Ambience High Quality Reverb

Author : Magnus Jonsson

E-mail : magnus@smartelectronix.com
Web
: http://www.smartelectronix.com/~magnus/
Ambience is donationware. This means that you are kindly
asked to send some money to me if you like it or make any
profit using it. Send as much as you think it is worth and
you can afford. There is -lots- of work behind Ambience,
and much of that work has not been fun at all, so this
would really be very appreciated. Even a small donation
would mean a lot.
You can donate money on the home page via paypal. You can
also contact me via email if you cannot use paypal for
some reason.
The demo version of Ambience will show a nag screen every
time you open the editor, but is fully functional otherwise.
After I have received your donation, I will send back a
version that is without nag screen. And a big thank you of
course :-)
--------------------------------------INSTALLATION
Move Ambience.dll to your VST plugins folder.
--------------------------------------MINI TUTORIAL
First check out the presets! See QUALITY below if it
takes too much CPU on your machine.
The main knobs and sliders you need to know are:
- DRY
Gain of direct (unprocessed) sound. To use Ambience as
a send effect, set this to -inf.
- WET
Gain of processed sound.
- TIME
The time it takes for the reverb echoes to die out.
- SIZE
The size of the room. Note that long reverb time
and small room size don't mix well. For natural
sounds, a small room size should be acoompanied by
a short reverb time, and vice verse.
- PREDELAY
Amount of delay between the direct sound and the onset
of the first echoes.
- WIDTH
All the way from mono (0%) to wide stereo (100%).
Probably you will want this one at 100% all the time.
- QUALITY
This knob allows you to trade off reverb quality for

CPU usage. High quality <=> high cpu usage. You can
make fun effects if you set it very low (try it!).
- VARIATION
This button creates a new variant of the same room.
If there's some annoying echo/ringing in the reverb
that bugs you, hit this button a few times until
you find a variation that you like. If it still
sounds bad to you, try raising the QUALITY too.
More advanced controls:
The best way to learn these is probably by trying them out
and experimenting yourself, but i will give some hints.
- The DAMPING section
This affects how the reverb's character develops over
time as it decays. Use it to control the decay time of
bass and treble. In normal rooms, bass and especially
treble decay quicker than the mid range.
- The EQ section
This is like putting a big equalizer on the reverb. And
in fact it is :) It's mostly useful for cutting away bass
that can otherwise make the reverb sound muddy.
- The GATING section
If you want natural reverb, abandon this section at once!
Otherwise if you are in an experimental mood, you may use
this one to make the reverb follow the dynamics of the
audio input. Can be useful if you want to preserve rhythm
while still having a very wet reverb.
- HOLD
When you press this, the reverb will freeze at it's current
sound, holding it indefinitely until you press it again.
Great if you want to create a lush pad from a plucked string
or a hihat or whatever you can imagine. Try combining with
the gater.
- DIFFUSION
This knob has a very subtle effect on the sound. It is
especially noticable with small room sizes.
--------------------------------------THANKS TO
- these people for helping me make Ambience,
Gfx dsgn: Sean Evans - http://www.littlekittenspacegirl.com/
Gfx code: Bram de Jong - http://www.smartelectronix.com/~bram/
Mac port: Marc Poirier - http://www.smartelectronix.com/~destroyfx/
- all beta testers,
- everyone who has sent presets and donations,
- and my wonderful girlfriend :-)
--------------------------------------I hope you will like Ambience!
If you find a bug, please let me know, and I'll try to fix it

asap.
Best wishes
- Magnus
Legal:
Ambience demo is free for inclusion in any packages that
are not distributed for profit. In all other cases, for
example if you want to include Ambience on a cover CD,
contact me.