derhak%cs.utah.edu@wasatch.utah.edu (Max W. Derhak) (09/08/89)
Hello all! I just thought that I would let you all know that there is a new gadget out that does wonderful things for our favorite computer. It's called a Microreverb II, and is produced by a company called Alesis. It is really only a digital reverb processor, but it makes everything pumped into it sound so totally terrific. About a month ago I was at a friends house, and he has a lot of audio equip- ment, including one of these reverbs. He had it hooked into the same stereo that his computer was hooked up to. My brother wanted to see if his disk of Artic Fox worked on his computer. (It doesn't on ours :-(.) It worked fine, but oh what a difference it made to the intro music. It actually sounded like the sound was comming from an organ IN A CATHEDRAL. We decided to save up our $$$ and get one ourselves. We just got it yesterday and it make just about EVERYTHING sound better. In essence it doubles the effective number of channels that the Amiga has, because even when a voice is finished with a note, the reverb takes the sound out further giving it a little bit loger decay. Meanwhile the voice can start a new note. Thus two notes are being heard from the same voice. In adition it also mixes to a small extent the left and right channels so the sound isn't so polar. We have spent a little time listening to demo's and things. To see how such and such will sound. It greatly improves sounds and instruments which are short and abrupt. One good example is drums. They come alive and sound more like real drums. Music isn't the only thing that is enhansed. Explosions now have DEPTH! The reverm comes with 16 settings which are adjustable with via a mix control. You can also control the input level and output level so it also acts as a pre-amp between the computer and your stereo. By turnig the mix control completely to the left you end up with no change to the audio output, so it's real easy to see the drastic difference this thing makes. The Microreverb II retails for $199, but we got ours on sale locally here for $149. I dont know about mail order prices, but you can only find these little black boxes in places that sell music equipment. We had a troublesome time finding one, because our friend bought his used from someone else. Last of all I'd like to say that I have NO affiliation with Alesis. I'm just a satisfied customer that thinks that this makes the Amiga's sound even better that it already is. ========================================================================== Lekarz THE //\/\ //| \ / # Max Derhak (derhak@cs.utah.edu) :^> od \\ // \ //-| X # Oh Yeah? If you think that was neat Raju! \X/ \// | / \ o wait till you see THIS!
riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) (09/08/89)
In article <3278@wasatch.utah.edu> derhak%cs.utah.edu@wasatch.utah.edu (Max W. Derhak) writes: >I just thought that I would let you all know that there is a new gadget out >that does wonderful things for our favorite computer. It's called a >Microreverb II, and is produced by a company called Alesis. It is really >only a digital reverb processor, but it makes everything pumped into it >sound so totally terrific. Reverb can very effectively hide a lot of defects (especially poor or noisy sample looping, noisy signals, or lack of dynamics). This is well known in sound recording and electronic music. Standard advice for someone shopping for a sampler or synth with a built in reverb is to turn the reverb off before doing any critical evaluation of the sound quality--otherwise, the reverb hides most of the defects. Anyway, I have my Amiga running into a mixing board with a Korg DRV2000 programmable reverb on one of the effects loop, and it is great for livening up those dead sound tracks. Best fun was changing the "room size" when I played Bard's Tale to match the location...now if one of these games just sent midi patch change messages out the serial port whenever you changed location, it could all be automatic. But I don't suppose there's a big constituency for this particular feature :-). -Dan Riley (riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley) -Wilson Lab, Cornell U.
set@xanadu (Scott Townsend) (09/08/89)
In article <3278@wasatch.utah.edu> derhak%cs.utah.edu@wasatch.utah.edu (Max W. Derhak) writes: >Hello all! > >I just thought that I would let you all know that there is a new gadget out >that does wonderful things for our favorite computer. It's called a >Microreverb II, and is produced by a company called Alesis. It is really >only a digital reverb processor, but it makes everything pumped into it >sound so totally terrific. > (details deleted) I haven't done anything with the audio device, but shouldn't it be possible for a new/possibly massively changed audio device to do digital reverb within the machine, instead of buying an add-on? Maybe not quite as great in sound quality, but it could provide some reverb and maybe stereo imaging effects. (speculation) I'm thinking along the lines of audio.device remembering the previous N samples sent to the D/A (somehow in sync with the DMA) and altering the samples yet to some to get the reverb effect. Maybe 8 bits would be too much quantization error in the reverb components. Anyone care to comment? experiment? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Townsend ...!{cwjcc,decvax,pyramid,uunet}!abvax!set Polymath Corporation, currently working for (but not representing) Allen-Bradley Company 747 Alpha Dr. Highland Hts. OH 44143 USA (216) 646-5233
mark@xrtll.UUCP (Mark Vange) (09/11/89)
In article <860@abvax.UUCP>, set@xanadu (Scott Townsend) writes: > > I haven't done anything with the audio device, but shouldn't it be possible > for a new/possibly massively changed audio device to do digital reverb within > the machine, instead of buying an add-on? Maybe not quite as great in sound > quality, but it could provide some reverb and maybe stereo imaging effects. > (speculation) > I'm thinking along the lines of audio.device remembering the previous N samples > sent to the D/A (somehow in sync with the DMA) and altering the samples yet > to some to get the reverb effect. Maybe 8 bits would be too much quantization > error in the reverb components. Anyone care to comment? experiment? The problem is that while you are piping the "reverbed" (I shall call it digested) sound, you must also keep playing the sound which came down the pike more recently. To do this you must either break the sound down into it's spectrum, and do a bit of addition, along with FFT there and back, or you must double your playback rate, and "mix" the new sounds with the old reverbed stuff. The former is probably not practical except in the case of a dedicated playback system because it would be quite CPU intensive. The second is still overly simplified, because the new sound would have to be fed back into the digested signal and mixed with the older stuff, although this could be accomplished by an algorithmic hack rather than the FFT approach, especially if you didn't mind a constant rate of fade. -- Mark Vange Phone Death Threats to: PAS Systems - "Plain and Simple" (416) 730-1352 mark@xrtll 8 Everingham Ct. North York "Every absurdity has a champion Ont, Canada M2M 2J5 to defend it." - Oliver Goldsmith