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

[dalor]

I'm currently in love with Exponential Audio R2 - lots of movement, still very transparent compared to others, very alive and lush with its chorus and love the gate feature.

[jens]

Anyway, my favourite non - valhalla verb is Verbtone by http://www.sknote.it/Verbtone.htm

Nothing, not even a real Lexicon box comes close to this. It's juicy. No presets. Whatever. It's an EMT 140 plate clone irc.

apples and oranges really - if you would want to compare a Sknote reverb to the Valhalla ones, it would have to be Stagespace - but even then they are still rather different kinds of animals.

[electricthing]

Lexicon LXP, makes for a warm smooth mix, I can imagine the PCM to be great and the hardware even better.
Still use VVV and also MMultibandConvolution.
And MMultibandReverb is nice also.
Use the Lexicon MX200 hardware for playing guitar and drums, sometimes mix with it.
I demo'd RP Verb, nice on vocals, and 2c audio Breeze (also nice but maybe a bit cold), would have bought them had there been a big sale (not now).
Curious about Sknote Verbtone and Eos in a mix but I have enough reverbs for now.

[tibah]

Beside VVV, there is loads of love floating around for RP-Verb here. It just works very well to my ears and can be used for loads of creative reverb approaches as well.

[valhallasound]

Favorite non-Valhalla reverbs, Holiday Edition:

Real. Reverb. Chambers.

I've been listening to a lot of olde-timey Christmas music over the past few days. The vocals from the 1940s have that super warm sound that you get when you are just entering into the proximity effect of a ribbon mike. Starting sometime in the 1950s, you start to hear reverb. A LOT of reverb.

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

Most of the major studios of this era had their own reverb chambers. The design and construction of these reverb chambers was partly informed by science (Bill Putnam Sr. pioneered the use of reverb chambers), partly by good construction techniques (lots of plaster on the walls, cured to the proper hardness), and partly by good luck. Certain studios, such as Gold Star, Sunset Sound, and the Capitol Records studios, became famous for their specific reverb chambers.

There aren't many impulse responses out there of the famous chambers. Some of them were torn down before impulses became a thing, and the remaining chambers tend to have a strict "no impulse responses" policy. Still, you can hear the effects of the chambers really clearly on some of the original tapes that have surfaced in the box set era. Chambers have no real early reflections to speak of - the echo density builds up almost instantly. The modal density is higher than plates, so things don't sound as metallic. Just pure, pristine reverb.

Sean Costello

[valhallasound]

Another great example of a reverb chamber in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tipw66XjXn4

Recorded at Gold Star Studios.

[jens]

Tbh it sounds relatively cold to me... personally I by far prefer V³ for some "vintage flavour".

[momalle3]

I have Valhalla Room and Vintage Vebe, and I liked them a lot, But the verb I turned out to like better was 2CAudio's B2. I don't know why, but it just sits better for me,. I especially love the Early/late combinations. I like everything about Valhalla--the design the attitude--but B2 just works better for me

[jens]

Since having V³, my interest in new/other reverb plugins has been severely diminished. I always felt something was missing/lacking without really being able to put my finger on it - V³ filled that void - everything I record sound just much better, warmer, richer and more professional now.

and b.t.w.: I often record using real springs, then add some V³ afterwards - and that imo is a match made in heaven.

[foosnark]

Convolution reverbs.

Space360.

Odd "character" reverb and psuedo-reverb, like Ice or Metaverb in Maschine, or PSP Pianoverb.

[HcDoom]

Relab LX480 Complete...for me the best reverb on the market. Followed by 2C B2 and VVV.

[Halma]

I recently obtained the Classic Studio Reverbs from IK Multimedia. WOOT!

All of them have lovely timbres and come with pretty cool modulation options (like the phase in / phase out thingy). Very dense plate. And the inverse one is absolutely mindblowing and translates very well in a mix if you need "something special". Plus all of them has a noise lfo (if you need some dirt somewhere). Martin Lind (LX480) did a really great job on this units.

Absolutely a bang for the buck.

Regards
Sebastian

[ccDuckett]

SIR. It's a free convolution reverb, what's not to love?

Also, imagine this IR:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h ... s-25757937

[valhallasound]

SIR. It's a free convolution reverb, what's not to love?

Also, imagine this IR:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h ... s-25757937

I've seen a Soundcloud link of the "IR" (i.e. sound responding to a starter pistol), but no download links for that Soundcloud file! Which is too bad, as this would be a lot of fun to hear.

Of course, a 112 second impulse response would take a LOT of CPU to compute. That is what is nice about algorithmic reverbs. Take 1 second or so of delay memory (you can use a lot more, or somewhat less, but 1 second is kinda the minimum for this sort of thing), turn up the feedback gain in the reverb network to 1.0, and your decay time is only limited by any loss in your reverb filters and delay interpolation.

Sean Costello

[antithesist]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNin4yAEx5o
Damn you and Verbos... (just kidding)

EDIT: Oops... forgot the "non" thing. OK, my favorite reverb is a reverb like this that is "non-Valhalla."