VASI Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted January 20, 2014 Report Share Posted January 20, 2014 Text explanation here: Steven Slate's company Slate Digital have enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame over the past few years. This is in no small part due to their great products like the Virtual Tape Machines, Virtual Console Collection and Virtual Bus Compressors but it's also because they like to get people excited about their releases. Their latest announcement ahead of the Winter NAMM exhibition in Anaheim, California, is their Virtual Microphone System, the second big announcement in three months (the first being the Virtual Mix Rack plug-in). So, what do we know about the Virtual Microphone System? Well, it allegedly recreates the colour and character of some of the most beloved classic mics and mic preamps in recording industry. The system is a hybrid of hardware and software, using a sonically neutral mics and preamp/converter and a physical modeling process to recreate the sound of various mics and preamps. This is achieved by not only modeling the frequency response, but also the harmonics, saturations and any other non-linearities in the mic/preamp combinations. There are two mics included in the system: the ML1 large-diaphragm condenser and the ML2 small-diaphragm condenser. There's also the VMS two-input mic preamp with A-D converter, the output of which is processed by the VMS plug-ins. The VMS preamp and converter has both AES and S/PDIF digital outputs so it can be connected to most audio interfaces easily, and also sports analogue output if you don't have a digital input on your audio interface. The VMS software can be used as a plug-in in its own right or can be loaded into the (as yet unreleased) Virtual Mix Rack plug-in. http://www.soundonsound.com/news?NewsID=16860 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There have been a handful of companies with preamps designed to imitate the characteristics of different microphones. I'm not convinced it can work -- I'd like to see a plug-in that could take a $98 Shure SM58 and make it sound exactly like a $3000 Neumann U87 -- but I don't doubt there are ways to manipulate a lot of characteristics to make a microphone sound different. But I also think there are some intangible qualities to a microphone that are hard to quantify and equally hard to measure, so I don't think this will be practical or easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 It will probably be a step forward from the Line6 etc attempts to make a cheap dynamic sound like a pre-WWII LDC if only because they provide the mic for the system. My guess, based on other Slate products, is that it will sound very good, and audiophiles will argue about how accurate the imitations are with various sound sources, but the main thing this system will be is FAST. The producer will be able to sit in the CR during a rehearsal and run thru mic choices w/o having to have several different mics set up and subbed in by an assistant. The question is how many people will go for this technique--mic, position and preamp combo is at the heart of recording engineer mojo. philp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Karlsson Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 If I'm reading this right, it looks like the system comes with two condenser mics (one large and one small diaphragm), so it's not really claiming to make an SM58 into a U87. I still agree with Marc in that I'm not convinced that this will work. That said I own and use Steven Slate's Drums and Virtual Console, which are both very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olle Sjostrom Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 It's interesting Philip that you mention this would be "Fast". To me, having choices in the studio and hearing different versions of recorded sounds only ends up being more time consuming. The "benefit of doubt"... Not a benefit in my book really. Especially not when it comes to commercial projects, or projects with an uncertain/in- or less experienced directors/producers. Most of the time when I'm mixing for the cinema, I'll be doing short films. When Altiverb came out it was a blessing in disguise. Often times I'd sit by myself and decide over a reverb and the characteristics of it, and try to not say anything about the modularity of it. Most of these directors can be very picky about those kinds of things. Or the sound of one footstep or whatever. To me, having a lot of choices in the studio only makes for more confusion and hair ripping as people less and less will be able to make up their minds and know what they like. Well well... something something archers something Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkautzsch Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 There was a plug-in called "Mic Modeler" a few years ago. You could set a source mic, and a destination mic. It did IMHO indeed model a few mics' "character traits" quite well when fed by a good SDC (ie. not a lot of colour in the source sound). One could do some creative stuff with it too. The key to realistic mic modeling is using a clean "source" mic. Which a 58 certainly isn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze Frias Posted January 21, 2014 Report Share Posted January 21, 2014 In theory, it all makes sense. In practice, I'm not too sure it will portray all the intricacies of every combination as presented. I am curious enough about it, and will definitely look further into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Ear Posted January 22, 2014 Report Share Posted January 22, 2014 I'm skeptical they could actually model all of the things that make a Mic sound the way it does. I don't see how they could model transient response for example. However, i suppose a sonic signature close to the desired Mic may be close enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted January 22, 2014 Report Share Posted January 22, 2014 There was a plug-in called "Mic Modeler" a few years ago. You could set a source mic, and a destination mic. It did IMHO indeed model a few mics' "character traits" quite well when fed by a good SDC (ie. not a lot of colour in the source sound). One could do some creative stuff with it too. The key to realistic mic modeling is using a clean "source" mic. Which a 58 certainly isn't. Although... I bet it might be possible to take a U87 and degrade it enough to make it sound like an SM58. So it's possible if you start off at a very high level, it might be possible to make certain microphones sound like other microphones. I wouldn't want to make a U87 sound like a 416 or a U47 or something like that, though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olle Sjostrom Posted January 22, 2014 Report Share Posted January 22, 2014 I'll say "great! I'm taking it!" when you can use one mic on the boom pole, then have it change polarity and response live on set. Or maybe not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prahlad Strickland Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 He also models the way the different mic's compress and saturate at different frequencies. Theres a bunch of test files of it over on gearslutz, pretty impressive. Not sure I will bother as I have a lot of original vintage mic's, but I was very impressed. http://www.gearslutz.com/board/namm-2014/899723-namm-2014-slate-digital-introduces-virtual-microphone-system-21.html there are downloads from slate there, he said he's going to be modelling all the field recorders preamps / lavalier / shotgun mic's to in the interest of ADR studios. Which i'd be interested in as I do a lot of ADR work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Ear Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 there are downloads from slate there, he said he's going to be modelling all the field recorders preamps / lavalier / shotgun mic's to in the interest of ADR studios. Which i'd be interested in as I do a lot of ADR work. That sounds cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaymz Posted January 23, 2014 Report Share Posted January 23, 2014 Are the specs of the mics and preamp/AD listed anywhere on their site? Can't find them anywhere. Perhaps not until the official release... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prahlad Strickland Posted January 25, 2014 Report Share Posted January 25, 2014 Are the specs of the mics and preamp/AD listed anywhere on their site? Can't find them anywhere. Perhaps not until the official release... No not yet, but will be soon. I know the preamps modelled for sure are, SSL, Neve, API, the usual tube suspects, then the usual dynamic studio mic's (sm57, 58 etc) and the condensers like the U47, U67, 251 etc I won't be selling my U47 or M49's, but it is a very interesting idea record a flat frequency mic and change it's signature to any of the above and more as he adds profiles for them. In a way his profiles are just EQ / multiband compression / harmonic distortion (on a frequency selective scale) so it would be a great tool for post production work to be able to flip through a bunch of different profiles to have a voice sit nicely in a mix. it's either that... or it's going to be crap. haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccsnd Posted January 26, 2014 Report Share Posted January 26, 2014 LOL he uses the raven in his demo. This is actually a pretty awesome system though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted January 27, 2014 Report Share Posted January 27, 2014 I don't see how they could model transient response for example. AFAIK, that shouldn't be a problem if they're using neural networks. The problem would be similar to sorting out reverb from direct sound, which neural nets are doing these days… a lot better than any algorithmic or building-block approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted January 31, 2014 Report Share Posted January 31, 2014 AFAIK, that shouldn't be a problem if they're using neural networks. The problem would be similar to sorting out reverb from direct sound, which neural nets are doing these days… a lot better than any algorithmic or building-block approach. Removing reverb is not the goal - you'd expect to have a dead or controlled vocal booth to record in. As for transient response, that is the easy/linear part of the model. The transient response is "removed" from the source mic with a convolution, and then the target response is added with another. The two can be done in one step as well. Where it gets interesting is the non-linear parts - that's the compression and harmonics. The Focusrite liquid channel (circa 2008) models those with dynamic convolution - taking a frequency response at lots of different signal levels, and switching between them seamlessly as the input signal level changes. There are numerous patents on this, which is why you don't see it copied in other products. Antares was the first company I know to do the linear modelling part, they worked with us to put Mic Modelling in the TASCAM SX-1 Workstation and DM-24 digital mixer. (circa 2002), that they'd released as the AMM-1 box (circa 2001) and plugin (circa 2000) Tom (TASCAM) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted January 31, 2014 Report Share Posted January 31, 2014 I'll say "great! I'm taking it!" when you can use one mic on the boom pole, then have it change polarity and response live on set. Or maybe not... Not possible with one mic, but an ambisonic-mic (e.g. tetramic) could be recorded as 4 raw channels and you can process it later to sound like a number of different polar patterns or surround. I think we'll see that come out if its niche in the future. Tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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