I listened to the WAVE file, and there is a
lot of reverberation on the clarinet, which is easiest to hear when you listen with studio-quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (
a personal favorite) . . .
I set the volume level approximately at half-way on the Mac Pro and listened to the WAVE file over and over with iTunes as the player for a while, although I heard the reverberation instantly, since I am quite attuned to reverberation and echo . . .
[
NOTE: The first record I purchased as a child was "Great Balls Of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis), and it has truly amazing reverberation and echo, for sure . . . ]
"Great Balls Of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis) -- SUN 78 RPM Record -- YouTubeFor reference, I set the Preferences for iTunes so that none of the sound enhancer and other stuff is activated, and I am not using any equalizer stuff, either . . .
There is approximately one second of reverberation after a note ends in the WAVE file you provided, which is enough time to say "one thousand" at a medium speaking speed, which is a handy way to approximate one second . . .
Generally, there are two possibilities for the source of reverberation in Notion 3:
(1) The default Notion 3 Reverb VST plug-in is activated, where it will be set to 50 percent for the "Dry|Wet ratio"'; 50 percent for the "Room"; 0 for "Damping"'; and 25 for "Pre-delay" . . .
[
NOTE: I really like the Notion 3 Reverb and consider it to be a truly fabulous reverberation effect at a level on par with the the classic Elvis Presley reverberation and so forth and so on. There are lots of reverberation and echo units, but the Notion 3 Reverb is stellar. However, since it is not available as a separate VST plug-in for use in Digital Performer 7, I remove it before recording Notion 3 generated audio via ReWire in Digital Performer 7, since I prefer to work with dry sounds in Digital Performer 7, because it is easy to add reverberation, echo, and other effects in Digital Performer 7 but it is virtually impossible to remove effects when they are included in the raw soundbites. The Notion 3 Reverb is very melodic, and it is smooth, which is a stellar combination. It might be a variation of the IK Multimedia reverberation, but perhaps not. If Notion Music packaged the Notion 3 Reverb as a standalone VST plug-in, I would buy it for $50 or so with no hesitation, at all . . . ]
(2) Many samples of orchestral instruments are recorded in concert halls, and this maps to having intrinsic or natural reverberation in the raw samples. Sometimes there also a intentionally dry studio samples, but it depends on the library and instrument . . .
I did a quick experiment with the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet playing the same notes using the default Reverb settings, and it sound pretty much the same as the WAVE file you provided, except that the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet is doing vibrato. The important thing is that the reverberation sound virtually identical with respect to decay or release time, which leads me to think that you have the Notion 3 Reverb activated at its default settings . . .
Nevertheless, regardless of the origin of the reverberation in the Clarinet sample, the fact of the matter is that reverberation will change the sonic characteristics of the instrument, including pitch and phase, although pitch changes are more focused on harmonics and overtones, unless the instrument actually is moved as it is played and you are listening to a stereo recording, at which time the so-called "Dopler Effect" can occur, and it definitely alters pitch . . .
As you know, a note typically has three time-based components (attack, sustain, and decay or release), and when reverberation is present, what happens at minimum is that the decay or release of a note is extended and altered by the reverberation, so even though a note in music notation ends at the ending of a measure, the reverberation effect sustains the tail of the note into the next measure or subsequent note(s), and this without doubt will change the way the start of a new note (the "attack" part of a note) sounds, because there actually are two things happening when the next note begins playing:
(1) There is lingering reverberation of the previous note . . .
(2) The "attack" of the new note is starting . . .
Even if you are not using the Notion 3 Reverb, when the raw sample was recorded in a concert hall there will be natural reverberation, and depending on the way the recorded notes are digitized, the natural room reverberation can be significant, which is one of the problems that happens in the digital universe . . .
In the analog universe of magnetic tape machines, each time a recorded track is recorded to another magnetic tape machine, there is a "generational loss", which is significant, but in the digital universe there is no "generational loss" . . .
Instead, what happens is that background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation accumulate with each additional track that is added to a song, and even though the background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation present in each track is small, it can become large when there is enough of it in each individual track . . .
For example, if there is 5 percent background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation in a single track, then it typically is not heard, but when there are 20 such tracks, what happens is that a spurious track of background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation is created (20 tracks multiplied by 5 percent equals 100 percent or 1 track), but there is no such actual track on the mixing board . . .
It is there, but controlling it requires an entirely different set of techniques, none of which are the least bit easy and simple . . .
Partitioning or "slicing" notes with a brickwall limiter can be useful, and there are other techniques, as well, including a special type of brickwall equalizer that makes it possible to exclude specific ranges of frequencies or to control their levels respective to the primary frequencies of the note . . .
For the most part, the goal is two-fold:
(1) You want to hear notes . . .
(2) You do
not want to hear background noise, hiss, and with a few caveats natural reverberation, where the primary caveat regarding natural reverberation is that
you need to be able to control it, which is a bit of a paradox . . .
For example, if there is a
Rock and Roll,
Heavy Metal,
DISCO, or
Pop concert somewhere locally, then drive to the parking lot of the concert hall and find a location outside where you can hear something, which might require walking to the sidewalk outside the concert hall . . .
For
Classical music, I think that you probably need to go inside the concert hall at least into the foyer or lobby, since orchestral music tends to be at lower overall volume levels most of the time, but the same background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation stuff happens, although not so much in the booming low frequencies, where instead the booming is more in the midrange . . .
What you will hear will be a vastly booming melange of low frequencies and a lot of blurred midrange and high frequencies, all of which is the residual background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation of whatever is being played by the musicians and sung by the singers, and this background noise, hiss, and natural reverberation is that antithesis of clarity . . .
Yet, I am not suggesting that reverberation, artificial or natural, arbitrarily is bad, because reverberation can be very melodic, and reverberation can make an instrument and singing essentially "come alive", but there are rules, and the entire thing is a bit beyond complex . . .
Toward the goal of explaining and demonstrating what reverberation does, I created three WAVE files of the same notes in your example, where the instrument is the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet . . .
[
NOTE: These are the Notion 3 generated WAVE files, and I did not convert them to MP3 with iTunes or do any additional processing, so they are larger files, but so what . . . ]
(1) This is the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet with no added reverberation, so it is the "dry" Clarinet:
Notion 3 Bundled Clarinet -- DRY -- WAVE file (2.8MB, approximately 16 seconds)(2) This is the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet with Notion 3 Reverb in its default settings, so it is the "wet" Clarinet:
Notion 3 Bundled Clarinet -- WET -- Notion 3 Reverb (Default) -- WAVE file (2.8MB, approximately 16 seconds)(3) This is the Notion 3 bundled Clarinet with IK Multimedia CSR reverberation in the "Large Organ Church" setting, so it is the "
very wet" Clarinet:
Notion 3 Bundled Clarinet -- VERY WET -- IK Multimedia CSR Reverb (Large Organ Church) -- WAVE file (2.8MB, approximately 16 seconds)SUMMARYWhile there might be some nuances in the GPO Clarinet samples, I think that this primarily is a matter of (a) reverberation and (b) the particular characteristics of woodwinds with respect to attack, sustain, and decay or release of notes, where the reality is that the start of a clarinet note will be similar to the start of an electric guitar note picked with a Herco Flex50 guitar pick, although a skilled clarinet player can soften the initial attack, as can a skilled guitar player . . .
Lots of FUN . . . P. S. As an example of controlling reverberation and echo ruthlessly, this is the "basic rhythm section" for the new Surf Whammys song, "(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming", which will be on the upcoming "Electric Underpants™" album, which is fabulous . . .
[
NOTE: There is very specific reverberation on the snare drum rimshots and the Hofner "Beatle" Bass tracks (far-left and far-right), as well as on the Dubstep-style growling sounds during the interlude, where an especially interesting technique is to add a particular type of echo to one track of a pair of Hofner "Beatle" Bass tracks, which spreads the bass and gives it sustain. All the instruments are IK Multimedia virtual instruments with the exception of one guitar, which is the Notion 3 Bundled Electric Guitar that does highly specialized guitar tab articulations (a personal favorite). This is a headphone mix, and it is mastered with T-RackS 3 Deluxe (IK Multimedia). Everything is done with music notation in Notion 3, but there are 31 "heavy" instruments, so it requires two Notion 3 scores, and the Notion 3 generated audio is recorded in Digital Performer 7 via ReWire as soundbites, where I then add special effects and do the mixing and so forth . . . ]
[
NOTE: This is a surreal song, and it is "inspired by" a combination of "Not Myself Tonight" (Christina Aguilera) and "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (Beatles). I had some lyrics from a silly bit of paraphrasing of the Beatles song, but the direction was not entirely clear until last weekend when I decided to roast a goose, which of course requires a rather large amount of anise, except that the local grocery store did not have any anise, so I used Australian licorice, which eventually led to recalling that there is a spirit that is made using a variety of herbs, including anise, with the result that it has psychedelic properties, which then led to the determining the focus of the lyrics, which specifically is that it is a dream, hallucination, or illusion caused by absinthe, as explained in the first part of the first verse, which follows the "Baby you were only dreaming" chorus . . . ]
[CHORUS]
Baby you were only . . .
Baby you were only . . .
Baby you were only dreaming!
Yeah, baby you were only . . .
Baby you were only . . .
Baby you were only dreaming!
[1ST VERSE]
Absinthe in camera
Sailing the seas
In search of green auras
As much as I please . . .
©2011 RAE Multimedia
"(Baby You Were) Only Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (9.2MB, 281-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 23 seconds)Fabulous! 
Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 3:38 am
