Waves IR-360 User Manual

Waves R360° Surround Reverb

Software Audio Processor

Users Guide

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Introduction

Introducing the Waves 360° Surround Reverb.

This Software audio processor is dedicated to creating rich, smooth reverb tails
that are pitch-preserving and perfectly de-correlated between all channels.
This Reverb unit generates only Reverb Tails and does not generate Early
Reflections, making it perfect to complement or complete the room emulation
effect for sound sources that are “Distance panned” using the S360° Surround
Imager.

Waves have paid particular attention to making the reverb tail be as high-quality
as possibl. The result is very similar to the reverb tail of the Waves Renaissance
Reverb from which the R360° inherited its tail generation technology.

The R360° includes controls for the Reverb “Sound” properties and “MIX”
properties specially designed for 5.1 surround productions.

The R360° has a “Compact” component that is capable of running in true 96kHz
sample rate. That means it is capable of reaching true surround reverberation at
96kHz without down-sampling or other tricks. Operation at 96kHz requires
considerably more power and will present some compromise in sound in
comparison to the full component available up to 48kHz, but the compact
component can also save DSP horsepower when working in 44.1 or 48kHz and it
does sound superb.

Basic Operation

R360° can be used as a track insert, send effect or group/path insert. It is
designed to provide the best performance as a send effect or group insert. This
saves DSP resources and provides more consistent virtual space emulation.

The R360 is quite easy to set up.

The top row lets you control the main time and color of the Reverb. In the middle
is the Reverb Time control where you specify the time it will take the
Reverberation to drop by 60dB (RT

To the left of the Reverb Time control are the Damping controls which specify
how the high or low frequencies will decay in relation to the overall reverb time.
To the right of the Reverb Time control there is a high and low EQ shelf section,
to modify the general reverb color. This will not affect the “Direct” signal path.

In the Reverb Properties section, you can set the following controls:

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) from its peak.

60

• Pre-delay - Specifies how much time should pass between the source sound
and the reverb generation.

• Front/Back - Creates an offset of the pre-delay for the front and back.

• Size - Sets the size of the virtual space, bigger or smaller.

In the Reverb Mix section you can set the relation between some of the elements
that make the reverb sound:

• In Gain – Adjusts the Input Gain to the reverb. Use this control to help
eliminate clipping (indicated above the output meters of the R360°).

• In LFE – Specifies how much the audio in the LFE input channel will drive the
whole reverberation sound.

• Center – Specifies the Center channel’s reverb output. It is useful for lowering
or completely eliminating reverb in the Center channel.

• Front/Rear – Balances the Reverb between the front and back sound stages.

• LFE LowPass – Controls the output of the reverb in the LFE channel.

Because the LFE may be dedicated to low frequency content, R360° allows
assigning a low-pass filter, with an adjustable frequency, to the LFE channel’s
reverb output.

At the bottom, directly beneath the surround soundfield display, you will find the
Wet/Dry control.

The R360° is equipped with presets that can serve as great starting points. You
can tweak them and store them later to suit your preferences.

Read on in this manual for more information on how to achieve good Room
Reverberation using the S360° Surround Imager with the R360° Surround

Reverb.

Room Emulation and virtual spaces

When we speak about room emulation in digital reverberation, we usually refer to
an effect made by combining two separate stages of reflections.

Early Reflections are the first to be heard. These are usually a couple of discrete
echoes representing the first bounces off the walls for the initial 40 – 180ms of
the reverberation, depending on the size of the room and distance of the source
from the closest wall. Tail Reflections are the ones that make the thicker, more
dispersed, and longer part of the reverberation effect. These represent the stage
in which we hear a mass of echoes which cannot be perceived as discrete.

R360° is designed to provide the latter type of reflections and does not provide
any early reflections. To complete the Room emulation, you should first use the
S360° Surround Imager with its distance panning feature. This will assure that

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