Acoustic architecture studio
Reverb Effect Simulator
Move a sound and listener through a real room cross-section, then reshape the walls. The direct path, early reflections, Sabine RT60 estimate, and generated impulse response all update together.
This is an interesting reverb effect simulator that lets you see and hear how sound behaves in different acoustic treatments and room size.
Interact quickly by simply pressing on your computer keyboard, or move things around by dragging them with mouse. To adjust the distance between the two, drag the source and listener markers on the room diagram. The time for direct arrival is updated as you do this along with delay before early reflections arrive. Alternatively, if a marker has focus, press the arrow keys to move it by small increments. With Shift pressed and arrow keys held down, the markers will step out in bigger jumps.
How to Use the Reverb Simulator
From the architectural volume panel choose a room type. For example, you can select a large concert hall, a stone chamber, a medium sized studio or a small vocal booth. The presets will adjusts the surface area and space volume. These, in turn, affect the reflection pattern and reverberation time.
There are controls for absorption, diffusion, and pre-delay. Absorption reduces how much a surface reflect, which results in an overall shorter decay time. Diffusion broadens the initial reflections but doesn’t alter the lost energy. Pre-delay delays direct sound and separates it from the reverberation tail.
Trigger the acoustic simulation with a reference event: a vowel-like tone, a short piano-like chord, or a broadband hand clap. Depending on which source you choose, each will bring out different characteristics of the room’s response; the tone will emphasize how smooth decay curve is, while the clap reveals the whole spectrum.
The reverb mix slider controls the balance between the wet reflections and the dry signal. The higher the value, the greater amount of the generated reverb that passes through. To keep it at a comfortabley level in your listening environment, you can use the master volume control. Hit the damp button when you’ve got something playing and want it to stop immediately, along with any residual tails. Great if you’re testing different configuration and need to reset the audio context.
The acoustic comparison plate lets you pin a running configuration as Room A. Then switching between this and what’s currently happening will let you hear the difference clean. At any point you can shoot whatever is currently playing in browser by pressing C on keyboard. To perform a guided tour across all of the rooms in the gallery press W. To pin the current room’s settings so you can compare them later, use the P key, and to switch back to the live settings from the pinned version use the J key. To stop all the sounds and reset the active audio nodes, press escape.
Experiment: Move the source near the listener to minimize pre-delay. Then, increase the pre-delay slider to hear how dry sound separates from room response. Next, raise it up until you start hearing separation between the dry sound and the response of the space. You’ll also notice that surface material determine the way in which sounds die down; compare a reflective hall vs. A highly absorbent booth. There’s even a comparison feature so you can use their presets as a benchmark to A-B test your own.
As you adjust the parameters, the graph updates in real time. You can see that both direct path and the first ceiling reflection are included on the room diagram. The decay chart draws a line on how the energy decrease over time from 0 dB to -60 dB. Visualize the moddern math model of the sound so you can connect it with what you hear.
Experiment with the amount of diffusion against absorption until you discover a sound character that suits you. A smooth, longer tail occur from high amounts of diffusion combined with lower absorption. Conversely, greater absorption with less diffusion produces a quicker, tighter decay. These are all abstract concepts that you could of hear in practice by using the tool.
Begin by setting the markers where you want them, then fire a clap to set the baseline. Now adjust each slider in turn so that you can hear exactly how it alter the sound. While you’re experimenting, use the keyboard shortcuts to try things faster. Have fun with creating an acoustic space that suits your creative vision.