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+--- Thread: The role of reverb modulation in front-to-back placement? (/showthread.php?tid=111)
The role of reverb modulation in front-to-back placement? - Otto Halmén - 09-18-2016
Can reverb modulation be used as a logical part of the psychoacoustic effect of assigning front-to-back placement to different instruments in a mix? If so, how should the modulation rate and modulation depth be dialed for front and back placement respectively?
Or is reverb modulation better regarded as just a sweetening effect, dialed to taste?
I was practicing with a couple algorithmic reverbs and just started to wonder. On one hand, air in a real life room does move around all the time. On the other hand, I remember reading that reverb modulation was introduced mainly to mask artefacts caused by the technical limitations of early reverb algorithms.
RE: The role of reverb modulation in front-to-back placement? - Mattias Westlund - 09-18-2016
IIRC, reading some reverb guru discussion years ago, modulation in the way that algo verbs does it, isn't something that is rooted in reality. It's just a way of making an artificial reverb sound more lush and alive (and as you say, masking deficiencies in the technology, originally). Lexicon made it a sought-after trademark sound, basically. Icing on the production cake.
That said, modulation does happen in reality as well, as players and audiences move around ever so slightly, changing the response of the space they're in. This isn't something that can really be perceived though, at least not as clearly as with the chorus-style modulation of algo verbs. And I think that we'd be talking more phase modulation rather than pitch modulation. To get perceivable pitch modulations in sound waves, things need to be moving around A LOT (i.e. doppler effect).
I could be wrong though, this is just from memory.
RE: The role of reverb modulation in front-to-back placement? - Otto Halmén - 09-19-2016
Thanks! If real life modulation isn't perceivable by human ears, I guess there's no need to concern oneself with it in the mix.
