Garritan Ambience dialog box

How to get there

From the MIDI/Audio menu, choose Instrument Setup > VST Instruments. From the FX drop-down menu for one bank of channels, choose Ambience Reverb, then click the Adjacent Edit button.

What it does

From the Garritan documentation:

“Reverberation describes the phenomenon that occurs when a sound is made in an ambient space. Whenever a sound is produced it radiates in all directions in that space. When these radiated sounds hit a surface such as a wall or the ceiling, the sound is either reflected or absorbed. Our ears and our brain recognize these signals and let us know about the type and size of space we are in. Much in the same way as the acoustical space adds a great deal to the music, reverb can impart that certain three-dimensional ambient sound to sampled instruments. Reverb can also help smooth out the sounds of the instruments and cause them to blend together in the mix. Of all the effects that can be applied to music, reverb is perhaps the most widely used since it emulates the sound that's literally heard everywhere around us. The Ambience™ Reverb plug-in is an excellent-sounding reverb that rivals the quality of some of the best commercial reverbs. Ambience allows you to simulate the reverberation of a concert hall and other performance spaces. Included with Ambience are customized presets that were designed for the instruments of Garritan Personal Orchestra. These presets include concert halls, a cathedral, ballrooms, parlors, halls, and other performance spaces. You can also design your own spaces with Ambience.”

• Gating: Amount • Attack • Release. These controls affect how the reverb follows the dynamics of the audio input and can generate some interesting effects. These effects aren’t suitable for naturally sounding reverb, although they can be useful for experimental music.
• Decay: Time • Diffusion • Hold. The Time dial controls the time it takes for the reverb reflections to fade away into silence. Diffusion has a subtle effect on the sound, especially noticeable with small room sizes. The Hold button will freeze the reverb at its current sound, holding it indefinitely until you press it again. This is useful for creating a pad from a plucked instrument. (This could produce interesting effects when used with the gater.)
• Shape: Size • Predelay • Width • Quality/CPU • Variation. The Size dial controls the size of the room. Note that long reverb time and small room sizes do not mix well. For natural sounds, a large room size, such as a concert hall, should be accompanied by a long reverb time, and vice verse. Predelay is the amount of time between the direct sound and the first of the reverb reflections. It is pre-delay that defines our perception of the size of the room. The Width dial controls the stereo spread from mono (0%) all the way to a wide stereo (100%). It is recommended this be set close to 100%. The Quality/CPU dial allows you to trade off reverb quality for CPU usage. High quality = high CPU usage. If there is too much CPU demand on your machine, try turning down the quality. You can make fun effects if you set it very low (try it). The Variation dial can create a new variant of the same room. If there is some annoying echo or ringing in the reverb that bugs you, adjust this control until you find a desirable variation. (If a problem still persists, try raising the Quality/CPU too.)
• EQ. These controls allow you to put equalizer effects on the reverb. They can be useful for cutting away bass that can otherwise make the reverb sound muddy. They can also help to simulate the roll-off in response at high frequencies characteristic of most concert halls.
• Damping. The Damping section affects how the reverb's character develops over time as it decays. Use it to control the decay time of bass and treble.
• Dry. This slider controls the volume of direct (unprocessed) sound. When using Ambience as a send effect, set this parameter to -inf.
• Wet. This slider controls the volume of the processed reverberant sound.

See Also:

Aria Player

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