Altiverb 6

 

Lagenoord 26
3513 GW Utrecht
The Netherlands

Phone: ++31-30-2433606
Fax: ++31-30-2438500
info@audioease.com
www.audioease.com
 Altiverb 6
ii 

Altiverb™ Copyright © by Audio Ease. All rights reserved.

Altiverb™ IR Pre-Processor Copyright © by Audio Ease. All rights reserved.

No part of this documentation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from Audio Ease.

All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

The Impulse Responses that Audio Ease BV supplies with Altiverb™ are intended for use only in Altiverb™
and may not be used for any other purpose. (Re-)Sampling of the Impulse Responses that Audio Ease BV has
supplied with Altiverb™ is expressly prohibited.

Copyrights may apply when you sell, lend, hire or give away sampled Impulse Responses from hardware
(reverb) units. Check the documentation of the unit that you want to sample when you intend to do so.

Venue rights may apply when you sell, lend, hire or give away sampled Impulse Responses from real acoustic
spaces. Consult the owner of the venue when you intend to do so.
 Altiverb 6
 iii

Contents
Introduction 5
About the documentation 7
TDM 7
Altiverb at a glance 9
Altiverb’s channel configurations 11
Altiverb reference 15
The Impulse Response Browser 16
The Impulse Response Function Popup Menu 17
Presets 18
Reverb Time 20
(Room) Size 20
Reverse Reverb 20
The Time-Frequency, or Waterfall Diagram 20
Waveform 21
The Info Screen 22
Recording Layout 22
The Info and CPU Screen 22
Google Earth Placemark 22
Damping and Gains Section 23
The Direct Sound 24
The Early Reflections (Early Refs) 25
The Tail 25
Early Ref & Tail on/off 25
Stage Positions 26
Stereo link edit 26
Equalizer 27
The Options section 27
Update on mouse up 27
Efficient high latency mode 27
IR Load - set fully wet 28
Test sounds - Trigger on parameter change 28
Test sounds - Trigger by keys QWER-ASDF 28
Tail Cut 28
Input Gain & Output sections 28
Input & Output Peak Program Meter 29
Level of Front Outputs (Altiverb XL) 29
Level of Rear, or Surround Outputs (Altiverb XL) 29
Center Bleed (Altiverb XL) 29
LFE (Sub Woofer) Bleed (Altiverb XL) 29
Wet/Dry Mix 30
Mute Direct 30
Altiverb and High Sample Rates 31
Index 32
 Altiverb 6
 Introduction
 Altiverb 6
Introduction 

1
Introduction
1. Welcome.
Altiverb has come a long way since it premiered as the first real-time convolution reverb
plug-in in 2001. Audio Ease is glad to welcome you to Altiverb version 6, the state of the
art of reverb based on real spaces.

2. What is Altiverb and how does it work ?

Altiverb makes your audio sound as if it was played back somewhere else, adding the
acoustics of existing spaces to your own recordings or to your live audio.

The shortest impulse in digital audio is a single sample ‘spike’. That’s just one loud sam-
ple, surrounded by silence. Playback of this spike in a church would create a reverb tail,
a response very similar to that of a hand clap. We call the spike’s reverb tail the impulse
response of the church, and we make a recording of it.

Think of a sampled waveform as a stream of these spikes. The fact that one is louder
than the next creates a waveform, but the spikes are almost identical: only differing in
their loudness. Now extend every spike in the waveform with the full church impulse
response recording, effectively giving each sample its own reverb tail, and it will sound
as if the waveform was played back in the church. The process of extending each tiny
sample with a scaled impulse response (‘IR’) is called convolution.

Altiverb™ is a convolution engine that comes with a vast library of Impulse Responses
recorded in real acoustic spaces. It lets you combine your input sound with any of
these acoustic fingerprints. The included Altiverb™ Impulse Response Pre-Processor
software allows you to create your own impulse responses. (At the time of writing of this
user guide the Altiverb™ Impulse Response Pre-Processor was not yet available for
Windows XP)

The two applications together allow you to sample any acoustic environment and apply
its sonic signature to the audio of your choice.
 Altiverb 6
 About the documentation

In Altiverb, use ‘help’ to

get instant explanations
at your mouse pointer.
 Altiverb 6
About the documentation 

2
About the documentation

This user guide covers the functions and controls of Altiverb 6™ for Mac OS X and
Windows XP.

Some topics concerning Altiverb™ outdate quicker than others, or are of interest to a
small subset of Altiverb users. These topics are not available in printed form and are cov-
ered in several PDF files that can be found in the “Altiverb™” folder after installation.

So if you are looking for keyboard shortcuts in Cubase on Windows XP, find the ap-
propriate file in the Host specific descriptions folder. If you need instructions on how to
sample your own spaces go to the Making Impulse Responses folder.

TDM

This also applies to the TDM version of Altiverb XL. So if you are confused because you
see 15 Altverbs in your ProTools TDM plug-in popup, find out which is which from the
ProTools TDM document in the Host specific descriptions folder.

Do use the help feature by clicking the question mark in the lower right of Altiverb 6’s
interface. It’ll give you instant explanations at your mouse pointer.
 

Changes the reverb length. Select a room (IR). More info

Altiverb 6

Changes the room’s size. on the

Reverses the Reverb selected IR.
View a waterfall View a waveform
diagram of the diagram of the
Altiverb at a glance

selected IR. selected IR.

Various Test Sounds

IR Gains Section Gains for Wet/Dry Mix
Automation preferences
Input, Output
presets Damping section and surround (XL)
Global Presets Equalize

Move input audio

around on stage.
 Altiverb 6
Altiverb at a glance 

3
Altiverb at a glance
The picture on the left very briefly discusses every user interface element of Altiverb.

Basic operation:

Insert an Altiverb into your song. Play back your audio through it and it should already
sound as if it is played back somewhere else. Select another acoustic environment by
clicking the IR Browser tab. Open a category in the left column, for instance Concert
Halls Large, and select a specific venue, for instance Konzerthaus Vienna Large Hall.
In the right browser column a number of microphone setups that were used to capture
this venue appear. These are the actual impulse responses. Click on either of them to
listen.

The reverb sound of a selected Impulse Response can be changed

by controls. Some only show when you click a section buttons:

When you have inserted Altiverb in an aux channel, you want Altiverb’s mix knob to be
set completely wet, and you want to check mute direct right under it.

The reference section starting on page 15 discusses each control in detail.

About the knobs

All parameters controlled by turning knobs can be increased by clicking on them and
dragging upward, or to the right. The parameter value will be displayed while you are
adjusting. Double click a knob, and you can type in a value. You can hold down modi-
fier keys such as Alt while operating a knob for extra precision, or to restore to default.
Which modifiers to use depends on what host application you use. Look up your host
application in the Host specific descriptions folder in the Altiverb 6 folder on your hard
drive.
 Altiverb 6
10 Altiverb's Channel Configurations

Microphones pick up...

...what the on-stage speaker plays back.

Altiverb’s Altiverb’s
Inputs Outputs
R R

L L

Think of Altiverb as an echo chamber. You feed

your audio to the speaker(s) in the chamber,
place some microphones in there, and get back
the reverberated audio into the mixing board.
The input of Altiverb goes to the speakers, the
output of Altiverb is what the microphones pro-
duce.
 Altiverb 6
Altiverb's Channel Configurations 11

4
Altiverb’s channel configurations

Think of Altiverb as an echo chamber. You feed your audio to the speaker(s) in
the chamber, place some microphones in there, and get back the reverberated
audio into the mixing board. The input of Altiverb goes to the speakers, the
output of Altiverb is what the microphones produce.

The illustrations on the left show an impulse response recording session, and a resulting
configuration in Altiverb. The lower diagram is of the type that is visible in the Altiverb
interface. The bird’s eye view displays a stereo to stereo impulse response: stereo mate-
rial is played back on stage via a left-stage and right-stage speaker. Stereo audio is then
picked up in the room by two microphones.

Audio Ease Impulse Responses (IRs) come in the following configurations, visible in the
Browser:

Altiverb Regular:
1 in, 1 out ( IR was made using 1 stage speaker position and 1 mic)
1 in, 2 out ( IR was made using a central stage speaker and 2 microphones)
2 in, 2 out ( IR was made using left & right speaker positions and 2 microphones)

Altiverb XL adds:
1 in, 4 out ( IR was made using a central stage speaker and 4 microphones)
2 in, 4 out ( IR was made using left & right speaker positions and 4 microphones)
 Altiverb 6
12 Altiverb's Channel Configurations

The number of outputs of Altiverb corresponds to the number of outputs of a track, and
likewise Stereo output IRs appear on stereo tracks. The mono or stereo icons
after the IRs name indicate the amount of inputs of the IR (the amount of speakers you
are playing back your audio through into the room).

Altiverb (Regular):

If you select a mono input IR on a track that plays back 2 channels, both channels
are mixed together before being fed to the IR. The mix knob will still pass Stereo audio
when turned towards dry though. If, on this track, you would insert a stereo input IR
each channel would get its own speaker on stage.

This Altiverb is inserted into a stereo track. This IR will

mix both inputs to mono, and be lighter on the cpu

while this IR will play back each channel of the input

audio through its own speaker on stage.

A mono input IR will take less power form your CPU, but you can only hear the
central stage position in it. Any signal that enters Altiverb’s left input channel will end up
in this central speaker. When Mute Direct (page 30) is checked, this normally is not a
problem.

The dry signal controlled by the Mix control (page 30) is never touched, which means
that even when the input is mixed to mono before it hits the impulse response, the dry
signal remains stereo.

Altiverb XL:

If you select a mono input IR on a track that plays back 5.1 channels, all 5.1
channels are mixed together before being fed to the IR. The mix knob will still pass 5.1
audio when turned towards dry though. If, on this track, you would insert a stereo input
IR L, Ls and half of the center channel and lfe are mixed to the left input of the
impulse response, and R, Rs L, Ls and half of the center channel and lfe are mixed to the
right input of the impulse response.
 Altiverb 6
Altiverb's Channel Configurations 13

In tracks consisting of 5 or 5.1 channels, the Center (Bleed) control becomes available.
Center Bleed outputs a delayed sum of the rear channels into the center channel to fix
possible gaps. It is intended for post production usage to prevent dry dialogue in the
center channel, or gaps in the reverb image in wide theater setups. For all musical pur-
poses the recommended setting is all the way down (no center (bleed)), as quadraphonic
reverb (L R Ls Rs) has so far produced superior results to 5 or 5.1 channel reverb. So
while a fifth reverb output channel is available through center (bleed), the actual impulse
response has still been recorded using 4 microphones.

The lfe (Bleed) control (for the dot-1, or subwoofer content channel) is much like the
center (bleed) control described above. The only difference is that apart from creating
lfe reverb, the lfe (bleed) control also governs the amount of lfe content that is input to
Altiverb.
 14
Page 20 Page 16 Page 22
Changes the reverb length. Select a room (IR). More info
Altiverb 6
Reference

Changes the room’s size. on the

Reverses the Reverb Page 20 Page 21 selected IR.
View a waterfall View a waveform
diagram of the diagram of the
selected IR.

Page 18 Page 27 Page 23 Page 28 Page 28 Page 30

Session Presets Various IR Gains Section Gains for Test Sounds Wet/Dry Mix
Global Presets preferences Page 24 Input, Output
Page 27 Damping section and surround (XL)
Equalize
Page 26
Move input audio around on stage.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 15

5
Altiverb reference
This chapter discusses each user interface control of Altiverb 6 in detail. All parameters
controlled by turning knobs can be increased by clicking on them and dragging upward,
or to the right. The parameter value will be displayed while you are adjusting. Double
click a knob, and you can type in a value. You can hold down modifier keys such as Alt
while operating a knob for extra precision, or to restore to default. Which modifiers to
use depends on your host application. Look up your host application in the Host specific
descriptions folder in the Altiverb 6 folder on your hard drive.
 Altiverb 6
16 Reference

The Impulse Response Browser

Click or shift-click a room to make avail- These are the IRs (mostly
able it’s IRs. Double click a room to make microphone setups) available
available its IRs in the right hand column. in the selected room(s) in the
Double click to instantly select the Audio left column. Hover over them
Ease preferred microphone configuration to view in the info screen.
within that room. The currently Click to select and listen.
selected IR

A category of
rooms

A room of
which the IRs
are visible
in the right
column

The stereo symbol indicates this IR

has two inputs. All selectable IRs have
as many outputs as the track or aux
Altiverb is inserted in.

Use the IR Browser to select a sample of an acoustic environment, hereafter called a

room, or an IR. Open a category of rooms to select a particular room on the left, and an
actual IR, a microphone configuration within that room, in the right hand column.

Double click a room, such as Amsterdam Concertgebouw, to instantly select the Audio
Ease preferred microphone configuration within that room.

Shift-select rooms to make all IRs of multiple rooms appear in the right hand column.

Switches the IR Browser’s font size.

Contains several functions in a drop down menu. The functions are described
on the next page.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 17

The Impulse Response Function Popup Menu

Menus are available in the bottom bar of the IR Browser.

Re-scan IR Folder - This re-scans the currently selected impulse responses folder for
changes or additions and updates the popup menu accordingly.

Select different IR folder - Navigate to find a different folder of impulse responses.

Reveal IR folder in OS - Commands the Finder (mac) or Windows to show you the
opened, currently selected Impulse Response folder.

Show IR Folder in Finder / Explorer - Commands the Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Win-
dows) to reveal the currently selected Impulse Response folder.

Analyze Impulse Responses - This analyzes all impulse responses in the group of the
currently selected IR. The goal is to obtain information like the location of the direct
sound and the decay rate of the reverb tail. This information is needed for many param-
eters in Altiverb to function properly. All Audio Ease impulse responses and Impulse
responses you make with Audio Ease software already contain this information, but
many third-party impulse responses may not.

Adding Audio Ease Impulse Responses, or IRs made

using Audio Ease software.

Audio Ease regularly posts new impulse responses to www.audioease.com/IR.

To add them to the menu just download the ones you want, and double click them.
They will install into your current IR folder, and will show up next time you launch
Altiverb, or after you’ve selected Re-scan IR Folder.

The function Analyze Impulse Responses will not be needed, as Audio Eases Im-
pulse Responses are already equipped with all necessary information for all features
of Altiverb to function properly.
 Altiverb 6
18 Reference

Adding third party impulse responses that are not made

using Audio Ease software:

1. Use the Reveal IR Folder in OS function to open up the current impulse response
folder.
2. Add Wave, sdII or AIFF files, split or interleaved stereo (or just a single mono file)
to the folder at any level. Create extra sub folders when needed.
3. Return to Altiverb and select Re-Scan IR folder. The New IRs will be visible.
4. Some features of Altiverb will not work with the new IRs until they have been
analyzed. In each new group (folder) of IRs select a single one, and choose Analyze
Impulse Responses

Presets

The complete state of Altiverb can be saved in a Global Preset, or in a Automation

preset.

Global Presets are presets that are available across

sessions (songs / projects). The Audio Ease made
presets are available in this menu.

Automation Presets are presets that are saved into

the session. They are private to a single instance
of ALltiverb and can be recalled via parameter
automation. They were called snapshots in previous
versions of Altiverb.

The Global Preset Popup Menu

Recall a Global Preset by selecting it from this popup menu. If after that you change a
parameter, or you recall a Automation preset, the text in this popup will tun to italics.
There are several commands at the bottom of the Global Presets popup menu. The save
icon below the preset menu is a short cut to either save (when a selected preset has been
modified), or save as (when no preset is selected).

Open - All presets are separate files on your disk. The

preset popup menu by default consists of those found in:
/Altiverb 6/Presets/
If you want to load a preset from another location, use
this open command to navigate to it. Or use select other
presets folder to switch to another preset folder.

Save - Replaces the contents of the currently selected

preset with Altiverb’s current settings.

Save as... -Saves Altiverb’s current settings as a new

preset. If you save in the current preset folder, the new
preset will be added to this preset popup menu.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 19

You can save the preset somewhere else, but then it will not be shown in this menu.
Delete - Deletes the currently selected preset from disk and from this menu.

Rename - Renames the currently selected preset without changing its contents.

Re-scan presets folder - If you have added (someone elses) preset by copying or mov-
ing files in the Finder or Windows, you should rescan the presets folder to force them to
show up here.

Select other presets folder - Switch to another preset folder.

Show Presets Folder in Finder / Explorer - Commands the Finder (Mac) or Explorer
(Windows) to reveal the currently selected Presets folder.

Presets - The Automation preset slots

A preset stored in an Automation preset Slot is saved in the
song or session, while regular presets are saved as separate
files in the Altiverb presets folder . The slots can be recalled
via automation, for automated reverb changes during play-
back. A dark numbered slot is empty. The Automation Preset
slots are private to a single instance of Altiverb. A light grey numbered slot is occupied.
The bright blue numbered slot is currently chosen.

Saving a preset in a slot: Click on an empty slot. The now occupied slot will turn
light grey (occupied).

Emptying a slot: Click the garbage can icon once. The occupied slots will start to
blink. Choose one by clicking it. The slot is emptied. You can also command (or ap-
ple) -click an occupied preset slot to delete its contents.

Overwriting an occupied slot: Empty first, and then save in it, or hold down Alt
while clicking an occupied slot.

Recalling a Automation preset: Click the numbered slot that holds the preset you
wish to recall.

Automating Automation preset recalls: Automation preset is available as a param-

eter in the automizable parameters list of your sequencer, so you can graphically edit
the recalls. Alternatively you can manually recall while recording automation data.
Some host applications may not support automated Automation preset recalls. Please
refer to your sequencer’s document in Host specific descriptions in the Altiverb
folder.
 Altiverb 6
20 Reference

Reverb Time

Use this to lengthen or shorten the reverb tail.

It applies an exponential gain curve to the impulse response
that either increases gain as time progresses (lengthening) or
decreases the gain (shortening). By lengthening the reverb
time you are raising the level of the softest part of the reverb
tail. Please note that that may reveal resolution and signal-to-
noise inaccuracies of the impulse response recording.

(Room) Size
Makes the selected room (impulse response) smaller (turn counter clockwise), or larger
(turn clockwise). It transposes room modes and resonances, tightens or spreads early
reflections, and shortens or lengthens the reverb tail.

Reverse Reverb
Reverses the complete length of the reverb tail that is being convoluted. The
actual length of the reverb tail that is convoluted–and then reversed–is
dependent on the Tail Cut parameter from the Options Section. In Altiverb XL
TDM the length of the reverse reverb is also limited by the version you insert in your
track. More info is in the Host Specific Descriptions folder in the Altiverb 6 folder.

The Time-Frequency, or Waterfall Diagram

Shows the reverb’s frequency content through time. The vertical axis (pointing upward)
is the decibel axis. The color scheme (beginning briefly with white, quickly moving
through blue, and slowly through red and yellow) is repeated every full second of the
reverb tail to indicate time.

A regular waveform is plotted next to, and time aligned with, the waterfall to give a
clearer picture of the reverb’s overall amplitude through time.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 21

From this display you will notice immediately that in real-life a room’s high frequencies
decay quicker than its low frequencies.

Resonances can be seen as well as the effects of the damping, eq, decay, and the various
gain parameters. When zoomed in to the first half second of the reverb, the Early Ref and
Tail delays can be clearly seen.

Click this and then drag in the diagram to rotate the waterfall around

Click this and then drag in the diagram to move the waterfall around

Click this and then drag up or down in the waterfall to zoom in or out on it

Engage Auto Focus mode to automatically spin and zoom the waterfall to
the view that is ideal for displaying the results of the parameter you are adjusting.

Click this and then drag left-right in the waterfall to display (in seconds) more or
less of the reverb tail

You can hold down modifier keys such as Alt to use the functions above without clicking
on them. Which modifiers depends on the host application you use, and is described
in the appropriate document in the Host Specific Descriptions folder in the Altiverb 6
folder.

Waveform

Waveform view shows the waveforms of each of the channels of the current impulse
response. Next to the waveforms the Speaker>Microphone indication is printed. R>L
therefore means: This is what the Left microphone recorded when the Right speaker
emitted the impulse.
 Altiverb 6
22 Reference

The Info Screen

Press to approach in Google Earth

Press to view bird’s eye Open screen in larger window

view, foto’s VR Movie
and CPU Usage

Provides information about the selected impulse response. By Clicking the forward and
backward buttons (below) the screen scrolls through several items associated with the
current impulse response. You can double-click on most items to open them in a separate
window at their original size. Most Audio Ease Impulse Responses will show the fol-
lowing items:

The Spinning Virtual Reality Movie

The camera pans around to show you the venue where the sample was made. Double-
click it to view it in a separate window; pan around the venue by dragging the mouse in
the movie window. Shift click to zoom in, and control click to zoom out.

Recording Layout
Displays how the microphones were set up and where the speakers were at the time the
impulse response was recorded.

The Info and CPU Screen

Shows credits, the current latency of Altiverb expressed in both samples and millisec-
onds and the version number of Altiverb. There are percentages for both average CPU
usage as Peak CPU usage.

Statistics & Photos

Gives information about the recording and the venue itself, its history, and the gear used
to make the sample. Foto’s Show the interior and exterior of the recorded venue.

Google Earth Placemark

You can doube click the the placemark icon in the top right to open up Google Earth and
fly to the location of the venue. You can download Google Earth for free at:
http://earth.google.com
 Altiverb 6
Reference 23

Damping and Gains Section

The parameters from this section show when you click

Think of Altiverb as an echo chamber. You feed your audio to the speaker(s) in
the chamber, place some microphones in there, and get back the reverberated
audio into the mixing board. The input of Altiverb goes to the speakers, the
output of Altiverb is what the microphones produce.

Every time the sound in the echo chamber hits any material, the material bounces some
of it back, absorbing some other part of the frequency content of the reverb. Three-band
damping simulates this effect of absorptive (or reflective) materials such as baffles,
curtains, bass traps, people and chairs in a room. These are the damping controls. Switch
to view the Waterfall to view its effects.

Low Damping Gain

Turn counter-clockwise to add absorption, which shortens the reverb tail below the
first crossover frequency. Turn clockwise to simulate reflective surfaces that make low
frequencies decay longer.

Low-mid Crossover Frequency

Determines the frequency where mid damping takes over from low damping.

Mid Frequencies Damping Gain

Turn counter-clockwise to absorb, which shortens the reverb tail between the two crosso-
ver frequencies. Turn clockwise to simulate reflective surfaces that make mid frequencies
decay longer.

Mid-High Crossover Frequency

Determines the frequency where high damping takes over from mid

High Frequency Damping Gain

Turn counter-clockwise to absorb, which shortens the reverb tail above the second
crossover frequency. Turn clockwise to simulate reflective surfaces that makes high
frequencies decay longer.
 Altiverb 6
24 Reference

The Direct Sound

Think of Altiverb as an echo chamber. You feed your audio to the

speaker(s) in the chamber, place some microphones in there, and get back
the reverberated audio into the mixing board. The input of Altiverb goes to
the speakers, the output of Altiverb is what the microphones produce.

After the sound leaves the speakers, the quickest path to the microphones is in a straight
line. This first source to hit the microphone is the direct sound, and its loudness and
occurrence in time help you locate the speakers. The chamber itself is not heard in the
direct sound, only the coloration of speakers, a bit of air, and the microphones. You can
choose to substitute this coloration with a neutral, or flat version. To do this you turn the
color knob from IR to flat.

Direct Sound Gain

Controls the gain of the direct (first) sound in the impulse response.
Turn down direct sound gain all the way if you use Altiverb as a
traditional send (aux) effect, because in that situation you just need the
actual reverb, which starts after the direct sound. To reach the same
effect you can also turn off the direct section using the on/off button in
the lower left, or the mute direct check box under the Wet / Dry knob
 Altiverb 6
Reference 25

Direct Sound Color

When set to IR, the direct sound has coloration from the speaker, air and mic. Remove
coloration by setting this parameter to flat.

The Early Reflections (Early Refs)

Early reflections come right after the direct sound. They are the first
couple of reflections off the walls, ceiling and floor of the chamber.
Reducing earlyref gain generally makes the audio more intelligible. It can
also make the room sound larger or damped as soft reflections suggest
distant or baffled surfaces.

Early Reflections Gain

Controls the gain of the first couple of reflections bouncing off the walls, ceiling and
floor.

Early Reflection Delay

Delays the first couple of reflections off the walls, ceiling and floor. It simultaneously
delays the tail by the same amount to preserve the early reflections/tail connection.

The Tail

The tail is next.

It’s the long diffuse part that is normally called reverb.

Tail Gain
Controls the gain of the long diffuse end of the reverb: the Tail.

Tail Delay
Delays the reverb tail, but leaves direct and early reflections in place. Can be set to nega-
tive values to start the onset of the tail earlier.

Early Ref & Tail on/off

There are situations where you may not need to calculate the tail or the early reflections.
This makes it a lot lighter on your computer’s CPU. An application of this can be found
in the installed file ‘Simulating the orchestral stage with Altiverb 6.pdf’
 Altiverb 6
26 Reference

Stage Positions
A light means a sec- Switch a section Press a button to
tion is turned on. on or off show the section

Puts your source audio in a particular spot on the ‘stage’ of the sampled room in a con-
vincing, physically correct way. (on/off button is at the top left)
Read also the installed ‘Simulating the orchestral stage with Altiverb 6.pdf’

Think of Altiverb as an echo chamber. You feed your audio to the

speaker(s) in the chamber, place some microphones in there, and get back
the reverberated audio into the mixing board. The input of Altiverb goes to
the speakers, the output of Altiverb is what the microphones produce.

Starting with the basic rule above, it follows that it also matters where the speakers are in
the echo chamber. When the speakers are located on the highlighted spots in the picture,
they are in their original sampled positions (as described in the configuration picture in
the monitor on the upper right). You can triple the distance between the microphones and
the speakers by pushing the speakers all the way to the back of the stage. Triple the width
between the speakers themselves by dragging them apart. Halve the original distance
from the microphones to the speakers by dragging the speakers all the way to the front.

Stereo link edit

mirrors the speaker placement in the center stage line. When a mono input Impulse
response is selected (page 12) just one speaker will be displayed.

By engaging Stage Positions, you are controlling the timing and loudness of the direct
sound. Because of this, Direct Gain and Mute Direct are unavailable while the Speaker
Placer is engaged.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 27

Equalizer
A light means a sec- Switch a section Press a button to
tion is turned on. on or off show the section

The equalizer works on the wet signal only.

The bass and treble bands are Baxandall eq’s, designed to not change phase more than
180%, which effectively means that combing or cancellation effects are unlikely when
the eq’d signal is mixed with the dry signal.

The Options section

Update on mouse up
When this is checked, control adjustments will be calculated when the mouse button is
released, causing a gap in the audio. When unchecked Altiverb will update parameters
while you turn the knobs, without interruptions. The latter is slightly heavier on the CPU.

Please note that some controls ignore this setting: EQ is always “live”, as are the input,
output, front, rear and test sound gains, and the Wet/Dry Mix. Changing Latency, Size,
Tail Cut, Damping On/Off, Reverse, or the chosen IR will always interrupt audio.

Efficient high latency mode

Uses a minimum of processing power but can produce a delay of up to a second between
input and output. The introduced latency may be compensated for by latency compensa-
tion features of the host application (sequencer).
To find out about your sequencer please refer to the pdf files in
Altiverb 6/Host specific descriptions
Click on the forward or backward buttons below the Info Screen until the technical data
page appears to determine the precise amount of delay.
 Altiverb 6
28 Reference

If, due to uncompensated delay, you get ‘flamming’ effects, turn down direct-sound gain
from the damping and gains section, or engage Mute Direct.

IR Load - Reset all parameters to default

When this is checked, all parameters will be reset to their default positions when you
select a new IR.

IR Load - set fully wet

When this is checked, each IR will load without direct sound. The Mute Direct button
will be on. If you always use Altiverb in an aux channel turn this on.

Test sounds - Trigger on parameter change

Each time you adjust a parameter, the last played test sound will re-play automatically.

Test sounds - Trigger by keys QWER-ASDF

The keys from your computer’s keyboard can trigger the test sounds.

The upper row QWER corresponds to .

The ASDF keys trigger only the last played sample from each of the four categories.
Turn this feature off if it conflicts with key commands in your host application.

Tail Cut
This eases the load on the CPU by shortening reverb tails.
If your production does not require reverb tails to decay down to -140 dB,
you can instead use tail cut to cut-off reverb when it has died down for
instance to -80 dB. As Tail Cut changes the length of the reverb, its effect
is more apparent when the impulse response is in reverse mode (page 20).
In reverse mode you can use tail cut to tailor the delay of the slap-back
effect.

Input Gain & Output sections

Amplifies or attenuates the input and output signals of Altiverb.

The amount of controls in the input/output section depends on Altiverb’s number of
output channels.
 Altiverb 6
Reference 29

Center channel output (in 5.1 Altiverb XL) is generated via the Center Bleed control.
Sub woofer (LFE) channel output (in 5.1 ALtiverb XL) is generated via the LFE Bleed
control.
Effects are displayed in the level meters.

Input & Output Peak Program Meter

These ‘Peak and Hold Meters’. Constantly display the average, or VU, value of input
and oputput signal, while momentarily holding the peak or PPM value at the top of the
meter (as a floating dot).

When Altiverb outputs 4 channels (only in Altiverb XL) the order is:
L , R , L surround, R surround

When there are 5 outputs of Altiverb XL the order is:

L , R , L surround, R surround, C

When there are 5.1 outputs of Altiverb Xl the order is:

L , R , L surround, R surround, C, LFE (subwoofer)

Level of Front Outputs (Altiverb XL)

Controls the level of the left-front and right-front outputs. It has no effect on the center
level.

Level of Rear, or Surround Outputs (Altiverb XL)

Controls the level of the left-surround and right-surround outputs.

Center (Bleed) (Altiverb XL)

Outputs a delayed sum of the rear channel into the center channel to fix possible gaps.
Intended for post production usage to prevent dry dialogue in the center channel, or gaps
in the reverb image in wide theater setups. For all musical purposes the recommended
setting is all the way down (no center bleed).

LFE (Sub Woofer) (Bleed) (Altiverb XL)

Outputs a delayed sum of the rear channel into the LFE channel to allow for reverb in the
sub woofer. Intended for post production special effects usage. For all musical purposes
the recommended setting is all the way down (no LFE bleed). The LFE knob simultane-
ously governs the LFE input gain.
 Altiverb 6
30 Reference

Wet/Dry Mix
Controls the amount of dry (input) signal vs. wet (reverb) signal.

Introducing dry signal will interfere with the effects of the direct sound.
It may introduce phasing or flamming when used in conjunction with the
direct sound.
Therefore we recommend you check Mute Direct when you need to add
Dry sound.

Mute Direct
Use this to mute the direct sound altogether. Similar to turning down the direct gain. This
is the recommended way of setting Altiverb up in an Aux channel.
 Altiverb 6
Altiverb and High Sample Rates 31

6
Altiverb and High Sample Rates
Audio Ease Impulse Responses are released at samplerates of 48 kHz or 44.1 Khz.
96 kHz versions of Audio Ease Impulse Responses have not been released because no
valuable data has been found to return from walls and ceilings in the highest octave (24
kHz - 48 kHz).

Altiverb can be used in projects running at the following ‘high’ sample rates: 88.2 kHz,
96 kHz. Altiverb XL adds 176.4 kHz, 352.8 kHz and 384 kHz. Running the reverb en-
gine at these sample rates would place an extremely heavy load on the processor. There
is no quality advantage of running the reverb engine at 96 kHz when a 48 kHz Impulse
Response is selected. In such a case it makes sense to keep the reverb engine running at
48 kHz, so processor load stays at a reasonable level.

An Example

When a 48 kHz impulse response is used in a 96 kHz project, the reverb engine will
run at 48 kHz, while the dry sound will stay at 96 kHz. The sample rate conversions
performed are of very high quality and are extremely accurate. They introduce a slight
delay (typically 64 samples) into the signal path. The exact amount of delay is displayed
in the Info Screen (page 22).

It is possible that 96 kHz impulse responses will eventually become available. With a 96
kHz impulse response being used in a 96 kHz project, none of the sample rate conver-
sions described above would need to be performed. The reverb engine will run at 96
kHz, resulting in heavier processor load, but true 96 kHz processing.

Required buffersizes

The sample rate converters can only function when your hardware buffer size is set to
256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, or 16384 samples. (Check the appropriate PDF files
in the folder “Host Specific Descriptions” for more info) If such a buffer size is not
available, Altiverb will warn you that it will run its reverb engine at a high sample rate,
resulting in heavy processor load.
 32
Page 20 Page 16 Page 22
index

Changes the reverb length. Select a room (IR). More info

Altiverb 6

Changes the room’s size. on the

Reverses the Reverb Page 20 Page 21 selected IR.
View a waterfall View a waveform
diagram of the diagram of the
selected IR.

Page 18 Page 27 Page 23 Page 28 Page 28 Page 30

Session Presets Various IR Gains Section Gains for Test Sounds Wet/Dry Mix
Global Presets preferences Page 24 Input, Output
Page 27 Damping section and surround (XL)
Equalize
Page 26
Move input audio around on stage.
Index