A real-world Lexicon 960L reverberation chamber: Simulating a hardware reverberation unit in virtual acoustics

The second generation of the Virtual Acoustic Technology (VAT) Laboratory at McGill University features a new real-time auralizer with a feedback canceller developed by CCRMA at Stanford University, allowing for the simulation of virtual acoustic environments with exceptionally high gain. This study is part of an ongoing research effort focused on integrating algorithmic reverberation tools designed for audio post-production into virtual acoustics at McGill University’s VATLab. Previous work has been done using impulse responses (IRs) captured from various acoustic spaces. In contrast, this study focuses on using IRs captured from the legendary Lexicon 960L hardware reverberation unit and using them in the VATLab for recording sessions with musicians. Various 5.1 multichannel presets have been captured as IRs and 3 groups of related 5 channel IRs have been loaded into the existing 15 speaker system of VATLab to simulate a real world, physical Lexicon 960L “environment” through virtual acoustics. Objective measurements following the ISO 3382-1 and 3382-2 standards in the VATLab have been performed to measure the effect of the physical room and analyze the effects of changing different algorithmic reverb parameters such as Diffusion, Early Level Master Control, Early Rolloff, Early or Reflection Delays on the simulated acoustical environments.