Wizooverb or Gigapulse?

[vansonik]

Hello,
I'm going to pickup an impulse reverb. I have tried the demo for Wizooverb and like it alot. Comparing it to the IR in Kontakt 2 I felt it had a warmer sound. It was a little more CPU intensive but not overly so. Also it operated without a glitch and has a couple very nice settings for grand piano one IR and the other Algo.
Apparently there is no demo for Gigapulse can anyone give me a comparison of these two reverbs before I pull the trigger?
There are great deals on both these currently $94 for Wizooverb and $69 for Gigapulse at scitscat.com + shipping.
Regards,
Kev Sipe

[dvincent]

Wizooverb makes a great reverb. I own both the W2 and the W5. Both convolution and algorithmic reverbs sound great and being able to mix and match creates a superb level of editing available to the user. Unfortunately the rumor is that M-Audio/Digi (recently bought Wizoo) is not going to continue support for Wizooverb. This may not be an issue if you aren't planning an upgrade in the next year or two. You will definitely get your $94 worth out of it.

IMO the W2 is about as good sounding as Altiverb. It also does "true stereo" so you can place your sounds in the sound field authentically. It is very stable, too.

I have never used Gigapulse. Sorry - Mac based studio :)

[vansonik]

Thanks DV,
I'm going to buy the Wizooverb it does sound excellent. Thanks for your input!

[panzerD]

Unfortunately the rumor is that M-Audio/Digi (recently bought Wizoo) is not going to continue support for Wizooverb.

Where did you hear of this rumor?

[dvincent]

There is a thread on the Unicornation forum discussing reverbs. After Wizooverb was given several positive user reviews someone wrote about recently talking to an M-Audio rep. The rep said the product will no longer be supported. Again, this is forum rumor, but with Digi's track record for continued product support this should be taken with some consideration. It is suspicious that Wizooverb is being offered at close-out pricing.


I do hope this is only rumor as Wizooverb is an excellent reverb. Just consider that if you are thinking of making a computer upgrade soon - especially to MacIntel - you may want to wait a little to see what plays out.

[Raindog]

There is a thread on the Unicornation forum discussing reverbs. After Wizooverb was given several positive user reviews someone wrote about recently talking to an M-Audio rep. The rep said the product will no longer be supported. Again, this is forum rumor, but with Digi's track record for continued product support this should be taken with some consideration. It is suspicious that Wizooverb is being offered at close-out pricing.


I do hope this is only rumor as Wizooverb is an excellent reverb. Just consider that if you are thinking of making a computer upgrade soon - especially to MacIntel - you may want to wait a little to see what plays out.

I just emailed M-Audio in Germany. Unfortunately there are NO plans to provide a universal binary version of WizooVerb W2 (and W5). They say that the demand is too low.
A phantastic product buried by the marketing department. What a shame.
Regards
Raindog

[spallen]

[quote=dvincent] Wizooverb makes a great reverb. I own both the W2 and the W5. Both convolution and algorithmic reverbs sound great and being able to mix and match creates a superb level of editing available to the user.

I'd appreciate some advice. I just bought Wizooverb W2 and W5 bundle for $99 (yes -- both for $99!). I originally only considered W2 but now I have W5 as well. I don't work in 5.1 -- only stereo, being a very amateur hobbyist musician. So my questions are: Will W5 do stereo as well as 5.1? Is there more to W5 than 5.1 to justify using it over W2? Or, should I only install W2 for now and figure out what to do with W5 later?

Scott

[dvincent]

W5 is for 5.1. If you are doing stereo only you should use W2. W5 can do a stereo fold down, but you will be using more processing power to achieve similar results.

[spallen]

Thanks dVincent. I have both coming and thought that I would install the more powerful of the two --- i.e. W5 -- assuming it would offer more advantages than 'just' 5.1. But if W5 uses significantly more CPU than W2 for stereo, and does not offer much more horsepower, then that may be the clincher for me. I'll probably install W2 and decide what to do with W5 later. Thanks for the advice.

[PeterRoos]

Can or do convolution plugins really sound different?

I can hardly believe this.

The core of the convolution process consists of CPU-intensive floating point calculations, multiplying each consecutive sample in the input with samples from the IR. This process can hardly create any vendor-specific coloration.

Maybe they apply subtle EQ-ing to the output?

That would be risky business IMO, when the plugin should be transparent and meant for a multitude of applications, not just orchestral, real-acoustic, etc.

Maybe time for some A/B comparisons under "laboratory conditions"?

[Csaba Huszty]

Yes they may sound different, because some of the convolution reverbs do intensive simulations to save CPU.

Some of them seem to do simulations on the tail part only, while some change the ER part as well.

In my experience, there are 2 good ways to check what's going on.

1: Create/generate an impulse response with a regular reverb, load it in the convolution-reverb-under-test and reverberate a spike. Compare the results sample-by-sample. If they're different, you can start checking the details. Below -300 dBFS, you'll probably find calculation errors, so you can ignore that. Use 32-bit float wave file or double precision if available.

2: If you can't load your test impulse response into your convolution engine to test, pick a relatively long IR (e.g. a church) in your engine and reverberate a spike. Now observe the spectrogram of the resulting impulse response. If you see vertical lines somewhere, that might be a clue. (You may want to set the dynamics of the spectrogram display to somewhere like 300 dB.)

But simple algorithms that produce real convolution, without further tricks to save CPU will generate the same output for the same input and IR.

[PeterRoos]

Thanks for the reflections! ;)

I have started a kind of "study" project to find an appropriate statistical method for describing the similarity of nearly equal short wave forms (that is, IRs). If I can find a good method, I hope to be able to analyse differences and similarities between different plugins using the same IRs (by deconvoluting sine sweeps through them) and also to compare IRs from different vendors based on the same reverb device.

Cheers,

(I have a background in data analysis, hence the idea)

[Rogles]

I just got the Wizooverb2/5.1 combo deal the other day, and I must say I'm blown away. The only reverbs I've ever used before are the cheap ones that came with my various software, so this was a wonderful surprise! It doesn't seem to muddy the sound as much as the other reverbs I've used, and it really helps make it sound like my sampled intruments were professionally recorded live. I can't believe I've gone this long without it.

[Gamera]

I just emailed M-Audio in Germany. Unfortunately there are NO plans to provide a universal binary version of WizooVerb W2 (and W5). They say that the demand is too low.
A phantastic product buried by the marketing department. What a shame.
Regards
Raindog
More accurately, buried by low demand. No company that wants to stay in business is going to continue making a product at a loss, no matter how great a few people think it is.

- G