I get it. It’s very useful to have a nice hardware reverb. Especially when it comes to playing live, tracking instruments, and monitoring direct. Personally I have and love the Strymon Big Sky. I also use my UA reverbs for tracking because I don’t ever monitor external instruments through the daw to avoid latency issues.
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I don’t know if vocals means a different type of 'verb, but I also vote for the BAM, it is beautiful
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I still don’t understand why Strymon doesn’t go the 1U 19" rack route. Would buy that 100%
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Source Audio Ventris Dual Reverb.
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I’m on the CXM. You can look, but won’t find anything like it, once you’ve attached to its sound.
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DBA Rooms is lovely.
The reverb types have a really nice variety and its v musical and immediate.
So lush and goes to experimental territory easily if needed. My fav reverb so far.
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Eventide Space was like a dream come true when I bought it and I still love it.
I use Hall most of the time.
What I like most is the quick control with it´s many knobs, especially the hi lo eq.
the “beyond” side of the space is very interesting too !
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Your assumption is correct, that I want(ed) hardware but you have challenged my assumptions.
I guess
1)I don’t like working at music from a screen.
2) I don’t know if they’re ‘as good’ reverbs (I mean, I know they really are I’m sure)
3) I don’t even know where to start…I’ve got a good MBpro and Garage Band…is that enough? How do I connect MBP to mixer?
Don’t feel you need to answer 2 and 3, I’ll do some reading…do answer if you want of course
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I’m irrationally off Strymon. I’ve really no idea why, as I like my El Cap…
I was singing through the CXM and it was good…unlike my singing…just reduced the send to the reverb for the vocal track
Ha ha…DAWful, very good
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Ok. This is working on my bias nicely.
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Assuming that you will add reverb and any mastering in your DAW, you just need a good 2-input audio interface. The MOTU M2/M4 are probably the highest quality bare-bones budget and mac friendly audio interfaces out there. The bigger MOTUs and RMEs will have more inputs and mixing/routing features, but if you just want to add reverb to the end of your chain then the M series should get the job done.
Connect your main outputs of your mixer to the M2’s inputs.
Open up Garageband and load up your reverb plugin, done.
You don’t need to, but you will eventually want to upgrade to Logic or Ableton. Logic is very complete and dirt cheap - $200 for what seems to be lifetime upgrades. Live Suite (comparable to the one and only Logic SKU) costs $750, and you will pay a few hundred dollars every few years for major version upgrades.
If you want to use your computer as an insert effect, things become more complicated. It takes time for audio to be converted to digital data, and then that data needs to be routed around your computer and operating system, then to the DAW, and then back out again. All of this can add up to a lot of a little latency, depending on how much time, effort and money you want to spend. On the other hand, you may be able to recreate your entire synth setup within Live and M4L and create far more complex routings in the box.
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Awesome explanation, thanks for taking your time to write this. Looking things up now…
Does the latency you talk about affect this situation…
Synth in stereo to XR18
Vocals Mono in
Reverb on a send bus
?
I use the vongon ultrasheer and it’s at least as good as anything… I love it and I have used them all…
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Yes, but a quick google search suggests you can achieve 8ms of round trip latency with the XR18, which is less than half the smallest figure I’ve seen for the MOTU. You may want to dive into Logic and Ableton forums to find threads on measuring and managing latency.
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Definitely do what’s best for you. You have to enjoy the process.
For Reverb though, you tend to make some settings and leave it that way. Screen time would be pretty minimal after setting things up with that in mind.
It’s not going to be exactly the same as the CXM because it’s a different algorithm. If that’s the one you love that’s the one you should get.
The software reverbs I mentioned are direct ports of the code. In some cases as high as $5000+ studio hardware Reverbs. The only differences would be subtle DAC/ADC coloration, which is intended to be crystal clear on these units anyway.
The Lexicon ones are the same as their PCM hardware units.
The Eventide ones are taken from their flagship hardware reverb units (Eclipse, H8000, etc).
Considered by many, the best of the best you can get.
If you have a mixer with Aux sends you’d just need an audio interface with a few inputs and outputs.
You could hook up the sends from your mixer into the computer (Software Reverbs) and then route that audio back out.
Latency should be fairly minimal with any modern audio interface. Reverb is not something you’d need to worry about latency with in most cases anyway.
Software isn’t for everyone. It does mean learning a bunch of new things.
Once you learn it though, a whole new world of affordable high quality equipment opens up to you.
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Thank you. Very clear and useful…I’m looking at the links you put in your first reply…
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