio signal using the data provided by the Virtual Room Modeler It uses the data to build the Early and Late reflections along with using its own set of parameters to shape the sound such as EQs The Reverb Engine has 4 functional parts Early Reflections processor initial reflections Late Reflections processor the tail of the reverb Tone control system for adjusting the colour Mixer for mixing all this together And so the output sound of RoomVerb is made up of three different signals The Dry non pro
9. cessed signal corresponding to the sound that comes to the listener directly from a sound source without being reflected from any of the walls Early Reflections which are rays reflected once or twice from the Virtual Room s walls before reaching the listener Late Reflections or so called reverberation that correspond to the sound rays reflected many times from the Virtual Room walls making a diffuse reverb tail The early reflections give us information about the room size and shape The late reflections mostly provide a feel of a room or to put it another way they provide spectral characteristics of a room bright dark dull metallic etc In natural rooms late reflections decay exponentially The time it takes for the level of these late reflections to drop down to 60dB is called the reverberation time Reverberation time is the second factor that gives the information about room size along with Early reflections For instance imagine if you were blindfolded and led into a large stone cathedral and then you clapped your hands loudly Firstly the early reflections would take a relatively long time to bounce off the large solid walls and back to you again eg up to around 100ms Next the late reflections would take maybe up to 15 seconds to decay and so even with your eyes closed you would be able to tell straight away that you are standing in an extremely large space with very hard walls This is a good Roomverb M1
10. d MIDI Dumps Chapter Edit Mode To enter edit mode to change the parameters of a preset press the EDIT key From here the menus change to show you all the available parameters for creating your own presets 4 1 Menu Reference Chart Roomverb M1 has the following editable parameters laid out below using the standard GROUP PAGE PARAMETER and VALUE hierarchy these have been described in detail in the previous chapters Table 4 1 Group Page Parameter Value MASTER Gain Wet Dry 1 100 Early 96dB 0dB Late 96dB 0dB IN 96dB 0dB ER Lshelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 20dB 12dB Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF ER Hshelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 20dB 12dB Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF LR Lshelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 20dB 12dB Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF LR Hshelf Freq 50 20 000Hz Gain 20dB 12dB Slope 0 100 1 000 Status ON OFF Input STEREO LEFT RIGHT Roomverb M1 User s Manual 11 12 Group Page Parameter Value ROOM Dimensions Width 0 01 50m Depth 0 01 50m Height 0 01 50m Src Lst Distance 0 01 50m Height 0 01 50m L R Dist 0 01 50m Misc Stereo Image 0 00 1 00 L R Shift 0 100 Absorb 0 00 1 00 REVERB Early PreDelay 0 200ms Late PreDelay 0 200ms RevTime 0 20 20 00sec ModType NON
11. eparate the direct sound the Early and the Late reflections in time To get a naturally sounding reverberation you should set pre delay according to room size the bigger size the more pre delay should be set Offset is a unique RoomVerb parameter not found in any other reverbs ROOM Misc LR Shift Offset defines the starting point in the calculated Impulse Response provided by the Virtual Room Modeler block that is to be used for Late reflections Note that this offset time is not added to reverb as an additional delay The effect of changing offset can be described as a type of diffusion because the time differences between near reflections in the Impulse Response decrease with a time so reflections become denser 2 2 2 2 Reverb Decay Controls The Reverb Tail Decay controls allow you to specify how the reverb decays at different frequencies You may think of it as controlling a feel of a simulated acoustic space 6 Reverb Engine Sound waves gradually lose a part of their energy as they travel around in real acoustic spaces The energy is absorbed by air and reflective surfaces The amount of absorbed energy changes at different frequencies Air damps high frequencies as do many materials from which the reflective surfaces are commonly made This means that the reverb tail has different decay or you may say reverberation times at different frequencies In a typical room higher frequencies decay faster To simulate different
12. ery acoustic space has a different geometry all the complexity can be reduced down to four fundamental parameters The three dimensions and the number of reflective surfaces In RoomVerb dimensions are set for the room s width depth and height ROOM Dimensions These parameters are totally independent thus you can design spaces like long tunnels and deep wells Dimensions can vary from 1 to 50 meters allowing you to model a small phone booth as easily as a large hall Roomverb M1 User s Manual 3 Besides three dimensional spaces Roomverb can also model 2 dimensional spaces you may think of them as plate reverbs The plate reverb mode is turned on simply when you set a room s height to minimum to zero value The above parameters determine only common spatial properties In order to calculate an actual impulse response there should be virtual sound source and two recording points for a stereo result In Roomberb the positions of the sound source and the stereo record points are set in relation to a line connecting the middle points of the front and back walls The controls for this are found in the pages Src Lst source listener The distance control ROOM Src List Dist sets up the distance between the srouce and record points and is limited by room s depth The distance between the stereo recording points themsleves is set by L R dist ROOM Src List L R Dist and is limited by the room s width The geomet
13. find out the source of clipping you should switch to edit mode to browse to Monitor section Roomverb M1 User s Manual 13 5 4 Bypass Mode You can switch RoomVerb into bypass mode by pressing the PART DOWN button on the Chameleon unit When bypass mode is active there is a B icon displayed in the right corner of the LCD display in Preset mode and the SHIFT LED is on in Edit mode 5 5 Edit Lock Mode You can switch RoomVerb into Edit Locking mode to protect your current reverb state from accident changing during gigs To switch to the Edit Lock mode press PART UP button on the Chameleon unit When Edit Lock mode is active there is a L icon displayed in the right corner of the LCD display in Preset mode and the EDIT LED is on in the Edit mode 5 6 Preset Loading 14 Every time you select a new preset it is loaded into the Chameleon DSP engine This operation requires about one second to complete During this time there is an hour glass icon displayed in the right corner of the Chameleon LCD display Bypass Mode Appendix Loading the Skin RoomVerb M1 skin is contained into a MIDI file called roomverbM1_vXX mid where XX is the current version of the skin Like any other Chameleon skin you have to take care with the user data stored in the existing skin before downloading Roomverb M1 If you have an older version of RoomVerb M1 installed in your Chameleon your existing presets and configuration will be properly u
14. on the idea of simulating a physical reverberation process found in real acoustic spaces by means of a special mathematical model The process consists of two phases In the first phase an acoustical image also called Impulse Response is calculated based on the geometrical properties of a simulated virtual room such as dimensions sound source and recording point positions In roomverb this takes place in the Virtual Room Modeler In the second phase the Impulse Response along with other reverb parameters are converted through a special filter to create the sound In Roomverb this takes place in the Reverb Engine which uses the data from the first phase to process the incoming audio 2 1 Virtual Room Modeler Every acoustic space has its own characteristic sound This can be thought of as a special filter that alters sound sources that are played in this particular acoustic space If you would like to make your recordings sound as if they are played in a certain acoustic space you just apply the appropriate filter to your data The properties of this filter that you use can be found either by an actual recording of a space s response to a click like signal or by means of a mathematical model RoomVerb uses the latter approach The filter properties are calculated in the Virtual Room Modeler and passed to the Reverb engine for processing The modelling is based on the geometrical properties of a simulated acoustic space Although ev
15. pdated to the new version once you download it so it s not mandatory to make a backup of them although it is always recommended If you have a different skin installed in your Chameleon you may lose your data if you don t make a backup of it before You should always make a MIDI dump of your user data before changing skin See the manual of the coressponding skin for more details Once the skin is loaded it is ready to use By default the skin comes with all the presets set to the default state Before to start editing presets as described you may want to take a quick overview of the built in presets to discover the skin s features and possibilities Roomverb M1 User s Manual 15 Appendix 16 Specifications Effect Class Short Description Hardware Platform Automation Presets Sample Rate Processing Precision Input Output Format Max reverb Time Reverb Virtual Room Modelling Reverb Soundart Chameleon MIDI Automation 100 48 kHz 24 bit fixed point mono stereo stereo stereo dual send 20 seconds Specifications Appendix c MIDI Controller Messages an A Parameter Wet Dry Mix Early Reflections Level Late Reflections Level Input gain Mute Solo Dry Mute Solo Wet Mute Solo Early Reflections LO CO N DD On BR UN Mute Solo Late Reflections 12 Mute Solo Input 13 Early Reflections Output Low Shelving EQ Mid point Frequency 1
16. rical model described above produces a reverberation that corresponds to a totally rectangular room with six plain surfaces This will sound nice and pure but it will probably also sound relatively boring Such rooms have a lot of completely regular reflection patterns due to the total symmetry of room and lack of other reflective surfaces Luckily there are special mathematical models that allow us to simulate reverberation patterns of more natural rooms using this rectangular room model as a handy reference The main factor that makes a room sound natural is the other reflective surfaces and how they are placed in relation to each other Sound waves propagating in a real acoustic space with a lot of reflective surfaces tend to bounce much more chaotically which reduces the amount of stereo correletions between the reflections A large part of our ability to navigate the world uses our ears for spatial awareness more than we often realise and so the human brain is very sensitive to spatial reverb correlation A more natural and more chaotic model in an artificial reverb is frequently connected to such perceivable psyco acoustic parameters as spaciousness and fullness In order to simulate such spaces RoomVerb has a parameter that increases the number of other reflective surfaces in the simulated room and thus reduces the correletion between left and right recording points This parameter is called Stereo Im
17. tance 43 Virtual Room Width 44 Virtual Room Depth 45 Virtual Room Height 46 Source to Listener Distance Roomverb M1 User s Manual 17 18 cc Parameter 47 Source Listener Height 48 Stereo Width 51 Late Reflections Impulse Response Shift 52 Walls Absorption 53 Input Config MIDI Controller Messages
18. ves the limits inherent in traditional reverb design schemes based on either pre defined algorithms or pre calculated room response patterns There are tight rooms clean plates halls with up 20 second long silky smooth tails frequency dependant decay controls separate output EQs for the early and late reflections reverb modulation and a library of 100 ready to use presets crafted by working studio sound engineers Now the Chameleon can be a high quality reverb unit too 1 1 Main Features RoomVerb is designed to produce natural sounding reverberation but you can also create strange artificial reverb effects as well Features include Virtual Room Acoustics Modeler with a flexible control of room dimensions sound source and listener positioning Acoustic space sizes range from small bathrooms to large halls from 1m to 50m in each dimension Room Hall Plate simulation Diffuse control for simulation of irregular room shapes True Stereo In Stereo Out processing Separate control of Early and Late reflections Relative L R Shift control Roomverb M1 User s Manual 1 Reverb tails up to 20 seconds Reverb tail modulation Comprehensive tone control system that includes separate 2 band shelving equalizers for Early and Late reflections Two band frequency dependent decay filters Level meters 100 Ready to use presets 28 user preset locations Main Features Chapter The RoomVerb Concept RoomVerb is based
19. w the first preset and you can choose a reverb from there 3 1 Selecting Presets In preset mode you can choose between the various stored presets using the big dial or the VALUE keys These have been carefully crafted for ease of use and practical studio applications 3 2 Preset Management and MIDI Dumps Also from this mode you can perform MIDI dumps of your presets to a sequencer and reload the factory sets should you wish to To make a MIDI dump of internal settings before switching to another soundskin press GROUP UP There you can use VALUE UP and DOWN to cycle between the MIDI dump options and EDIT to execute The MIDI data will be sent out of the MIDI OUT and you simply have your MIDI sequencer recording the data Table 3 1 Group Page Parameter Value MIDI DUMP Full bank Current preset Alternatively from preset mode you can press GROUP DOWN to take you to the preset manager where you can reload the factory defaults all together or individually You can also select default preset to load a blank preset for starting from scratch You press EDIT to execute Warning be careful that you are not wiping over all your precious presets that you have created Loading the full factory bank will repace ALL your presets with the original settings created by us Roomverb M1 User s Manual 9 10 Table 3 2 Group Parameter PRESET MANAGER Default preset Factory preset Factory bank Preset Management an
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