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KaleOverlord280 days ago

I'm curious about what you notice you're gaining/losing with DearVR - I am curious if it spatializes it in part by simulating the ear like a binaural mic does.

To be honest, I wish the plugin was a bit more transparent about its workings so I could use it more carefully.

I guess the other thing was that I used a stereo mic setup to record everything.

What this comment does is makes me think that I'll want to be more strategic about which tracks I used DearVR on, really depending on the frequency spectrum of the instrument. I.e. wide range instruments with a lot going on like a piano - probably avoid.

But stuff like flutes and vocals - as well as my cardboarderidoo (lol) it seems to work well and get really solid results.

I suppose what I would like is a plugin that makes it easy to toggle ear simulation fourier transform as part of the binaural effect. Heh, maybe I should also put an object between my SM57s to make the IRL recording sound more lifelike, since I like the idea of getting a full stereo image of IRL recordings.

Vocals that IRL stereo image matters less since most of the sound comes out of an area that is the size of a microphone - unlike say a guitar or cello, where there's a lot of unique acoustic information lost by not recording a second mic.

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pleatsandprints278 days ago(+1)

Mixing with any binauralizer is kind of a pain because of the internal EQ process and the fragility of the illusion. My personal best results have come from collapsing the input to mono, and not using DearVR's built-in reverb (Reflections Only). Then, sending the final result to a convolution reverb send with all your other instruments. It only sounds vaguely "real", but frankly all your Master bus effects will crunch the spatialization anyway.
I'm still a big fan of the sound-stage effect despite all the work.

Cool submission, very different scale and atmosphere from your other works!

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KaleOverlord277 days ago

Oh, yeah, mono sources only for DearVR.

Geometrically it has to be that way, otherwise you're making it like you are basically having four microphones for two ears worth of sound, making things muddy.

I've done both cases where I use thr built in reverb and turn it off, but by default I tend to turn it off.

Which master bus effects are you talking about, specifically? If you have a clean stereo signal, reverb should function almost physically.

My line is as follows - EQ, compression, DearVR, send delay to reverb.

I don't put any mastering on top of those things precisely because of the illusion.

This time around I had no time to spend on really dialing any of that in, unfortunately.

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pleatsandprints276 days ago(+1)

Nerd rant ahead:

I think mono inputs are easier to control, but you can of course find stereo input workarounds by splitting the L/R channels and spacing them apart on the DearVR XY interface. The coolest way is of course multi-miking your performance with different distances from the instrument, then recreating the setup in DearVR to get some sweet 3D richness and texture. 

Having a reverb on the master after spacializing everything won't have the same physical effect  as dialing it in for each individual element using DearVR.  Imagining a virtual space, elements further away take longer to reach your ears (reminder: they won't reach both ears at the same time), and elements closer to your ears would in turn take longer to come back after each bounce.  These would be pre-delays, decay/delay times on regular reverb controls that you would have to dial in for each element - butDearVR goes further to EQ and delay that reverb signal to account for the physical head and ears - these functions can get messed up by basically any processing if you apply them after.  That's what I meant in the previous reply about the "crunching" post-processing can do to your signal.

TL:DR  - If it sounds good, it doesn't matter - but if you really want the listener to feel like they are physically "there" despite the fragility of the ilusion, It's gotta be purely in the DearVR ecosystem, including using their reverb models.

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KaleOverlord275 days ago

So, I do try to physically simulate the stereo signal to some degree with a delay sent to the reverb on my tracks, generally. I didn't end up actually carefully setting up that delay here, however, due to time.

The "closer" something is, the higher the delay I use.

Generally I've been using neoverb, and turning off the DearVR built in reverb, manually setting delay and wetness to what sounds good.

I think the most important things for the illusion are the initial dry signal to each ear being timed right and undergoing the Fourier transform to simulate the shape of the ear reflecting the sound (something UE5 actually has built in).

The reverb is a wetter, more complex signal that comes from too many directions to really easily distinguish between a real space and an artificial one as easily, hence the illusion can still be largely preserved in terms of the physical location of the sound source.

If you were to EQ, you'd want to EQ before DearVR and adjust the EQ after DearVR is in the chain. Mostly saying this as a conscious note to self next time I'm mixing to solidify that point.

What I was curious about was the things you are doing after the DearVR chain in post, considering what those things are, what their benefit is, and if they are necessary or can be put in a different part of the chain as to not screw up the illusion.

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pleatsandprints274 days ago(+1)

To your curisoity on my approach: I do quite a bit of context-dependent post-processing on spatialized signals during both the mixing and mastering stages.  Off the top of my head: 

  • Shaping/cleaning transients on percussive elements so they cut through the mix better
  • Bringing air back to vocals (usually a high shelf somewhere around the 10k range) 
  • Just...so much low end processing. I'm always messing with things <150 hz

All of this will in some way ruin the illusion, but it often leads to a mix I enjoy listening to more. I tend to sacrifice realism for a more modern sound, which is probably why both Fox and I find some of the frequency shaping a little annoying.

Your process is probably closer to a more pure, realistic sound. I'd be interested to hear why you have a preference for NeoVerb over, let's say a traditional convolution verb sometime.

If I missed addressing something in this thread,  Hit me up on Discord and I'll be happy to chat about this topic anytime,

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