Lexicon PANTHEON, Owner'S Manual

Page: 5 / 16

5
USING REVERB
Music recorded in a typical studio sounds lifeless. In a performance space the music
is enhanced by reverberation, but even in an ideal space capturing that reverberation
can be difficult. Lexicon reverberators solve this problem by enabling you to generate
exactly the reverberance that your recordings call for. The Pantheon Reverb Plug-in is
designed to create, through software, the acoustics of any real or conceivable space.
REVERBERATION AND REALITY
The acoustics of a given space are defined by its reflected energy – that is, the way
sound is reflected and re-reflected from each surface. This is affected by the
dimensions of the space, the complexity or flatness of the surfaces, the frequency
characteristics of each surface’s energy absorption, and the distance and direction of
each surface to the listener. In addition, in large spaces there is a high-frequency roll-
off caused by the sounds passage through air.
It is, in principle, possible to model the reflected energy pattern in a specific
space, either real or imagined, and to reproduce this pattern as closely as possible.
Alternatively, one could measure the reflection pattern from a specific source point in a
real space to a specific receiver position, and reproduce this pattern. One might expect
this technique would yield the most accurate sonic representations of halls and rooms.
Alas, the illusion of reality is not so easily achieved. First, real spaces are themselves
a compromise. Large rooms tend to provide a sense of blend and distance to music,
but provide little warmth and envelopment, and often can make the sound colored or
muddy. Small rooms can provide envelopment, but often the sound can be too clear
and present.
Our solution has been to study the physics and the neurology of human hearing, to
discover the mechanisms by which reflected energy patterns create the useful
perceptions of distance and envelopment, and to discover how to recreate these
perceptions without compromising clarity. Using knowledge of these mechanisms
we can create reverberation algorithms that can give the desired acoustic impressions
– rooms that sound plausibly real, but that give the recording engineer complete
control over the sense of distance and the sense of envelopment. These rooms seem
real, but they are not. They are designed and adjusted by the engineer to the specific
needs of the recording.
REVERB OVERVIEW