Free inspirada lite convolution reverb

I doubt the concert halls I am interested in are in those 9 GB.

Have to say, I see all the controls as valuable - esp. spacial placements or audience position, and staging too. These kinds of tools have progressed well.

The value seems good for upgrading but the size of download (or space on HD) do make me feel happy to keep working with tools I use.

To my mind, this is a tool I'd love to see move from gigabyte samples to pure modelling, and tiny in size, like Pianoteq - then I'd certainly be on it like a vampire!

Thank you Keys, I can already love the plate, and while I think maybe a way to go until as detailed IR as the one posted at top.. pretty good tool, if I didn't feel current tools were as sweet.

I'd be really keen to see those 2 companies work together on a new complete 'crossover' - best of both ends

The Berliner Philarmonie is interesting.
Do you have spatialization in this or it does work like an IR while the rest is only available for upgrades?

That is a masterpiece. I wasn't convinced by the new tech used in this convolution reverb but after I tried the sampled reverbs from the M4 I was mind blown. It really doesn't seem like convolution at all once you dig in the Reverberate interface. One of the best purchases I have ever done.

I tried this one yesterday, really cool sound but the CPU consumption is rather high. Too much for live playing on my 2012 iMAC that I use for Pianoteq I'm afraid.

Cautious, polite and friendly suggestion, to do with as you like: I'd stay away from Inspirata for the time being. Apparently, the free 'lite' version has a number of severe placement and imaging limitations which, in my opinion, no spatializer, not even a free one, should suffer from.

I say 'apparently' because, while I did sign up for, and received a download link (plus code) for the software, I never installed it. I deleted the download link after watching and listening to all the product videos and hearing a few early user examples: very, very poor and problematic sound in all of them, I thought. So far, I haven't heard Inspirata do a single thing that can't be done *much* better with other software.

From what I read, getting this thing to work on your computer is no walk in the park either. Several people who have tried, have reported of broken downloads, faulty installers and/or plugins that don't get validated ... I'm sure these things will get solved (maybe they're solved already), and not everyone has been unsuccessful in installing the software, but I only mention it so that you know that, at the moment, it's not a certainty that your 60 gig (or whatever it is) slow download will result in something useable.

And the question remains: is Inspirata, in its current shape, actually worth the trouble? Me, I really don't think so. Like I said, nothing of what I heard so far sounds even moderately appealing, let alone good, to my ears. Most of it sounds worryingly bad actually.

Also: to my knowledge, there is, at the moment, only one serious convolution-based spatializer which more or less manages to avoid the many sonic pitfalls of IR-based spatialization, and that's VSL's MIR (Pro) software. All the others — including Inspirata, from what I can tell — struggle, in varying degrees, with phase- and imaging problems, and that's not something that you want your spatializer to struggle with because it'll completely ruin your mix.

I hope that, in time, Inspirata becomes another good piece of spatialization software, worthy of joining the ranks of a.o. IrcamSPAT, MIR or 2cAudio's software, but I honestly don't think it's there yet. And the big thing with spatialization software is this: if it isn't totally excellent, convincing and sonically reliable, then it's completely hazardous and should be avoided. There's no acceptable middle ground with these things.

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Florian,

I’m surprised that SpaceDesigner is such a disappointment to you. It shouldn’t be, as it’s a pretty good convolution reverb, with LOTS of options to adjust the character and sound of the reverberation. Of course, not all the included IR’s will suit Pianoteq — and I must also add that there’s something about Pianoteq’s sound, I can’t put my finger on it, which can sometimes make it quite a challenge for any reverb, even among the best ones, to wrap a nice sounding, believable space around a PTQ acoustic piano —, but there must be at least a dozen or two that should give very agreeable results, I should think.
(I don’t know if the version of SpaceDesigner in MainStage is the same as the one in Logic however. I’m only familiar with the latter.)

But to avoid any misunderstanding: we need to distinguish here — very important — between reverb and spatialization. Reverb, simply put, is the (audible) response of a room when sound is produced inside it. Spatialization is much more than that (and also a lot more complicated to simulate artificially): it not only covers the reverberation, but also deals with the placement of the source sound in the room (left to right, front to back) AND the way the reverberation changes depending on the location of the sound source in the room and the location of the listener/microphones. (In advanced spatialization software, like for example Ircam SPAT, you even have parameters to set the orientation of the sound source, plus the width and radius of its projection, and lots more.)

I’m fairly sure that Inspirata includes enough good IR’s to cover the reverberation aspect of spatialization in a wholly satisfying way. It’s the placement aspect which, so far, I haven’t heard any convincing examples of. And given that Inspirata makes some bold claims in this regard, I was rather unimpressed by what I’ve heard thus far, I must say. Still, if you’re pleased with it, that’s the only thing that matters of course. Mine is just one person’s opinion. (And the problem with my opinion is that I’m an enthusiastic and excited SPAT user of many years and that every other software, there are no exceptions, which says to offer similar functionality is doomed to compare disfavourably with it.)

If SpaceDesigner keeps disappointing you: there are numerous excellent software reverbs available these days. Way too many to even make a useful shortlist, I’m afraid. The good news is though that, these days, even very affordable reverb software produces surprisingly good results. And I also want to underline the fact that understanding reverb — its various components and what they each contribute to the illusion of ‘sound in a space’ —, and being thoroughly familiar with all the parameters, plus knowing how to apply reverb in a mix, makes a much bigger difference to the result than the actual software one uses.

Which brings me back to the beginning: if you like, we can search together for a way to make SpaceDesigner work for you. If you’re able to post an audio example of what you’re trying to accomplish with it, perhaps I might be able to make some suggestions on how to achieve what you’re going for? Can’t promise anything, but we might as well give it a try, no? (It’s also much more useful, I believe, to discuss reverb starting from an audio example and the specific problems it highlights, rather than just exchanging opinions, preferences and experiences.)

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