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In April 2005 Issue of Sound On Sound excerpt from article "Working On Impulse Convolution Processing With Impulse Responses" by Martin Walker www.soundonsound.com

The first of the third party IR libraries I'm going to look at comes from Ernest Cholakis, who will already be well known to many musicians for his creation of the DNA Groove Templates. He has been exploring reverberation impulse responses for the last ten years, and has already released sampling CD's using this extensive knowledge, including the acclaimed Drone Archeology (reviewed in SOS December 2002). ...

Using his own extensive recordings of spaces such as concert halls, cathedrals monasteries, and even the ambience inside the Great Pyramid Kufu at Giza, Ernest has re-synthesised the impulse responses in the Pure Space libraries, which means the results suffer from none of the limitations of real-world recordings -- for instance, because of the way Ernest generates his responses, the 24-bit versions offer a dynamic range of more than 140db, while their frequency responses are virtually flat, so you can EQ your sources to taste before convolving them. ...

Each response has three further numbers associated with it , that compare its low-, mid-, and high-frequency decay times to the average for that set. When you're looking for a suitable reverberation impulse for a recording, this approach can make a lot more sense than wading through names like Large Hall or St. Luke's Church Row 42.

After all this careful preparation, the IRs themselves certainly don't disappoint, and don't run away with the impression that since they are re-synthesised they might sound unnatural or lack character. These are amount the cleanest and the most silky-smooth reverbs I've ever heard, with none of the grittiness, lumpiness or metallic overtones that characterise many synthesised reverbs. There are some gorgeous tails in there with oodles of character, and they encompass a huge range of decay 'timbres'.

I tried out these libraries with close -miked solo instruments, vocals and even anechoically-recorded orchestral snippets, and without exception they sounded very natural indeed, There are no small rooms (the smallest space in the Classical series has a two-second tail) but there are chambers, halls, churches, cathedrals, and magical spaces galore.

These are extremely professional libraries containin work created over ten years, ,,,. This is still far cheaper than buying a decent hardware reverb (that still probably won't sound as good), ...

,,, the Pure Space libraries are superb resources for professionals and won't disappoint.

Ernest Cholakis of Numerical Sound is proud to release a series of ambient impulses designed to offer high realism to the art of implementing authentic sounding reverberation to any audio material.

Each CD contains 55 reverberation impulses (RI) at one of the following sampling rates 44.1k, 48k and (88.2K, 96k, 176.4k and 192k available in the 24 bit version) in PC wav and Mac SDII formats.

Cholakis has developed a radically new approach to recording and creating reverb impulses that advances the level of reverb technology and reverb sound quality beyond any other current analog or digital implementation available.

These impulses accurately recreate the key components of world class concert halls, film sound stages, cathedrals, monasteries and other exceptional spaces including the ambience inside the Great Pyramid Kufu at Giza !

Each RI is optimized for extended frequency response (no coloration) and maximum richness. This approach is more versatile for the user than existing reverb coloration because it allows one to add his/her own EQ coloration by EQ'ing the signal before processing it through the RI.

The 24 bit version can take extremely high levels of compression without introducing noise because of the S/N ratio on the 24 bit is greater than140db !

Pricing 16bit 44.1k & 48k each 299US 24 bit versions $399US. The 88K & 96K (24 bit only) versions are each $499. The 176K & 192K (24bit only) are each $599.