I’m quite new to the dLive system. We are currently concidering buying a new console for our venue in Oslo, replacing Soundcraft Vi4. This week we have a dLive S7000 surface and DM48 rack on demo. First I must say that I am really impressed by what the system can do. The workflow is good, the system is really fast/snappy and extremely flexible. The processing is also very impressive with the deep processing preamp/compressor/multiband/dynamic EQ.
Reverb suggestion:
The only thing that does not impress me is the reverb (SMR). For me it is impossible to get a reverb tail without very noticable ringing. To my ears all presets are also too bright and unnatural sounding, and the reverbtail mutes when predelay is adjusted. Does A&H have any plans to release a more high-end and smoother reverb for dLive? It would be a very good feature to have, since it is such an important element of almost all musical audio mixing, especially for acoustic music Jazz/classical/folk. I’m coming from a Soundcraft Vi4, and the reverbs in Vi4 are quite good compared to most other digital live consoles. So this is highest up on my feature list for dLive.
More than 10 seconds reverb would also be nice.
a freeze function for endless reverb.
A spring reverb emulation for using on electric guitars would also be a really nice feature, but way down my priority feature list.
EQ suggestion:
Full range frequency select for all bands. Why not chose any frequency for any band?
Selectable peak/shelf/lopass/highpass for high and lo bands, without going through hi/lopass filter each time. If you want to change from peak to shelf on the high band for example, having to go via the lopass filter could sound very wrong when audio is passed through, especially during a show…
More bands please. Four band EQ is very old-fashioned. An option to have 6 bands would be great!!
An EQ plug-in that could be inserted from FX rack, if you need more bands/different approach (could also be an extra instance of normal channel EQ)
Deep processing EQ plug option
A/B comparison/settings on EQ (As on Yamaha QL/CL/Rivage…)
I am glad that someone else is here who would be happy about extended EQs in deep processing. You are not alone with this idea!
I’d have two answers to your questions.
to the reverb quality:
in fact I did miss a higher quality at the beginning. in the past I had used PCM70 and PCM91. however, my mistake was that I had selected the effect “Reverb 480” in SMR at first… but I didn’t like it either.
I work a lot with “EMT250”,“Hall Massive” and “Plate Vocal”. i also have “Arena2” in good memory. try out these effects.
they won’t quite be able to reach the good old reverberators, but in live performance the result is not as bad as one might have feared at first.
the EQ areas can be unlocked by the way:
If you press “Setup” while the EQ window is open, you will get a selection menu in which you can select “Input Full Range enabled”.
you can do the same in an output EQ, then you have the free frequency selection in all EQs.
Thanks Wolfgang! I did’t know this about the EQ. I will enable “input full range” for the EQ then.
Concerning the Reverb, I have tried all of those presets you mentioned, but the reverb tail is still “ringing” (feedback like/metallic sound) So If I had been a developer at A&H, a new and better reverb would be at the top of my priority list for the dLive. Maybe just improve the existing SMR?
Not sure on dLive since I haven’t heard one but I initially liked the reverbs on the GLD when I first got one. That coming from someone who has owned many nice verbs as a professional studio owner. I still have many of them. But for built in I thought them decent. When I got a QU I noticed some differences. Especially in the tails. I found that going into the expert mode and paging to the second page I think. Diffusion or body diffusion. Raise that to 20. That helps.
As for EQs. Again never heard a dLive. My experience with all digital DSP based EQ has never been great. I’ve been doing this 50+ yrs. I can name many great EQs. I’ve never heard a digital EQ compare to the magic that happens in resistors, capacities, coils transformers etc. I’m not sure it ever will. Not to my aging ears at least.
I actually find the revels on the d-live very good. In fact I much prefer them over the VI verbs. I use several and I always use EQ to shape the returns and LPF and HPF to manage the bandwidth I am looking for. I have owned and still own very nice reverbs in my studio and I am not disappointed at all. As I mentioned, shape the reverb return with EQ, I also routinely do this in the studio as well.
I must agree with Ingar on the metallic ring in tails. I haven’t yet had time to really dive into the verbs, but that’s what disappointed me at first encounter with the dLive. I’ll dive in some more when time allows!
but what I have to say to save the dLive’s honor is that the effect quality for a digital console is already very good.
of course, there are specialized devices that deliver a higher reverb quality, but in most live situations you don’t hear the difference.
of course i would still be happy if we could improve the quality a little bit more here
and please: i have been waiting for a distortion effect for many years now…
Well, the way I hear it, the metallic ringing is still there no matter what settings or EQ you apply. You could get away with acceptable results, with extreme settings and EQ on some sources (very few), but generally the algorithm that produces the reverb in the dLive has to be changed and improved to make a reverb that is comparable to what I would call a high quality reverb. Therefore I don’t use the reverb in the dLive. To me it sounds quite similar to the reverbs in the Yamaha consoles, and I cannot use it.
Wolfgang: In live situations I can hear reverb tails quite clearly, and it is very revealing if it is not good, so I disagree on what you say that you don’t hear the difference in most live situations.
From what I have heard, the reverb in the dLive is actually just taken from iLive, it processes audio at a lower samplerate too (48kHz and not native dLive 96kHz) So the FX card is not a finished dLive product.
I have been told that the FX in the dLive is going to be improved soon. There will be a brand new DSP- card with totally new FX that will replace the old iLive FX, and it will also process audio at native 96kHz. I really hope that I will be impressed and satisfied by this new card, and I hope it will arrive soon.
The announcement that the effect DSP card was from the iLive and will be replaced later with a higher quality one was made immediately after the launch of the dLive.
I still hope, of course, that this announcement will come true.
In the meantime, however, I’m still working with the effects in the console, because a Waves solution is simply too expensive for me at the moment.
Still wishing for quality reverb! My biggest disappointment with this otherwise really nice console.
I can understand that 16 instances of high quality reverb is a lot, so if it means reducing a larger number of available FX slots per instance, I wouldn’t mind!
Same here! To be honest I would be willing to pay for a high end reverb engine. Even if only one or two can be selected, depending on the remaining core power.
And a Tape-Saturation is the second one I would love to get.
The flavours of compression is more then enough for my work.
in my opinion none of the digital mixer manufacturers have high class reverb algorithms implemented, with the exception of System 6000 algorithms in Yamahas PM 10
Shared development resources between DigiCo and A&H could even be a very good reason to bring that high on the list, as a very broad range of different mixers could take advantage.
I doubt it’s anywhere near the top of the priority list at A&H
I would hope it is…since it can literally make or break sound for an engineer. A high quality, or at least good, reverb is way more important than adding functionality, methinks! And just about any cheap plugin manages to sound better these days :^+
I am surprised by the vision of some of you. With due respect of course of each opinion. Is it likely that things are being taken out of context?
We all know what a Yamaha SPX-900 sounds like, and yet we’ve worked with them just like the Lexicon PCM 70, 80, 90… for years.
Is someone going to tell me that in those old processors the reverb tails are not remarkable?
I have worked practically with the totality of the digital consoles of the market and all have their characteristics, their particularities, their character, in all one thing or another is noticed. I’m not going to get into whether it’s better or worse, but what I do not have the slightest doubt is that the quality of the SMR of the dLive is more than enough for any type of standard work both live and Broadcast.
And one thing is clear, if life really goes in the result of course there are better resources. Tc electronic system 6000, Bricasti M7… obviously its price justifies the results.
Yes you’re right the SMRs sound more realistic than any spx and the plates do a quite satisfying job. In addition it’s neither forbidden to connect any vintage hardware unit that you find in a corner of your store or you can buy for small money to your mixer to give its unique texture to your reverb repertoir nor restricted to add a waves card to a slot. But one single high level algo would be nice …
My concern is the metallic sounding tail (I wouldn’t file this under reverb “character”), as if it’s lacking in discrete delay/diffusion processing and rather just repeating identical portions. And there’s no way around it. Very obvious on percussive sources. My thought was that dedicating more processing power may help. Or it may just be a programming issue, I don’t know.
So, the feature request may be something like SMR+ dual or quad-processing reverbs. I’ll gladly sacrifice 4 FX slots for one good reverb
