How to Easily make Reverb Impulse Responses

[@NickLeonard]

Did you test out these IR's, or maybe make your own? Let me know here and feel free to share your creations on my Discord!

[@1music_1mic]

Thanks! What a neat, effective way to record IR. Now, people are going to wonder why I'm popping balloons around the city 😂

[@sundojosan]

This was extremely helpful! I'm also a reaper user and it's nice to know there's stock IR support.

[@fuzzix]

Great explainer, Nick - thanks for sharing! I also have an old Zoom H2 on hand, so going to give this a try later this evening. I can clap fairly loudly, but don't have a lot of balloons ... Was trying to think of other ways to make LOUD impulses. Slapping two halves of a leather belt came to mind. I just walked into my bathroom and flicked the door with a tea towel - that might be a winner. Cheers!

[@SamiJumppanen]

Really good introduction to the topic! Really well presented. As a Reaper (Linux) user: 1: coming from early 90's "bedroom techno" studio (basic hardware mix, no audio tracks, reverb/delay somewhere, really simple) 2: continued with 90's PC software with limited CPU power (good way to enforce hardware world lessons on software - you don't have 10 reverbs, only one or two!) 3: 2020 and reborn bigger recycled hardware studio with recycled computer and still low budget -> free OS and Reaper! So... I'm not browsing a lot to pick out VSTs to solve a problem, because 9/10 they won't run on Linux anyway. ReaVerbate is nice for some things but often very tricky to finetune to get a good sound. For reasons I don't know it tends to have different/unpleasant ring on the right channel. Might not notice with subtle use but dedicating it to a hard snare or claps, it shows the unwanted features that require more tweaking with EQs. It's time to start exploring ReaVerb and IR. My beginner questions have always been: can ReaVerb do everything? I mean, can it sound really professional? Can I get big smooth reverbs for cinematic/ambient music use and how about the female vocals we're doing? Does it need an expensive IR reverb or is it more about the IR files? This is why I'm here. Demystifying needed! This was an excellent start. Thank you.

[@NickLeonard]

ReaVerb can be limited, but I just use it with IR's, and as far as I know it works just fine for running IR's, the same as any loader. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of some others, but you can always send your source to a new track with ReaVerb, then use other plugins to further tweak the reverb, eq, compression, etc.

[@SamiJumppanen]

@@NickLeonard yes I'll experiment soon. I already have some ideas :)

[@LetsTalkAboutReaper]

Excellent video, love your delivery and teaching method! I need to capture my drum room...

[@NickLeonard]

Thanks, you should do it! You already have plenty of mics around there, just pop a balloon

[@EasyHeat]

Really digging the content dude. Very well done. Cheers!

[@NickLeonard]

Thanks, Jason!

[@metalprognosis]

I learnt a lot from this video! Great examples and explanations.

[@NickLeonard]

Glad you liked it, Lee!

[@someoneelse1534]

Honestly the Reaper plugins are some of the best available, not flashy and over-the-top like a lot of high end VSTs. Just functional.

[@tobrsun]

I think what sound you use as an exciter db wise while keeping mind of transient length matters when things seem too dry, also what atmosphere you're trying to record and the limits of your convolution reverb software/hardware, so I try all the sounds I know of that create an impulse response whether it be white noise, bubble wrap, quickly descending in pitch sine waves and sounds alike, first time I heard of balloon popping so thank you for the extra sound to try!, hopefully these tips help with your IRs as well!✌🏼

[@kevingregoire2764]

Thanx for the vid Seth Rogan : )

[@NickLeonard]

take that back 😂

[@sendforacar9323]

Did I miss something? So to create an IR I just make a smaple of a balloon popping in a room and upload that sample to something that excepts IRs?

[@NickLeonard]

Aside from trimming the start and end, that's it! The complex and accurate method would be to play a sine sweep from a really flat full range speaker into a microphone and then deconvolve that file. That's what companies like Altiverb do, but it's a lot more setup and expensive equipment

[@fonesrphunny7242]

I watched like 5 videos about this, but only thanks to this comment I figured out how easy it is. I casually recorded some claps in a big empty room, moved the mic around a bit and mixed two near identical claps together in stereo. Now I got an awesome delay. I'll try again with two identical mics, but I'm honestly pretty happy already. It's so stupidly easy, it's almost criminal!

[@wendigo2442]

Why am I popping all these balloons? Well, I'm gay

[@EugeneHoverhand]

Based

[@svendtveskg5719]

There is nothing in any "IR" that you can't do in a tenth of the time with an ordinary plug-in or outboard reverb machine.

[@zynthio]

That's both not true, and besides the point of it all. But if you missed that, you could've just said you don't get it and moved on. Real life spaces have very distinctive sounds to them that aren't the same as ordinary reverb plugins or gear. He wasn't making IRs of anything particularly special in this video, tone wise at least, but this was more of a tutorial on how to do it anyway. Plus those IRs are special to him personally, because they are spaces from his personal life, so those sounds are special to him while to you they seem like "nothing". There are many IRs of famous spaces that have an incredible sound that you absolutely can't match with "ordinary" plugins or gear - such as famous concert venues or studios, ancient cathedrals and churches, castles, massive tunnels and caves, etc. And even places that hold the world record for the longest man-made reverberation.