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

[Grappa]

How does something in the real world sound far away? What are its properties?

It tends to have a filtered frequency response, it tends to sound 'small' i.e. more mono, it tends to have limited dynamic range, it tends to have little delay between the source and any environment.

Using the tools you have (EQ, compression, width, ER/reverb) shape the sound accordingly.

The effect is also relative. Having something sound 'up close' (opposite of properties of the above) will allow something else to sound distant.

Have fun with it..

Si

[Drew Stephenson]

What Grappa said ^^^.

Sounds lose more of their high and low frequency component as they get further away (but in slightly different ways) so experiment with hi and lo shelves on your EQ.
And turn it down.

If you do add a reverb:
Keep the pre-delay short so that it seems like both the source and the object are far from you but close to each other.
And EQ the reverb as well.
Try playing with different levels of early reflections vs reverb tail. You might find that just using the early reflections gives you enough of the sense of space without the tail taking up all that bandwidth.

[Grappa]

What Grappa said ^^^.

Sounds lose more of their high and low frequency component as they get further away (but in slightly different ways) so experiment with hi and lo shelves on your EQ.
And turn it down.

If you do add a reverb:
Keep the pre-delay short so that it seems like both the source and the object are far from you but close to each other.
And EQ the reverb as well.
Try playing with different levels of early reflections vs reverb tail. You might find that just using the early reflections gives you enough of the sense of space without the tail taking up all that bandwidth.

Oh yes, forgot the obvious one which is make it quieter

[Kwackman]

200 ft away, sound takes about 200ms.
So, you probably want a reverb with a predelay of 200ms, then choose the rest of the reverb type/length to taste.
You might prefer a simple 200ms delay?

[Wonks]

First thing is to envisage yourself as the listener with you a long way away.

You definitely want any reverb pre-delay set to zero (or a couple of ms at most). The sound is supposed to be coming from far away, so the direct sound and start of the reverb sound will arrive almost simultaneously. A big pre-delay simulates something close to you when the reflections then take the pre-delay ms setting to reach the walls and then back again.

You want a reverb where you can set the early reflections that start almost immediately, but for a big space, the late reflections are going to come pretty late.

A convolution IR may not be the best reverb to choose unless it's recorded a long way from the sound source as the parameters are all fixed by the IR.

Rolling off the top end of the sound on both the direct sound and the reverb will help replicate the normal absorption of the higher frequencies of a sound as it travels through air. The further the distance, the more treble roll off. Here's a calculator to help you. https://sengpielaudio.com/calculator-air.htm

Work out your concert space and where the performer and listener is in relation to them. If the performer is a couple of feet away from the front wall, then the first reflections will come back past the performer about 4ms later.

If the space is 100 feet wide and you're 200 feet away, then the first direct reflections from the side wall will reach you around 6 ms after the direct sound. with indirect and rear-wall reflections following.

You also need to be able to set the room wall-type parameters as this will affect how reflective or absorbing they are, and how much treble will be soaked up during reflection.

If you try and set the reverb parameters and treble loss to match your theoretical space then it helps the ear to believe the sound is coming from a distance. If the sound parameters don't all tie up, then the brain won't correctly hear the sound as being naturally distant.

[Hugh Robjohns]

So, you probably want a reverb with a predelay of 200ms...

Hmmm... probably not a 200ms predelay!

Predelay is adjusting the relative distance between the noise source and reflective surfaces... not between the noise source and listener.

I find the easiest way to comprehend predelays is to think of a source stood right in front of you, both of being in the middle of a large stone walled and floored cathedral.

Time for source sound to reach you? Virtually zero. Time for source sound to reach the walls and bounce back to you? 100ms plus.

Hence introducing a delay between direct sound and the reverb body of 100ms+. So simulating an up-close sound in a big space needs a hefty predelay on the reverb.

The reverb needs to be spaced from the direct sound because the sound is close and the walls are relatively far away. So, use a large predelay.

Alternatively, place the sound source at the opposite end of the cathedral, and the difference between direct and reverb signals is almost nothing, because the direct sound will be bouncing off everything along the way.

The sound source is virtually as far away as the walls, and the direct sound and reverb are relatively instantaneous. So use a very short predelay — as well as less level and less bass and less high treble, and smaller dynamics.

[Geoff Modulate]

There are a few things that make something sound far away, reverb and eq being the two biggest factors.

The further sounds are from you, the darker they sound. Air and the surroundings naturally absorb some of the high frequencies, hence you can hear the bass of a car stereo or an outdoor concert from much further away than the treble. So the direct (unreflected) element of the sound will sound darker and darker the further away from you it is. So roll off some of the high end with an eq.

Then the reverb, namely, the sound hitting a surface and changing before it reaches you. The material it hits determines how it reflects to you, some surfaces will be hugely reflective, others will be hugely damping, and everything in between. Places like churches or tunnels may even focus the sound on you. Then you throw in all the complex interactions that happen when sound waves meet other sound waves over time.

For the space, I'd usually put a reverb as an insert track and mix it very wet. Then if that isn't far enough back, I have a trick called "To the back". And that is to use another much much shorter reverb as another insert before the large space reverb. This usually has the effect of smearing the sound and rolling off a good amount of the high end. Not every reverb can do this as every algorithm is different and some handle it better than others. I find Waves RVerb amazing for this but others can work, esp Lexicon type.

The settings are basically:
Hall algorithm (Ambience can work well too)
0ms predelay
0.1 second (or less) reverb time
Size to 97%
Diffusion to max
Early reflections to near 0
Reverb to 0db
Damping to damp the higher frequencies more
EQ a big 24dB roll off around 1khz up
Mix between 85% and 98% (You only start to hear the effect at about 85% up)

Then I'll mix that in to taste. 100% and it'll sound like it's a festival PA several miles away! Then anywhere in between that and 85% gives you a lovely dark smeared effect. Then your large space reverb gives the effect of it being in a stadium or down a valley or a PA in a park etc.

[Wonks]

200 ft away, sound takes about 200ms.
So, you probably want a reverb with a predelay of 200ms, then choose the rest of the reverb type/length to taste.
You might prefer a simple 200ms delay?

No, not in this instance. A big pre-delay makes the source sound very close to you, but in a big space. You don't hear any reverb before the pre-delay ends, which with a 200ms pre-delay, automatically tells the brain they're close but the walls are far away.

Double the theoretical distance in feet between the performer and the wall they are standing in front of, and that should give you a believable pre-delay value in ms e.g. 6ft = 6 ms pre delay.

[Stuart79]

Sound Particles make a plugin - Air - for the purpose of achieving most of the techniques outlined above. They offer a free 'music edition' of it if you want to give it a go. See here:
https://soundparticles.com/products/air-music-edition

[The Elf]

Narrow the stereo width (or even mono) for the reverb, reduce the highs and lows. Do the same to the dry signal too. Reduce pre-delay to a minimum. Balance the dry and reverb to achieve the effect you want. A multi-tap delay can be a good alternative to reverb, or even added into the reverb send chain.

After that it's often assisted by what else you have in the mix. Make the 'distant' sound relatively quiet in relation to other sounds, and ideally have some dry (or nearly dry) sounds to add contrast.

[alexis]

...and ideally have some dry (or nearly dry) sounds to add contrast.

Sweet, makes great sense, thanks for that, The Elf!