I, too, thought that TC works and TC electronics were the same company, but I cant find a link on either website about the other, and some of the TC works guys in #musicdsp on effnet ( who knows how reliable IRC is? ) said there is no connection. Does anyone know for sure?As a TCM5k owner, I can tell you there is no resemblance whatsoever between the code that created the M5k's verbs and the code running TC native. They are worlds apart sonically, philosophically and in the degrees of control.
I have luck with the timeworks 4080l reverb for quick and dirty work, but not the timeworks reverb-x which is supposed to be better. All the native reverbs seem to be able to make ' plate'-ish sounds ( actually more like a bunch of combfiltered short delays with choruses on them) but not very convincing LUSH, Dense, ' sparkly' reverbs like even the cheapest digital hardware unit can, in my opinion. I'm certainly no expert on this topic, to say the least, but what I might be able to provide is a somewhat innocent, if not stupid, perspective on the matter, knowing full well that there are audio engineers as well as total beginners viewing the posts. Since I am only working with 'finished' sources to begin with, I don't think I've ever even used reverb on more than a handful of songs. I might be more inclined to use it if any of the 'paradigms/GUI's' made more sense to me. I have yet to get anything even remotely understandable from Acoustic Mirror; which is not to say it's not a great program; it's just saying I haven't a clue how to make it work.
Apparently it doesn't do too well as far as real time processing goes either, so how someone can process something they can't listen to directly is a little beyond me, especially when other programs let you hear the effects immediately. I also own Waves TrueVerb, and gosh darn it, it sure LOOKS impressive, but that's another one of those deals where if maybe I had a couple of years to master the program, I'd be glad to give it a shot. Again; my limitation; not a knock on the program; just the fact that it's a total mystery to me, and with other programs available that are more intuitive to my way of thinking and working, I've just passed on that one as well. I have Anwida and RGC as well. The Anwida is pretty cool and simple to understand, at least. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how functional it is; or how it compares to the other reverbs mentioned above.
I just know at least I can figure it out. The same, and maybe a little more, goes for RGC. I'm not exactly sure what it is about the interface that enables me to at least THINK I can hear how reverb 'works' or 'develops'.
It might be because it allows you to easily - for me, anyway - isolate JUST the reverb effect, along with how changing the room size affects the sound, etc. That's the one program I've used to actually add some reverb to a couple of files, and I have never noticed any lag when using it. I would venture to say it HAS to be less CPU intensive than Acoustic Mirror. I have never gotten anything but stutters out of A.M. And finally, for what it's worth, I just started fiddling around with DSP-FX's verbs.
Timeworks Reverb X
They have two: Acoustic Verb, and Studio Verb, along with 9 other plug-ins that also can be used in a stand-alone, real time processing manner, a la T-Racks 24. (They have a nice Optimizer, Paragraphic EQ, a Stereo Expander, and a few others as well). The whole package goes for $149. So far, I've found almost all of their plug-ins to be very easy to use, and I've been very satisfied with the results.
I think they offer some of the most functional, useable presets around. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to interact all that well with SoFo 6.0, so I've been using it in standalone mode, which takes a lot longer, since it's processing in real time. But I have been very satisfied with the results using the Paragraphic EQ and the Delay so far.
And on one or two occasions, since I couldn't use it within SoFo to work on just a section of a file, I've cut and pasted back and forth, and that's worked fine, with no glitches or artifacts. What's nice is that, unlike with T-Racks, there is no change - even minute - in the time/size of the file whatsoever, so I can copy and paste into an identical length, which I couldn't do with T-Racks, because there was a tiny difference in the length of the file after processing in T-Racks. Anyway, that's just another option to toss into the mix.sk.
It's distributed through Sonic TimeworksIts called the STW P-100. Right now it is a Plate Reverb simulation only. The designer gave some details on the PlanetZ forums.said it was a direct port of the Lexicon PCM 9x series algorythm. There is even a preset bank with the Lexicon factory presets.He said he is working on adding the Ambience algo as well and that others were to follow.There is a downloadable demo on the STW page (if you have a Creamware card) so you can check it out for yourself.But I was floored by the sound of this reverb. Sounds huge on acoustic guitar and voice as well as drums (the typical things that Plate revebs sound good on)I've been playing on it all morning with an acoustic guitar patch in SixString and just lovin it.A fine addition and well worth the 99 bucks asking price.I will post some mp3's once my recording software comes in and I get up and running on the new machine.Cheers. Perhaps my use of the word 'port' was over-zealous. 'modelled' may have been a better term.Although, when the designer first started talking about his work on this plug.I swear he said it was a port.
And at one time he even posted a link (to Lexicon's site no less) that had all the tech docs for the PCM series.He has removed these references from his posts as well as the links. (probably by Lexicon's request).How close the emulation is I cannot say (since I do have access to a PCM 90).
However, one person did a comparison and said they sounded 'identical' when loading identically named presets(his words not mine)You can read the comment here:Also, FWIW.this is NOT a resource-lite plug! I think it specs out to TWO instances on a Pulsar II (so that equates to 3DSP's per instance) Heavy heavy DSP use for a CW card!Cheers.