How to create distance without using lots of reverb?

[Jakob Valentine]

Hi!

I need to make an instrument sound like it's far away, but without it echoing everywhere. Sort of like im playing a big outdoors arena with a wall behind me and the listener is a couple hundred feet away. The closest i've gotten is with an impulse response of a church, which they captured by standing sixty or so feet away from the sound source. Heres what i got, first dry and then with the convo-reverb IR: https://youtu.be/yK3ZnBsEyYs

Even then it still sounds too cluttered/muddy because the reverb is too echoic. I'm thinking about getting the BOOM Outdoor Fields & Spaces IRs and trying with those, even though they're expensive.
Is a good convo-verb the best bet or am i missing something?

Happy day!

/Jakob

[whyterabbyt]

I'd suggest starting with a free (or demo) convolver and some free outdoor IRs in case they dont do what you want them to.

[legendCNCD]

What happens to the sound when it is going away from you into the distance?

[DCrown]

Attenuate the highs with eq

[justin3am]

High frequencies don't travel as far, given the same energy, as low frequencies. Low passing can have the effect of making something sound more distant or obstructed. Distant sounds are also more directional, they don't usually sound like they are coming from all around you, so panning and reducing stereo width can be another technique.

[lfm]

The example is not far away at all IMO.
- use pre-fader send on 0 dB or so and drag direct signal with fader down to liking
- really get feeling of far away in a cathedral type of space
- the automate fader to make dry stronger to come towards you

This is the only way to make wet signal above dry enough.

Then to give direction a plugins like Waves S1 to narrow stereo field.
- I use a lot on leslie that are too wide to narrow down to a spot like 1100-1400 hours or so.

https://www.waves.com/plugins/s1-stereo-imager

Other cool plugins to make 3D images is Wavearts Panorama
https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/panorama-7

I use only early reflections part where you can design a space and also material in walls, floor and ceiling etc. You can also design a wall like open space like from a stage.

The reverb part it has is generic and not based on the space you designed. So I just ignore that part.

A couple of ideas....

[elxsound]

The surroundings/environment determine the amount of reverb needed to recreate distance.

In a large open area, a single gun shot can ring out for a very long time and it can be hard to determine position. I think movies capture this well (in open areas) and often use this to exaggerate the idea of distance even when it makes less sense.

In a dense city, with buildings around, a single gun shot or a large bang, the decay time is very short and as others have mentioned, it is more directional and there’s less high frequency.

You don’t need an impulse response for this, unless you want to recreate a specific environment the IR captures.

So the first place I’d start with is, try thinking of where the instrument will be placed. Is it a big arena? If that’s true, the sound is designed to reverberate and the sound will likely be stereo with a medium decay. High frequency won’t drop off as much. Now if you’re behind a wall… maybe you went to concession stand, if so it’s mostly bass you’ll hear. If you’re just in a private booth, the executive boxes, you’re back to direct sound with filtering for removing high frequencies.

[Shabdahbriah]

Other cool plugins to make 3D images is Wavearts Panorama
https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/panorama-7

+1

[Uncle E]

Even then it still sounds too cluttered/muddy because the reverb is too echoic.

It sounds like you ought to be looking for more of an amphitheater IR, not a church IR. In your example, the IR needs to be mixed even louder to create the effect you're looking for, but you're right that doing that with the church IR will sound echoic.

[lobanov]

Panagement is similar to Wavearts Panorama and it has a free version.
Just disable the reverb if you don't need it.

Also look at Eareverb 2.

[legendCNCD]

High frequencies don't travel as far, given the same energy, as low frequencies. Low passing can have the effect of making something sound more distant or obstructed. Distant sounds are also more directional, they don't usually sound like they are coming from all around you, so panning and reducing stereo width can be another technique.

This is what I was asking yes.

[cthonophonic]

TDR Proximity might be helpful for distance filtering as well, if it works on your system:

https://www.tokyodawn.net/proximity/

And there's a free version of Sound Particles Air that does distance filtering:

https://soundparticles.com/products/air-music-edition

These won't give you the slap echo of a wall behind you or any early reflections you might get in a real space, but you might be able to build something convincing in combination with a delay and simple reverb.

If you are going the IR route, most convolution reverbs allow you to shape the tail, fading it out or even cutting it off completely. So if you have an IR with a transient and early reflections that you like, you can use this shaping to adjust the tail amplitude. I agree with Uncle E that a church IR is probably not the best starting point for simulating the sound of an arena.

Here's an outdoor IR I recorded recently that might be adapted to your use case.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7hxrvoj1 ... 8r4ax&dl=0

The source just happens to be about 200 ft away, standing on top of a short cliff with some rocky hills rising up right behind. It has a lot of echo from the hills (that was the point of recording it, after all), but with some shaping, it might make a passable arena.

[osiris]

Panagement, Ambeo or Dear VR (used to be free). You can find Ambeo if you look hard enough. Sennheiser put it out and it works. Will also work for height.

[ROTMetro]

The further the distance, the less 'information' that comes across, so a bit of bitcrushing on top of the other tools discussed can help give the impression of distance.

[DJErmac]

I created a distance simulator using Bluecat’s plugins stacker tool a couple of days ago.
I started by making an EQ that, to my ears, sounded like a very very distant sound, without any body, any high frequencies detail. No scientific rules, only what I heard when comparing to natural sounds.
Then I applied a transient killer.
And I programmed two reverbs, very, very short, that simply seem to make the higher frequencies appear after the body of the sound (what happens indeed in real life if I remember well).
I added a stereo to mono plugin, full mono for full distance.

Then I simply programmed macros to make everything progressive. Works great.

Hope this helps.