Different physical environments have different early reflection signatures that our ears and brain use to pinpoint location information in physical space. These reflections influence our perception of the size of a space and where an audio source sits within it.
Changing early reflection characteristics changes the perceived location of the reflecting surfaces surrounding the audio source. In general, the reverb tail continues after early reflections dissipate.
ReVibe room presets use multiple delay taps at different levels, different times, and in different positions in the multichannel environment (through 360° panning) to create extremely realistic sounding environments.
The Early Reflect section has controls for adjusting the various early reflection elements, including level, spread, and pre-delay.
Level controls the output level of the early reflections. Setting the Level slider to –INF (minus infinity) eliminates the early reflections from the reverb effect. The range of this control is from –INF to 6.0 dB.
Spread globally adjusts the delay characteristics of the early reflections, moving the individual delay taps closer together or farther apart. Use Spread to vary the size and character of an early reflection preset. The range of this control is from –100% to 100%.
At 0%, the early reflections are set to their optimum value for the room preset. Typical spread values range between –25% and 25%.
The Pre-Delay control in the Early Reflect section determines the amount of time that elapses between the onset of the dry signal and the first early reflection delay tap. Some Room Types, such as those that produce slapback effects, have additional built-in pre-delay. The range of this control is from –300.0 ms to 300.0 ms.
Negative Pre-Delay times imply that some early reflection delay taps should sound before the original dry signal. Since this is not possible, any of the delay taps that would sound before the dry signal are not used and do not sound.
When Pre-Delay Link is enabled, negative early reflection Pre-Delay times can be used to make the early reflections start before the reverb tail, if desired.
The Pre-Delay Link button toggles linking of the Early Reflection Pre-Delay control and the Reverb Pre-Delay control. When linked, the Early Reflection Pre-Delay is offset by the Reverb Pre-Delay amount, so that the total delay for the early reflections is the sum of the Early Reflection Pre-Delay and the Reverb Pre-Delay.
This button toggles early reflections on or off. When early reflections are off, the reverb effect consists entirely of reverb tail.