What are your favorite non-Valhalla reverbs, and why?

[valhallasound]

Fleet Foxes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE

EMT-140. The real thing, not a digital simulation.

Sean Costello

[Sampleconstruct]

The most beautiful reverb experience I had in the Cologne Cathedral when I was about 18 - at that time I used to carry my soprano sax with me when going to Discos and Clubs, improvising along with the music played by the DJs. So after one of those drunken/stoned nights I went to the cathedral early in the morning together with some homeys and had a long impro session until some guards came to chase us away. Playing in that vast space was just amazing, you could build chords with your own playing as the reverb lingered around for so long.

[antithesist]

That's very cool about the RMX-16. What were your impressions of the different algorithms? I've used and played a little with some years ago. In big studios, they seemed to always be set to NONLIN2, but I think often went unused most of the time, at least after the 80's. It could add some life to the typical Simmons set, though. I also seem to remember an ambience algorithm that was nice. I ran across this tidbit in a Ken Bodganowicz interview:

"I also did probably the first ever emulation plug-in, an AMS RMX-16 nonlin reverb simulation for the SP2016. It came on an EPROM chip."

www.audionewsroom.net/2008/09/off-record-soundtoys.html

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[valhallasound]

That's very cool about the RMX-16. What were your impressions of the different algorithms? I've used and played a little with some years ago. In big studios, they seemed to always be set to NONLIN2, but I think often went unused most of the time, at least after the 80's. It could add some life to the typical Simmons set, though. I also seem to remember an ambience algorithm that was nice. I ran across this tidbit in a Ken Bodganowicz interview:

"I also did probably the first ever emulation plug-in, an AMS RMX-16 nonlin reverb simulation for the SP2016. It came on an EPROM chip."

www.audionewsroom.net/2008/09/off-record-soundtoys.html

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The Nonlin2 sounded great on snare drum. The unit we tested didn't have Nonlin1, which is too bad, as apparently that algorithm is eminently reverse-engineerable. The unit we tested did have Reverse, which probably has a similar structure to Nonlin1. It also slewed heavily to the left, as did the Room algorithm.

The Hall, Plate and Ambience algorithms were all very nice. The Hall was fairly sparse, but still generated a big spatial impression. Ambience sounded really metallic to me, and had some strong repetition patterns, but sounded really nice in the mix.

Sean Costello

[antithesist]

Edit: Oops, I just now went back and read the rules. Like my next lot neighbor said, "look buddy, I didn't get this here fancy trailer, uh... mobile home, by follerin' no dang rules."

Favorite reverb: Lexicon 224

Favorite experience: scaring drummers with it

Seriously though, a good reverb like that can inspire performance. It can be an invaluable tracking aid and can really allow musicians to hear themselves better.

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[ariston]

Not a lot of talk about plugins... I like Aether a lot, because it's got an unobtrusiveness that I find very charming. This is such a versatile plugin, though, that it's hard to point to anything in particular. It can stick to your sound without adding that obvious Lexiconesque sheen, which I somehow always equate with bad 80s Top 40 music. It can add queer and wonderful resonances to your material, making it an obvious sound design tool.
It's more ethereal than thick, as the name says. It can sound very far off, or it can sit right inside your ear. And while the nature settings do not at all sound like something recorded in nature, I do love them for their weird repercussions and colours.

It can be made to sound like a synth almost, and that's exactly what I do sometimes - stick any sound through it to get a constantly moving, lugubrious or joyous pad.

[ariston]

Copping out of the "real world" part, I'd say that I usually pay close attention to reverberation "out there", and... well, I like 'em all! I like going down the stairs to the subway (underground for ye Brits), I like big cathedrals and small, stuffy chapels. I like wooden rooms, and I like stone rooms. My office has a 4.5 meter high ceiling and an industrial-strength rug, which makes for a queer mix of boom and stifle (I've got a deep voice). I like an anechoic chamber (i.e., the reverb of the inside of your skull, it feels like), and I love running through a tight cement tunnel. The sound of a woman in high heels walking through a parking garage, the squeal of tires and the rumble of starting engines. I like the sound of me talking into my acoustic guitar's body, and I love sounding my barbaric yawp down a hillside in Burgundy and hearing the drawn-out echoes.

So, there's too many favourites to count, I guess.

[vic_france]

The Taj Mahal was an awesome experience, even though I was prepared having previously listened to Paul Horn recordings. Reflections going on and on with such clarity. The surfaces are very hard but smooth, some curved and some very angular. There were kind of dividing partitions that were thick stone lattice, designed I guess to let light in.

From the first Paul Horn recording inside the Taj Mahal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98-SNlApA-o

I have this on scratchy vinyl.

Sean Costello

I think that's the place they used, to record the announcements of arrivals at my local train station

The first time I remember really noticing the effect of a reverb, was when, as a kid, I had access to the Blüthner grand piano at my local community hall, and remember being fascinated by the return of the sound back from the empty room to the stage. (It was a rather "cubic" shaped room, lots of wood, about a 500-seater).

[cron]

Walking down the Harringay Passage in Haringey, London N8/N4. It's a tight little passage that cuts through the long streets on the Harringay Ladder, running about a mile in length. The reverb in there is a gorgeous ring, almost comb filteresque, with a surprisingly long decay. Walking through it at night is weirdly terrifying, as it's a mugger and crackheads' paradise. The feelings of unease are magnified by that reverb. 15 seconds of ringing footsteps, cross the open street, 15 seconds of ringing footsteps, cross the open street, repeat.

Sounds like a reverb version of Danny's Big Wheel ride through the Overlook Hotel.

Yes! Such great sonics in that scene. SKREEEEEEEE (silence) SKREEEEE

[Resonator63]

This probably isn't really a reverb,more of an ambience.
But if you go deep into a forest,real deep in among the trees,how would you get that effect?
Strange I know,but if you live near a forest give it a try.
Ok I admit it i'm mad

[bk]

Not really a reverb, I guess, but similar...
I love the sympathetic vibrations of an acoustic piano with the damper pedal pushed down.

[valhallasound]

This probably isn't really a reverb,more of an ambience.
But if you go deep into a forest,real deep in among the trees,how would you get that effect?
Strange I know,but if you live near a forest give it a try.
Ok I admit it i'm mad

There have been a couple of forest reverb posts. A few thoughts:

- A tree is going to have VERY diffuse reflections. In other words, a sound hits it, and it is going to bounce in all directions.

- Odds are good that the high frequencies will be very damped, due to the nature of bark, leaves, needles, etc.

- Unlike a room, which is almost all reflecting surfaces (except for open windows), a forest is mostly empty space. So a sound that bounces off of a tree in a given direction only has a certain % chance of bouncing off another tree before it dies out to inaudibility, and a much lower chance of bouncing towards a listener.

To me, this suggests a feedforward algorithm, as opposed to a feedback algorithm. A feedforward algorithm with sparse diffuse reflections, extending over several seconds, is probably best realized by convolution.

Googling "forest reverberation" yielded a few interesting links:

http://blog.nutaksas.com/2008/07/forest ... model.html - MATLAB script for generating an impulse response of an imaginary forest, where the trees are represented by cylinders.

Kyle Spratt did some work on forest reverberation while getting the MST degree at CCRMA, but I can't find any publicly available links to his work.

Sean Costello

[bk]

Playing by the rules here, so a new post.
Not my favorite reverb, by a long shot, but an interesting one nonetheless: I used to work in a music store that had a small room jampacked with cymbals mounted in playing position. It was like being inside a plate reverb. Obviously, extremely metallic.

[valhallasound]

Bad reverb: Any concert heard at the Kingdome, which was the old multipurpose stadium in Seattle from 1976 to 2000 (I forget the exact dates of building and destruction). That building had about a 20 second reverb time. Hearing Eddie Van Halen doing "Eruption" in that building produced a hilarious smear of undifferentiated note energy, as about 200 Tinkerbell guitar notes at a time would be blended into a single sound.

Sean Costello

[Resonator63]

This probably isn't really a reverb,more of an ambience.
But if you go deep into a forest,real deep in among the trees,how would you get that effect?
Strange I know,but if you live near a forest give it a try.
Ok I admit it i'm mad

There have been a couple of forest reverb posts. A few thoughts:

- A tree is going to have VERY diffuse reflections. In other words, a sound hits it, and it is going to bounce in all directions.

- Odds are good that the high frequencies will be very damped, due to the nature of bark, leaves, needles, etc.

- Unlike a room, which is almost all reflecting surfaces (except for open windows), a forest is mostly empty space. So a sound that bounces off of a tree in a given direction only has a certain % chance of bouncing off another tree before it dies out to inaudibility, and a much lower chance of bouncing towards a listener.

To me, this suggests a feedforward algorithm, as opposed to a feedback algorithm. A feedforward algorithm with sparse diffuse reflections, extending over several seconds, is probably best realized by convolution.

Googling "forest reverberation" yielded a few interesting links:

http://blog.nutaksas.com/2008/07/forest ... model.html - MATLAB script for generating an impulse response of an imaginary forest, where the trees are represented by cylinders.

Kyle Spratt did some work on forest reverberation while getting the MST degree at CCRMA, but I can't find any publicly available links to his work.

Sean Costello

Wow!!! Thanks for that Sean, i'll take a look