Let's talk about reverbs: what are U using and how?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Beside EQ and compression, Reverbs are the most important effect for sound. But how do you choose them? Parametric plug-ins? IR-Plug-ins? Stock effects of your DAW? Hardware-Reverbs? How you combine them to get depth or a special effect? Do you use different Reverbs for voice, drums and synth?

My goto reverbs where Exonential Audio until now, but I just got the Hofa IQ-Reverb 2 that offers parametric changes to IR-Convolution Reverbs, which is pretty damn cool. It lets you place the Audio within a room and you can mix four of them with two parametric Reverbs. This is not only handy for Live and Bitwig, who only offer 12 Aux Channels. I never got this depth of a room before out of a plug-in.

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A little reverb
#2

I use liquidsonic seventh Heaven for ambient to small rooms and vintage verb for more spacious stuff. I’ll sometime revert to others if those don’t work, but they mainly do

#3

Quadraverb GT. Design my own patches.
Elektron reverbs. Design my own patches.
Use as sends, or inserts.

#4

Software:
recently Valhalla Vintage Verb has been praised, indeed really good one for the price.

But this year I have discovered the Fabfilter Pro-R and I instantly felt that my quest after software reverb has ended. The interface and the settings available are just the best out there. I have never experienced such a quick way to exactly found the RIGHT reverb, I’m talking about the blend, the distance, the stereo image etc. It sounds amazing, it’s hard to make it sounds bad, it’s kinda crazy, because every other software reverb I used the last since 20 years was the exact opposite. (Except good convolution ones)

Hardware:
Eventide… (H3000 :heart:)
OTO BAM
Bricasti M7

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#5

Been experimenting a fair bit lately with combining reverb with distortion, fuzz and pitch modulation.
I’ve mainly been achieving this with my Quadraverb (for reverb, delay and pitch mod), the reverb and chorus on my Digitone, Analog Heat, Lyra 8 and even a little bit of bit/SR reduction withy little Mooer Lo-fi machine pedal.

I really like using hardware to create massive walls of sound playing live and in the moment. I love just getting everything set up and flying off to space for a little while. When I used software reverbs, it was usually after the event, but I found out that, for my workflow, reverb needs to be part of the event itself.

I’ve ordered a collision devices black hole symmetry pedal as a little Christmas present to myself, as it looks like it will do the job of about 3 or 4 different bits of gear in one pedal, leaving the Quadraverb free to roam on the Aux Send again, which is probably where it works best.

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#6

Got a boss rv-500 this summer (I’m in a computer less setup). Really pleased by the sound quality and the overall deepness (very tweakable / configurable).
A really understated pedal imho. It’s not a delay technically, but I has a really good space echo simulation.

I use it either as an ambiance verb (dry+wet over my synths) or in send/return mode (wet only, getting sent audio from octatrack cue out). I also use it to spice up some sounds when I’m sampling (love the “non-linear” algo).

You can use it to add some “space” to a mix… but also as a monstrous reverb, where the slightest sound in input will generate a very long texture. With it’s dual mode, you can have 2 reverbs and 2 delays simultanously !!!

oh, and Midi support is quite good and deep too.

#7

I use the Strymon BlueSky plate the most, with a short decay. Kinda bread and butter, but been happy with it. When I want something special and “washier” there’s lots of other stuff, but I don’t really go too crazy – or specific – with reverbs. In my Digitakts I find the longer reverb settings to work well, but I tend to use it very sparsely in the spotlight.

Something I haven’t seen mentioned here is to use my own setup room as a sort of echo chamber. Let some stems or samples run through my monitors and re-record with a mic or two. Just a quick room response I guess, nothing long and soundscape’ish. Also nice to reverse-record-reverse that response, smoothens the transients in a very unique way!

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#8

Using a Zoom MS70 CDR with some good algorithms surprisingly. On send/return.
Also using a Boss DD7 on a send return.
And a FMR RNC on master inserts.
As for software: NI Raum, NI Replika, Valhalla, Arturia 140. Also on a send/return.
I am after a “go to” unit now, with less “magical” on it.
What are you guys recommending? I have a spare send/return. I hear a lot about Quadraverb GT?
To replace my Zoom (I will most likely insert it on the MicroFreak which lacks effects), I am looking at the Collider, Mercury 7 or Polymoon. Any advice would be most welcome as I cannot access a physical shop to test these.
Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

#9

Dark Reverb on OT, an unpopular choice maybe but I like it, you need to get the HP and LP dialled in right for the sound you want but I think that it can sound very useful, if not “impressive” I think it gets a bad rap personally.

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#10

Dark Reverb is amazing. I miss it very much.

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#11

Why unpopular ? I only use this one on the OT, it’s really cool (the params are not obvious, but great sound).

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#12

A lot of people moan about it, although however also a lot don’t :laughing:

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#13

I also used Pro-r and found it better as an insert to thicken things up, but not so much for depth reception of different sounds in one room.

#14

I tend to use reverb subtly or very unsubtly, and for very little in between. For vocals, I most often use the Vocal Plate in a Lexicon MPX-1. I have had an MPX-1 in my rack since they came out primarily for that one algorithm.

For wild stuff, I use Eventide GTR4000 or H9 Max.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying the spring reverb in the Dreadbox Hypnosis.

I have been surisied at how often I run other synths through the reverb in the Analog Keys.

Quite often, I use whatever is available in the DAW I am using for a given project, reverbs built into my synths/samplers/etc, or nothing at all.

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#15

im enjoying the reverbs empress zoia has to offer!

#16

I (sadly?) don’t have any UAD hardware, but I thought their Capitol Chambers sounded heartachingly beautiful on the demos.

Otherwise - aside from the OT and ARs reverb when I need them - pretty much Quadraverb for atmospheric design, Zoia for sound design and Valhalla Room for space creation.

#17

I’m also team “love Dark Reverb” for sure! Whatever it might lack in highest fidelity or whatever, it makes up so much in having a dedicated reverb per Track, as opposed to one send-Reverb for all other Elektrons. It’s so nice to have the same kind of character reverb on all sounds that in the same time can be adjusted with the high/low cuts and Reverb length per sound.

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#18

I love the Softube TSAR. It has a phenomenal sound.

https://www.softube.com/tsar1?gclid=Cj0KCQiAqo3-BRDoARIsAE5vnaItSwLb9OelWftYfHpW6NaguouEz39Aejx-Lw4Q9rbFp2ZFMgeWJt0aAkL9EALw_wcB

#19

For reverb, I use old Lexicon and Alesis rackmount effect units run through the aux sends/returns on a mixer. I only have four aux sends/returns on the mixer. Therefore, only one or two channels are dedicated to reverb.

#20

I’ve lately really took a liking to reverbs. Built in delays of modern synths are fine enough for me. Reverb is a nice gassy categorie that doesn’t affect your core workflow, where I do try to stick to what I have as much as I can.

I have/use:

  • Microverb III (aux send on mixer, like it on highs like hats and snares)
  • Quadraverb (just found an affordable one, curious to explore it)
  • BAM (currently dedicated to my “lead perc” from Rytm, using a dedicated out from Rytm via Strymon DIG and then OTO BAM)
  • Empress Reverb on A4.

My one Black Friday purchase was a Blackhole. Not yet sure what I’ll use it for… I read one of you on this forum used it on the complete main out of their setup, no idea if that fits my music but I’ll try it out. Experimenting a lot these days with fx.

Biggest doubt/reservation I feel is using really good reverbs for small dedicated things. For example I really miss using my OTO BAM running into RNC just for my kick, to have a sidechained reverb on my kick. But I felt a bit bad for using such a beautiful (expensive) pedal for that. Now I have the Microverb III (€40), I still feel a bit bad using that for this…