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

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hibidy wrote:
bmanic wrote:Haven't read through the whole thread but......
Man, are you lazy!
Yup! Extremely!

@Sean:

Interesting info man! Yeah, I always thought the Yamaha reverbs were all pretty "cold" and splashy somehow. Very easy to place within a mix because they didn't take up much space but at the same time they never were an extension of the original sound source, rather a "plastered on top" kind of wall of sizzle.

However, contrary to bad sounding early plugin reverbs (like all the versions based on freeverb) they didn't have too many standing resonances that broke a mix.. or then I'm just indulging myself in nostalgia and they all sucked. Like I said, it's quite a few years since I've used a Yamaha effects unit. :)

Cheers!
bManic
Last edited by bmanic on Sun Dec 16, 2012 4:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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hibidy wrote:Well, I have to run with this as my brain remembers, I can't remember much and I'm too lazy to go back through and check all over again.
Don't take this the wrong way, hibidy, but we're *all* very disappointed in you, and you're ruining the whole thread for EVERYONE.

Sean Costello

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valhallasound wrote:Hi all,

I spend a lot of time thinking about the "how" of reverbs. Tonight, I am more interested in the "what" and "why." Specifically:

- What are your favorite reverbs?
- And, why are those your favorite reverbs? What is it about the sound of those reverbs, or the experience of those reverbs, that makes them your favorites?

A few suggested ground rules for the discussion:

- The reverb can be ANY reverb possible. Plugin, hardware, physical space, a dream, a memory, a favorite song, a reverb that doesn't exist yet. Think big. You don't have to own it, or have owned it, but you need to have experienced it.

- No Valhalla DSP reverbs, please. I would like this to be a marketing/spin free zone, and am thus removing my plugins from this discussion. I want to keep the discussion about the WHY of reverbs, as opposed to discussions of one brand versus another.

- One anecdote per post. You can post as many reverb experiences as you like, but I would ask that you separate your experiences into different posts. Think of this as "small plates." This is a tapas/izakaya thread, with the goal to make each post easily digestible, leaving room for more.

- No debating. This is about YOUR favorite reverb experiences. No one can take away YOUR reverb experience. It is YOURS.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments!

Sean Costello
I like fairly realistic reverbs, but too some extent I like them cleaner and clearer and reality.

My favorite non-valhalla reverb was SpinAudio'd RoomVerbM2. The ability to easily dial in room dimensions, materials on the walls, and air characteristics is a really natural way for me to work.

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I thought it sounded quite horrible. Yes the concept of adding carpets to your walls (basically just some damping) was intriguing for a while but in the end it was very fiddly and sounded quite bad, in my opinion.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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bmanic wrote:
hibidy wrote:
bmanic wrote:Haven't read through the whole thread but......
Man, are you lazy!
Yup! Extremely!
I just got through saying I'm too lazy to read the whole thing :D

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valhallasound wrote:
hibidy wrote:Well, I have to run with this as my brain remembers, I can't remember much and I'm too lazy to go back through and check all over again.
Don't take this the wrong way, hibidy, but we're *all* very disappointed in you, and you're ruining the whole thread for EVERYONE.

Sean Costello
Image

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Thanks for the info about that Hedges track!

I really enjoy reading your insight into how these sounds are made - there's something very satisfying about connecting a great sound to its source, and the parameter insight and historical context just makes it that much better.

Here's another one that's a bit more restrained, but in a similar vein. Another Lexicon? Something else?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GIPH1u16rc

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The old suburban street where I lived in Bristol, UK.

I did an environmental recording of two neighbours chatting accross the street in Italian - it had a very interesting reverb feel to it as the sound bounced off the rows of victorian brick houses.
Pastoral, Kosmiche, Ambient Music https://markgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
Experimental Music https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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sticking by the rules here - another one is the reverb in Winchester Cathedral when listening to the choir practicing.

Thinking about the what and why question - I think the things that link mine is that they have become almost spiritual memories. I suspect like smell there is something evocative about reverb as in it is one of the cues to tell you what environment you are in and so the brain cues up helpful memories - this is where I feel, this was where a snake was hiding, this is a good place to hunt bison and so on.
Pastoral, Kosmiche, Ambient Music https://markgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
Experimental Music https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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Actually, my most surreal memory of reverb is quite the opposite of that. It was in a small television studio (50m2 or so), and there was a total absence of refections. Really odd, as your brain tells you it should be there as you're in a walled room. It's only then you realize how much reverb you're actually hearing all the time.

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valhallasound wrote:
jonahs wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqR8bNLZlAc



Zoom lens on a mountainside trail by Machu Picchu, flattening out the perspective and making it look like the extras are walking along an almost sheer mountain cliff. Fog obscures details. Garrulous Klaus Kinski, hands perched on his sides, glares over the entire scene. Saw this movie on the big screen as a 19 yo. Blew my mind.

Tape echo, fuzz guitar, & Mellotron/Chamberlain mixed choir. The reverb sounds like it could be an EMT plate, or maybe some crazy spring reverb. Slightly metallic, but in a really nice way.

I own a disturbingly large number of Popol Vuh CDs.

Sean Costello
Me too. Hosanna Mantras is probably my favourite.

Florian claimed he created a choir sound on his big Moog and after that gave up with it - makes me wonder if it isn't a mellotron (probably unlikely to be a Chamberlin but then he did get the Moog and he was very rich)..but rather a choir created on the Moog - it's only two notes right? That is probably not that difficult to do on the Moog if you have the filter bank.
Pastoral, Kosmiche, Ambient Music https://markgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
Experimental Music https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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ChamomileShark wrote: Florian claimed he created a choir sound on his big Moog and after that gave up with it - makes me wonder if it isn't a mellotron (probably unlikely to be a Chamberlin but then he did get the Moog and he was very rich)..but rather a choir created on the Moog - it's only two notes right? That is probably not that difficult to do on the Moog if you have the filter bank.
I've created a choir sound in Csound using parallel bandpass filters and a string ensemble type chorus:

http://soundcloud.com/seancostello/choirstretch

It wouldn't have been impossible to create such a sound on a Moog, but it might be pretty difficult. I don't think that the filter bank has enough control over the filter frequencies and Qs to get this sound, so you would have to use a bunch of lowpass & highpass filters coupled together as bandpass filters.

Meanwhile, there were a few sounds on my MTRon plugin that pretty much nailed this sound. The attacks on the MTron were a little more pronounced, but if Fricke used a Chamberlain, the tapes might have been edited differently.

Sean Costello

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You may be right. I've also created choir sounds using bandpass filters but I've just seen something on wikipedia that talks about his "mellotron related choir organ".

I'm not sure that the chamberlin had a choir on it - I thought it only had a solo male and solo female voice. See

http://www.mellotron.com/tapesele.htm
Pastoral, Kosmiche, Ambient Music https://markgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
Experimental Music https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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(only read first few pages of the thread)

EMT250 or EMT out there in general. UAD and Empty Room Systems. Never used the real thing, and don't really like any of the sampled EMT tails that are around.

Just hi end damp, lo end damp, tail time and predelay time. No fuzz, no headaches, no time wasted pondering on if it could be even better because of some parameters are contradicting without me knowing it.

Especially Empty Room Systems EMT250 got this quality about it that works similarly to early reflections; when I raise it up in volume I can hear that mono tracks get wider, but not really from the tail but .. some other closer addition to the sound. I set the EMT output amount it to where I just barely hear the 'widening effect' on a mono track, just enough to where a dry mono track detaches from being 'stuck on the wall', glued to bone dry mono. After that, the balance is just perfect - almost no matter what source it is. Can handle the metallic factor fairly well too.

Sometimes use the Sonnox Reverb for ultra clean close short vocals too. But it affects low end frequencies in a detrimental weird way.

For drums though, I tend to like short, dirty, bright SPX type with lots of diffusion. Cubase comes with this Roomworx reverb that can work wonders on drums, and Reaper - after I got on it - comes with a pretty aggressive reverb too, great for the same thing. Also got some samples of the Roland R-880 that works great for modern type reverbs too.

I feel reverbs needs to offer better user focus and outline, for example interconnecting parameters more. Reverb units are way too complicated, presumably just to offer "flexibility". Flexibility, if you got the wrong base sound, get another sound. Trying to tweak a wrong sound into submission is the "polishing a turd" method. Offering shitloads of parameters won't solve it.

I do understand advanced parameters and have spent half my life understanding the complexities of manipulating digital audio, even making some plugs of my own. I'm no fool, lazy, nor stranger to advanced schemas. But .. I just don't want to anymore, just don't have time for it, getting lost in theoretical patterns.

I need a reverb to be ... like a Roland Synthesizer. Pick a bass sound from it, and it just works; some simple editing sure, but the base sound just works. I don't want to make an entirely new sound/ambience almost from scratch every time I do a song or mix, and reverbs are so complicated, feel like I'm not on a Roland synth but rather a huge ancient modular synth.

Instead, I need it to work, as "right away" as possible. The EMT model is great for that. And ValhallaRoom is not too far off this either, in my opinion. I just prefer a slightly different color than it offers. But very nice work :)

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I read this thread within two nights, i found it very interesting and
apart from its scientific interest and informative nature, it somehow
inspired those involved to share song memories and impressions from a
long way back...which was kinda moving. As it it were a Spatialholics
Anonymous meeting. I'll become a cliche and say that i fell in love as
a kid with the 224 and later on, the 480L. As a teenager, I had my share
of the 4AD/John Fryer reverb drenched sound (Lexicon as far as i can tell)
but my real love was always spring verbs and space echoes. The grit and the
feeling of uncertainty always excited me. Having a twin reverb made it even
more inevitably seductive. That's why maybe when Lexi ironed out the sound I
became a dry protestant. But just for a while...
Nevertheless, reverb, imo, is a psychotropic element; despite its measurable
nature, always takes the form that each individual listener molds inside.
I leave you with two examples that for some may sound off topic(ish) but
exhibit an amalgam of necessity and madness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Dtc99v_R4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp4-4YJUNfY
a notch of a bell on a shelf

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