Approximating Measured Reverberation Using a Hybrid Fixed/switched Convolution Structure

An efficient reverberator structure is proposed for approximating measured reverberation. A fixed convolution matching the early portion of a measured impulse response is crossfaded with a switched convolution reverberator drawing its switched convolution section from the late-field of the measured impulse response. In this way, the early portion of the measured impulse response is precisely reproduced, and the late-field equalization and decay rates efficiently approximated. To use segments of the measured impulse response, the switched convolution structure is modified to include a normalization filter to account for the decay of the late-field between the nominal fixed/switched crossfade time and the time of the selected segment. Further, the measured impulse response late-field is extended below its noise floor in anticipation of the normalization. This structure provides psychoacoustically accurate synthesis of the measured impulse response using less than half a second of convolution, irrespective of the length of the measured impulse response. In addition, the structure provides direct control over the equalization and late-field frequency dependent decay rate. Emulations of EMT 140 plate reverberator and marble lobby impulse responses are presented.