Another clip from my upcoming plugin

The following clip shows some of the different modes of my upcoming plugin, ValhallaShimmer:

A brief summary of what is going on:

  • The clip begins with harp recorded in a fairly echo free environment
  • At 0:24, the mix control on the plugin is set to about halfway. The plugin is currently producing a fairly large reverb sound.
  • At 0:48, the feedback control on the plugin is turned up. This results in a much longer reverb sound. It is kinda subtle in this context.
  • At 1:13, the Pitch Mode of the plugin is set to “single,” with the pitch shift set at +12 semitones. This produces the classic “shimmer” sound that I have talked about in earlier blog posts, and that featured heavily in Eno / Lanois productions and many classic U2 tracks.
  • At 1:38, the harp loop ends, and the “shimmer” reverb decays away. Notice that the reverb increases in pitch as it decays.

In the next few days, I’ll be going into more details about the upcoming plugin. For now, I’m burning the midnight oil in front of the compiler.

29 thoughts on “Another clip from my upcoming plugin”

  2. Wow! I love it. I listened twice and can’t wait for more. Show me the [Buy It Now] button and I will click it. 🙂 You have a rare talent for reverberation.

    (I hear this sound all over Coldplay too.)

    Reply

    • Well, I have almost no hours in a given day to work on this stuff, at least this summer. It was either blog, or code. Blogging won’t pay any bills for me – we’ll see if the upcoming plugin will. 😉

      Reply

      • Well, I’d like to contribute to pay your bills in exchange of this plugin.
        Doing the Shimmer thing for me was more or less Eventide 949 plugin in protools + Lexicon 960, but that’s a bit of a resource thief (1 accel dsp for the harmonizer + 1 reverb machine unusable for everything else) ….
        Also I’m going to mix some budget stuff on native workstation (I’m thinking of ableton live + dangerous 2 bus summing and some analog processing on the mixbus) and that will be a great replacement of my 949+960 setup…
        Hope you complete it soon… I’ve an album to mix and it will suit perfectly in 8 of 10 songs…
        🙂

    • It’s a brief sample from “Sprout and the Bean” by Joanna Newsom. The album is “The Milk-Eyed Mender.”

      I love that record. Plus, I was using that record to test the algorithm early on, when it was mono-input, stereo-output, and that track just collapsed. Weird stereo miking technique in use. I put several stereo modes in there to deal with this. I ended up getting quite attached to the track with the effects on it, as well.

      Reply

  11. Wow Sean!!!
    It sounds amazing. I had to let go of my H8000 last year and you new plug is producing the exact sound I miss getting with that unit.

    Please let me know if I help beta test on mac (au) and when you expect to release.

    Well done and keep up the great work 🙂

    David

    Reply

  12. Hi Sean,

    this new plugin sounds absolutely wonderful and heavenly! I must admit I´ve also been one of those who listened to U2 and Eno (prophecy theme) in the 80ies and had always wondered how they achieved that certain sound. Almost 20 years later I finally learned about the AMS 15/80s and the Lexicon 224(x/xl). For guitar use I programmed an old 90ies BOSS SE-70 FX processor that gives a nice but still chopped/glitched sounding reverse delay – but through a vintage delay unit it sounds smooth and nice. Your new plugin will finally fill in the gap for the “ITB world” and to me it already sounds OTB or hardware-like. I´m curious about the reverb algo also. Did you use the EOS engine or is it a completely new design? It somehow reminds me of the 224/X concert hall algos in its thick deep sound when you turn up the feedback at about 0:48 – slow modulating airy reverb tail glory :o)

    And I just guess your plug will sell like hot cakes 😉

    Best regards
    Ken

    Reply

    • Hi Ken:

      The new algorithms have very little to do with anything in Eos – I’m using a far different topology. The algorithms aren’t particularly close to the 224/X Concert Hall either, although they have more in common with the Lexicon algorithms than with the Eos algorithms. The modulation was inspired by the older Lexicon modulation waveform, but there are far more instances of it in my algorithm. I hope it will sell like hot cakes!

      Reply

  13. Awesome stuff Sean. I can honestly say that I like the sound of your reverb algorithms more than anything else I’ve ever used, software or hardware. Really looking forward to this new one!

    Reply

    • I’ll look into it. I’m not an expert at user interfaces, so I’m not sure what I will be able to come up with. A question for you: are you able to use VST or AU plugins that don’t have a GUI – in other words, those plugins that use the standard interface as provided by the host?

      Reply

      • Hi and thanks a lot for you interest, I think such a Plug-in would be easier to operate. I work with Sonar, which is pretty near to the Windows surface. Untill now, I was only able to choose the presets and had to do the settings over the Host-Automation. Sometimes it does not work. For the parameter normal input fields would be the best. It is also important for a screenreader, that the text doesn´t consists of graphics, because the screenreader can´t read them. I think a lot of blind musicians would be very happy, if you could arrange this. Thanks a lot and kind regards Maik

      • In the next few weeks, I will post a version of ValhallaFreqEcho, that has all the parameters of the GUI version, but without any built-in GUI. If this works better for visually impaired users, I will make it a policy to have GUI-free versions of my code available as an option for all future plugins.

  17. More sounds from the new plugin « The Halls of Valhalla

  18. Introducing ValhallaShimmer « The Halls of Valhalla

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