Yamaha S90XS Manual page 6

that used a transducer (driver) at one end and
second transducer (microphone) at the other...in
between was a large aluminum plate. You sent
signal from the mixing board's aux sends and
returned up to a maximum of 5 seconds of cool
reverb. This was the standard for drums and
percussion "back-in-the-day".
SIMULATOR will help
environment and can teach you about how the
other presets where made. It allows you set
width-height-depth of the walls and the 'wall vary'
lets you set the reflective texture of the surface
from rug to steel. A rug absorbs sound, while the
steel would be highly reflective. Under the SPACE
SIMULATOR you will find several presets that will
give you an idea of just what type of spaces you
can simulate: Tunnel, Basement, Canyon, White
Room, Live Room, and 3 Walls...
When you are thinking about these you must
imagine how each will sound and why. A tunnel,
for example, is long and narrow with reverberant
surface walls; while a basement also has a low
ceiling but probably not much reflection of sound.
A canyon you can picture has no ceiling so it is a
wide-open space with a long reflection and bounce
back. The "Space Simulator" is a starting point –
you configure the space – presets are simply
starting point...
Also important in working with reverb is an
understanding of how it works in the real world.
In most listening situations you are hearing a
certain amount of signal, directly from the sound
source, while the rest of the signal bounces off the
environment you are standing in. If, for example,
you are 30 feet from the stage you will hear a
portion of the sound direct from the stage but
most of it will bounce off of the walls, floor and
ceiling to arrive at your position. Because we
often record and/or amplify musical signal with a
technique called "close-miking", reverb became a
necessary evil (if you will). Close-miking allows us
to isolate a particular sound from others in the
environment but there is a trade off... we lose that
sense of distance and environment. To regain
some of the distancing we use artificial reverb to
do the trick. Recognize that when you put a
different amount of reverb on the snare than you
do on the flute this does not occur in nature. All
the musicians in the same room would naturally
have the same reverberant environment with very
subtle differences due to positioning in the room.
This gets back to the subjective part of the audio
business. SO WHAT? You can use effects to taste.
There is no rule that says everyone has to have
good taste nor do you have to exercise it.
However, keeping a reality check (an idea of what
would happen in the real world), can only help. No
one is saying you cannot create some science-
The SPACE
you design your own
fiction sound environments, of course, you can,
just know when you are doing so!
An important parameter in all the reverbs is the
INITIAL DELAY this is the time before the
reverb receives the signal and can help position
the listener near/far from the instrument source.
The initial delay in any acoustic environment is
the time it takes before the signal reaches a
significant boundary. In a large hall it could be
several hundred
bounces off the back wall. Your ear and brain can
easily recognize this and it gives you a perception
of exactly from where the sound is emanating.
The DRY or unaffected signal travels to your ear
directly, the reverberation begins some short time
after. This can be only a few milliseconds but is
plenty of time for the ear/brain to analyze and
conclude specifics about the environment. When
too many different
occur, the music
unnatural. If that is what you are going for then
this is fine. But if you ever wonder why some
mixes are just better than others – a lot of the
reason has to do with the subtleties of the mix.
And make no mistake the EFFECT processing is a
huge part of this.
The HPF (high pass filters) and LPF (low pass
filters) found within the Effect algorithms are
there to help you shape the reverb signal itself.
There is a rule of thumb here: low frequencies
reverberate less
frequencies tend to hit a surface like a wall and
spread out while high frequencies hit a wall and
bounce right back into the room. This is why,
when you are sitting next door to the party, you
only hear the bass through the wall – all the high
frequency content 'reverberates' and stays in the
source room. So use the HPF (high pass filter) to
allow the highs to pass through to the reverb and
block the lows from reverberating.
bass just adds MUD. MUD here, is not a subjective
term but if it is what you want, go for it (but yuck,
it is mud). Low frequencies don't bounce back
they tend to hug the walls and spread out. If you
want cutting, punchy bass leave the bass "dry"
(without reverb).
The XS Reverb processor features a brand new
effect algorithm
Yamaha "Rev-X" technology. "REV-X" is a whole
new generation of Yamaha Reverb with the richest
reverberation tone and smoothest decay. There
are "Hall", "Room"
Parameters like ROOM SIZE and DECAY envelope
also bring much higher definition and finer
nuance
The number of reflective impulses it uses
.
determines reverb quality ...the higher the number
the more definition and the finer the quality of
sound. It is processor intensive – these are very
6
milliseconds before
unnatural reverberations
becomes confusing
than high frequencies.
Reverb on
set based on the heralded
and "Plate" algorithms.
signal
and
Low