FAQs: SPACE

What is SPACE?
Audio Impressions’ patented SPACE process is designed to recreate the room mic characteristics of live-recorded ensembles from individually sampled players. SPACE once and for all eliminates the overdubbed signature that characterizes combined sample libraries and overdubbed tracks.
Ai SPACE™ provides never-before-available Decca Tree array room mic recreation with continuously variable spot mic positioning relative to the conductor’s perspective. Our 70 DVZ Strings library is designed to take full advantage of SPACE technology, providing the expansive realism of musicians recorded all at the same time.

I have heard that SPACE is a mic bleed simulator. What does that mean?
The term "mic bleed" refers to the spill of sound from one source on a sound stage (or in the studio) into multiple open microphones. In a live, full orchestral sound session, for example, there may be upwards of 25 live mics. Most are spot mics, mics placed near individual players to pick up more "point" (4 kHz range) sound and to provide localization in the final mix, while some are decca tree (room mics), placed further away to provide some ambience, spatial feel, and more fully developed low frequencies.
When an ensemble (or full orchestra) is recorded with all these spot and room mics, every player's sound spills (bleeds or leaks) into ALL the mics. It is in fact this very mic bleed component that gives the live feel to the recording. This is responsible for much of the ambience and "room" you hear in such recordings.
Conventional reverb, including convolution and 5.1 and other more sophisticated reverbs, simply cannot provide genuine mic bleed effect. To do this you need to have the individual sound sources, which just happens to be an integral part of our DVZ libraries with separate samples for each desk. You also need sophisticated technology like our patented SPACE that's built into the DVZ Core Engine. This is what simulates mic bleed.

What real advantage do I gain from using SPACE? I have excellent reverbs already.
As noted above, SPACE is hardly a reverb even though superficially it may resemble one. However, because you can activate individual players in DVZ libraries, and then move them around and change the virtual recording stage dimensions as well with SPACE, SPACE essentially lets you place whatever number of players you want in ensemble, in any size room, just as you might have done if you were creating the original sample library. The big deal is that now you can do it after-the-fact and on-the-fly in real time.
SPACE can benefit from the addition of your favorite reverb, but no reverb can do what SPACE does. You can try cobbling together a bunch of solo samples and writing your own divisi sequence and adding reverb, but you won't wind up with anything that sounds like a true ensemble. That's why other libraries without DVZ and SPACE give you separate sample loads for various ensembles. With DVZ and SPACE you can change the orchestra and room size on the fly. without having to stop and reload anything.

Most of my libraries are either too big and wet or too thin and dry. Do you address this issue, and if so, how?
Yes. We address this issue using SPACE and with DVZ's ability to turn individual players on and off. For the first time, you can easily set the number of musicians that you want playing AND set the room size and ambience precisely where you want it... and change this all in real time!

Where can I learn more about Decca Tree mics and orchestral recording techniques?
Many books have been written on recording techniques. However, a relatively brief and informative technical document is available on this website as a free pdf download. You can download our Orchestral Recording Techniques White Paper here.

Do any other libraries use SPACE?
At the moment nobody else does. We are willing to license this technology. And we are planning to release a stand-alone version of SPACE into which you can bring various sounds and apply the same cross-bleed technology that creates that “ensemble” feel. Right now we can't say more about this future product.


Anyone licensed to use Audio Impressions patented SPACE technology will be allowed (and required) to use our official SPACE logo (our registered trademark).