Dragonfly Reverb

[Michael Willis]

I just made a new beta release for testing:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragonf...1.9.0-beta

This now includes a new plugin called Dragonfly Room Reverb, which is based on Freeverb3 ProG. Please try it out if you're inclined, but consider it unstable. Don't yet use it for any "real" work, and be prepared to hit the mute button as there still may be bugs with the potential to make a horrible sound that will ruin your whole day. I'm still experimenting with which dials and presets to use, any feedback on either would be very helpful. 

The original plugin has been renamed Dragonfly Hall Reverb; it remains essentially the same and can be considered stable.

[Michael Willis]

Slight update, mostly tweaking numbers on the dials and presets for Dragonfly Room:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragonf...1.9.1-beta

Also hopefully a small improvement on CPU usage.

[Samulis]

Hey Michael, just spent some time trying out the two reverbs- both work 100% on my Windows 7 machine in Adobe Audition. They sound great ('Dragonfly Room' has some of the most usable/believeable small + medium room presets I've heard so far) and the UI's offer just the right amount of controls; haven't found any serious bugs or issues yet, and honestly despite your warning, I'll probably be sneaking this into projects here and there.

I did notice playback became jumpy sometimes when adjusting a parameter (i.e. redrawing that spectral view), maybe it's just a core balancing thing though. Nothing unusable, though.

Edit: I'm not sure if it's just me, but the 'Room' plugin seems to have less reverb mix compared to the 'Hall' plugin. I often found I liked to increase the 'Room' plugin's presets' early/late sliders by maybe 25% (to my ears, they're just about 'right' by default), but decrease the 'Hall' plugin's early/late sliders by as much as 50% to 'feel right' to me.

Edit 2: Actually, after a bit more experimenting, I found that Dragonfly Hall adds a strange 'tape flutter'-like modulation to the sound. Maybe something got bumped in the presets by accident? Regardless, it's not an issue on Dragonfly Room at all. I can't seem to reduce or increase the effect by playing with controls.
https://instaud.io/3Cx2
(honestly it sounds pretty cool, but I'm not sure it's always the right sound, haha)

[Michael Willis]

(05-01-2019, 05:45 AM)Samulis Wrote: Hey Michael, just spent some time trying out the two reverbs...

Thanks Sam! Your feedback means a lot to me.

I just kicked out another beta release with some optimizations, one of which hopefully addresses the spectrogram-related slowness that you pointed out:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragonf...1.9.3-beta

The two reverbs are very different algorithms. Well, they both use essentially the same early reflection algorithm, but the late reverbs are very different. I haven't really compared them side by side, but given your feedback I might add a bit of gain to Dragonfly Room.

As for the "tape flutter" sound, the Hall Reverb is essentially just Hibiki Reverb wrapped up in a nicer plugin, so you could probably reproduce this sound in Hibiki. Please try setting both the spin and wander parameters fairly low and see if it reduces the flutter sound. If not, Hibiki has three LFO parameters (helpfully labelled LFO1, LFO2, and LFO3) that I decided not to expose, since all of the presets had them dialed in the same; I'm wondering if those LFOs are causing the sound that you describe. I could possibly expose those LFOs as parameters you can set with your DAW's generic plugin controls, but I'm reluctant to add more dials to the user interface. Many people have given very positive feedback about the Hall plugin as it is, but a few people have asked for some more advanced controls.

Edit: I forgot to mention that ProG (the algorithm used by Dragonfly Room) doesn't have the LFO parameters, and its implementation of Spin and Wander is very different from the Hibiki algorithm, which I think explains why the flutter isn't present in Dragonfly Room.

[Mattias Westlund]

Sam: the "tape flutter" effect you describe was pretty common in high-end hardware reverbs of the past, particularly Lexicons, after which I think Hibiki might be modeled. I believe reverb modulation was initially designed to mask limitations in the hardware the algorithms ran on back in the day -- we're talking late 70's/early 80's, so not exactly high fidelity digital processing -- but it lived on and became a trademark sound of its own. Personally I think modulation sounds glorious but I understand that it might be an aquired taste and not something that is fitting for each and every VO scenario.

[Samulis]

(05-02-2019, 05:22 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: Sam: the "tape flutter" effect you describe was pretty common in high-end hardware reverbs of the past, particularly Lexicons, after which I think Hibiki might be modeled. I believe reverb modulation was initially designed to mask limitations in the hardware the algorithms ran on back in the day -- we're talking late 70's/early 80's, so not exactly high fidelity digital processing -- but it lived on and became a trademark sound of its own. Personally I think modulation sounds glorious but I understand that it might be an aquired taste and not something that is fitting for each and every VO scenario.

Thanks for the info, Mattias!

To me, it literally just sounds like fairly heavy tape flutter from a cheap/broken cassette mechanism- not something I would expect or look for in a modern reverb, especially if I'm already using a tape emulator! It's very noticeable on any sort of sustained tone, so while it might be okay on orchestral bits, it really sticks out on solo piano music. Yes, it might sound nice on some cases where a more 'vintage'/'lo-fi' tone is desired, and even I will admit that piano sounds very nostalgic, but in other cases when just a 'clean digital reverb' is desired, it's not as appropriate.

In lieu of yet another knob, maybe just a button labeled 'flutter' could be added to toggle the feature on/off?

[Michael Willis]

Beta release 1.9.4 is now available. Dragonfly Room now has three additional dials: Input LPF, Output LPF, and Boost Band (frequency bandwidth of the bass boost feature). I'm still considering how I want to address the "tape flutter" thing in Dragonfly Hall, mostly just a matter of how/if I want to change the UI to accommodate one more control. Meanwhile, I figured out how to get much longer decay times out of Dragonfly Room without causing an out-of-control feedback effect, so it can actually be used to make nice hall sounds without the signature flutter sound of Dragonfly Hall.

[Michael Willis]

Beta release 1.9.5 is hot off the press. Dragonfly Room's Output LPF previously only applied to the late output, now it applies to both early and late.

The following parameters have been exposed to the DAW (They aren't visible in the GUI, as they are considered more advanced features, and I don't think the GUI needs any more complication):

• Early Send (Dragonfly Hall and Dragonfly Room)
  
• Spin Factor (Dragonfly Hall)
  
• LFO Factor (Dragonfly Hall)
  

The latter two will hopefully be useful for increasing or decreasing the "tape flutter" effect.

[Michael Willis]

Beta release 1.9.6 is here.

This one includes several bug fixes, a change in the damper/lpf dials, and a new look for Dragonfly Room:

[Nayrb]

I finally got around to downloading these. Nice job on the GUI updates. I'm messing around with Room in FL Studio and it's behaving smoothly so far. No more spectrograph hiccups, as there were with previous versions.

I heard that ProG is good for synth reverbs: plates and such. I'm playing around a bit with Room in that context. Also running various hand percussion through it. It does have a nice sound for percussion rooms!

Are Early and Late parallel to one another? Pre-delay doesn't seem to effect the early reflections at all if I isolate Early.