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Let's talk about reverb, will you?


temnov

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I'm curious what reverbs you guys like the best?

 

Hardware or software - doesn't matter. Do you use reverbs more than delays?

 

Recently I started making my own IRs for Waves IR-1. A lot of fun and you can really make it very smooth using some additional modulation.

 

Bunch of others reverbs, too. Depending on mix sometimes it's just early reflections, or just rooms, or crazy stuff like Valhalla UberMod.

 

Any ideas to share?

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SofTube TSAR-1 for vocals. It succeeds because it doesn't necessarily try to sound like an acoustic space, it tries to sound like reverb. Very smooth and sweet, and highly editable.

 

My "secret" for reverb is adding a whole bunch of individual, short prime number delays to give good early reflections. That's where many reverbs fall down.

 

However, I usually don't use much reverb. On classical sessions I mic the room, and supplement it with some background Waves convolution reverb to "fill in the cracks." For dance, pop, and soundtrack material, I tend to stay fairly dry or use my "ethereal reverb" technique (two reverbs, identical settings except delay time, throw one out of phase - cancels out everything except the tail). For reverb, nothing beats an acoustic space but plugs have their own value.

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My all time favorite is still SIR. I haven't heard one that sounds better yet. But it all depends on having good room impulse samples. I've collected several hundred over the years.

 

For guitar (live) I don't use reverb much, but when I do, I like the spring reverb in my 1963 vibrolux reverb amp.

(For some reason I feel like adding "Stay thirsty my friends")

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I like all type of reverb hardware or plugin, I have found best to set dry as possible, and be very light on, except if you are doing some spacey sort of stuff where some heavy handed wet reverb setting can be used to good effect.

I still use MidiVerbII and Yamaha REX50, a couple of classics from the 80's, and some of the free VST reverbs are quite good too.

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My productions tend not to be reverb heavy, though I use lot a of reverbs. I tend to send my delays into a plate.And hide it just right. A third party IR in the Waves convo. I really like my big room compressed for drums. Put up two 414s in Blumien to get the room and... who needs a reverb. Hand claps, Ac guitar, choir, El guitar. They all love a real room. Still...

 

...I've been hankering for an old spring. I love that smooth, lo-fi swim. I'm shopping for a plug sim but will gladly jump on a eBay steal of a Demeter or the like. I love that tank sound. Swimmy, vibey, cool.

 

I really liked the old Waves TruVerb for ERs. I really like some of the RenVerb chambers, but always in small doses because, as noted, they really don't sound great featured. Even the Digi Verb, that cheapy on Amb. setting is cool used right. Lots of them used subtly can work out.

 

I've never been a fan of the Lexicon, what's that standard with the remote control in all the old studios? It's so 80's. Good but... not really me. Too 80's pop for me. I find stacking verbs can be cool. A TrueVerb for the ERs, a Ren for the tail. But send it to a dirtied up timed delay first and magic starts to happen.

 

I'd love a Bricasti for a bit rich ($$$) for me. For now, I'll make due with delays and some crafty plug subterfuge. That and the room of course.

 

Blumlien miking is your friend. Real ERs into a plug set with a substantial predelay to let the room through first can work well...

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I rarely use plugin verbs. I use a hardware reverb, the TC Electronic M300, and occasionally an Alesis Quadraverb, although that's more for affecting keyboards, and is something I rarely if ever use as a main reverb.

 

Isn't it a pain connecting the M300 to your DAW?

 

I have the M3000, and I'd still rather do everything ITB rather than patch a reverb in and out. :mad:

 

I'm still looking for a good reverb plugin (not that I'm a reverb snob, just haven't scanned what's out there recently...I'd love to get a great reverb plugin and not feel guilty about not using my M3000 :))

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I bought all my hardware reverbs new at the various times they were still made...

 

Bx20e

spx90 or something by Yamaha... boy I hated that one from day one in the rack.

A bunch of the Alesis stuff that I don't even remember.

LXP1

LXP5

PCM60

Pcm80

Pcm81

 

I've sold them all. The last to go was my pcm80. I don't miss any of them. I really like a lot of the plug-ins now and they'll only get better over the next five or ten years.

 

The closest next sorta-hardware reverb I'm leaning towards is the UAD stuff, esp the emt140. There's something holding me back from that, but I haven't pinpointed what it is yet.

 

The VnXT Nebula based 140 seems cool in demos, but I don't understand the world of Nebula.

 

While I can appreciate the attraction of the Bricasti for some, I will never again pay $3000 or whatever for a reverb. A few times of doing that in the past century was enough.

 

Some of the best short reverbs I get are by throwing a single speaker and mic in a room of the house, sending a signal in there, compressing the heck out of it, and then returning that to the console with a delay on the return. Bathrooms are excellent for this.

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I like to use one of the 44+ different free ones that came with LIVE8

 

I think Live's effects are WAY underrated, probably because a) you can use them only in Live, so other people don't know about them and b) they don't have photo-realistic graphics with drop shadows and 3D and all that. A lot of people judge gear with their eyes, not their ears :)

 

Live remains a genius program IMHO.

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I confess, I love to create virtual rooms in Voxengo IMPULSE MODELER... impulses you later use in your convolution reverb, like PRISTINE SPACE. I'm also fascinated by HTRF effects. I think these sounds are considered fairly hokey, however (?) I guess the nicest in-the-box reverb I've ever heard may be the LEXICON. The new Lexicon 'verbs are so beautiful, it's almost a shame to hide them in a mix.

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While I can appreciate the attraction of the Bricasti for some, I will never again pay $3000 or whatever for a reverb. A few times of doing that in the past century was enough.

 

 

I found a set of very good official freeware IR made from the Bricasti reverb and I use them a lot with OpenAIR in PreSonus Studio One. I really like the result.

 

Cheers,

 

Mats N

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For plugins I been using Sonars plugins lately. The Free Space is a good impulse reverb that

uses less overhead than the SIR. Theres a Lexicon reverb that does some wonderful things too.

I use that one on Drum Machine tracks mostly to add some three dimensionality and sparkle

very successfully.

 

I rewired my rack units last week. I pulled my Microverb III appart and cleaned the pots and put

in in my ART 2000's stereo effects loop and also added in an oddball Rexx 601 preamp which

I hadnt messed around with much since a buddy of mine gave it to me.

 

The results tracking were like Wow. I hadnt realized what I had been missing. I used to use rack

reverbs allot when I was recording analog and had gotten away from them once I went digital.

You can do some nice stuff with plugins but a good rack processor can really sound great.

 

The drawback is you have to add just the right amount cause its written to the track as you hear it.

It will also limit your tools for mixing that can be used. You can comp, limit or maybe use a little more

chorus or reverb but you won't be able to gain up a track without some beating if it has reverb already.

 

The other option is to reamp a track back through a rack unit, but there are losses running a track back

through the converters twice like that, once to play back and once to rerecord. You also loose the ability to

play the instrument with the reverb happening which is the whole point of using hardware in the first place.

 

Having that reverb trail out when you stop a chord short, having that reflection come back at you when

you're doing clean funkey stuff or having those trails sing out playing leads make changing positions on

the neck so confortable. When you're bending a driven guitar note, then stop and leave that fret, the note

keeps going as you jump to another position for another note. Trying to do the same thing dry is like chop city.

 

You're much more likely to change you're playing style and leave the note for the jump at the wrong time because you

know theres going to be a dead spot left when you do. You know you can fill that dead spot with a plugin later, but

its not going to help you as you're actually playing the notes.

 

I suppose, if you want a dry track to work with, you can use two tracks, one dru and one with reverb or echo, but

a guitar tracking through a good stereo rack unit that emulates some stero reflections is just about as good as it gets tracking.

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I use the Lexicon PCM native bundle, the Sonnox Oxford reverb, and Avid's Reverb One. I like to make a slap delay for vocals by setting a reverb with a short decay and then using a high predelay setting. It makes for a really nice diffuse slapback that sounds big room without sounding quite like slapback. You can hear a sample of this effect here: http://silkcitymusicfactory.com/mp3/ttr_samples/saw_her_standing_there.mp3 This is from a collection of 16 early Beatles tunes we recorded for Ticket to Ride, a local Beatles cover band. They wanted to emulate the "vibe" of the early Beatles stuff. I made the "slap verb" using Reverb One. There's also a longer Lexicon plate delay mixed in there low. Of course this is not how the early Beatles stuff was actually done.

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One more question:

 

Do you like to use your reverb as a send or you use it as insert as well? Or no rules?

 

I was trying to find the right room for snare. I used 2016 Eventide plugin on send and didn't like it. The sound was weak and not well articulated. Then I created a copy of my snare track, put 2016 there as insert, blended it with original track and yes, the sound was exactly how I wanted it to be.

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The #4 chamber at Capitol studios is the nicest reverb in the world.

Apparently the Bricasti is the next best thing. I have neither. But i'm going to build a real chamber in my new studio. After hearing Al Schmitt's examples and uses of chambers, i now realize how great real chambers are.

There's Boxes and plugs, and then there are real spaces. The more i do this the more i want the real stuff to satisfy my ears.

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