Are we at the point where reverb plugins have completely "peaked".

[ObsoleteAcc99]

I am starting to think so...

the only place i feel true variety these days is in the quirky sound of some of the vintage uad emulations like spring, lex 224, RMX16, definitely the emt 250, etc.

But for all the dev's flagship native "studio workhorse" verbs, have we reached the point where absolutely any of them can give you fantastic world class results, with price/ergonomics/features that appeal to the buyer being the distinguishing factors?

Yes certain emulations and devs go for certain flavours, but is the QUALITY at it's absolute peak is what I am getting at. I can't see how they can be made any better as i think we have absolutely peaked. What do you think?

Just that i was listening to waves h verb demos after i made my topic about it asking what it was like, and immediately i realised it was a nice verb, but just as with digital eq's, just another reverb plugin where i can already do that sound with breverb 2, lex pcm, etc. Nothing wrong with it at all but why buy it over something else? Was it pointless of waves to even release it? Is there any point in any dev releasing any modern reverb plugins anymore? Or should they concentrate on bit for bit emulations of classic vintage hardware for something different?

I dunno, i think you can pick any one of the workhorse verbs and it will do the job. Any of them. I think one vintage, one plate, one spring and one workhorse with a bit of everything is all one would ever need and we are really at the point of diminishing returns. Would be curious to hear your thoughts.

[antithesist]

There's always room for "better."

[izonin]

If we are talking about EDM/pop production then yes, plugins are as good as the hardware used in studios.

Don't forget that we still don't have a Bricasti-in-the-box, though. Nor a proper Quantec Yardstick emulation. Both are very popular in film score production.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

If we are talking about EDM/pop production then yes, plugins are as good as the hardware used in studios.

Don't forget that we still don't have a Bricasti-in-the-box, though. Nor a proper Quantec Yardstick emulation. Both are very popular in film score production.

but technically a bricasti COULD be ported directly as a plugin if Casey ever allowed it, right? a 1:1 emulation?

It's a great verb don't me wrong but I am more than happy with what's available for orchestral stuff too, not just edm

[Heartfeltdawn]

If we are talking about EDM/pop production then yes, plugins are as good as the hardware used in studios.

Until I have a perfect replication of the Midiverb II, I shall never be happy

[Michael L]

Are you saying that there are a finite number of sounds and of surfaces that can reflect them, and we can now mathematically represent that number? When I go for a walk and listen to the sounds around me, their reflections do not sound like any reverb I have ever heard. (Wait for Valhalla Surround, a multipoint infinitely adjustable convolution reverb...) OTOH, can you imagine if real places in the world were cinematically reverberant, and you could travel to say, a Newfoundland fjord to hear the real THX sound, or buy an Ikea toilet with Bricasti reverb?

[Ridan]

Just recently discovered 2CAudio's reverb tools, and they seem to cover a lot of unique ground. So, there's still hope.

[jdnz]

but technically a bricasti COULD be ported directly as a plugin if Casey ever allowed it, right? a 1:1 emulation?

have a hunt - there was a post from sean costello about a year ago explaining that given the hardware the bricasti runs on we're still some way off being able to run algos that complex on general purpose cpus (from memory a lot of it came down to memory bandwidth as much as mflops).

of course if you're willing to live with a reverb that can only be used rendering offline then anything is possible

[izonin]

but technically a bricasti COULD be ported directly as a plugin if Casey ever allowed it, right? a 1:1 emulation?

According to Casey - no. It was something about current RAM not being fast enough, and processors not having enough cache. An offline (not realtime) emulation should be technically possible, though.

Edit: what jdnz said

[aMUSEd]

I think the new EarReverb 2 looks interesting - especially the precise control over early reflections looks powerful.

[Keef Baker]

Dunno but while Valhalla keep making plugins I'll keep buying them

[Scotty]

That is interesting, I wonder what types of memory chips and dsp are used in the Briscati that would preclude emulation? The lexicon stuff has been done, Eventide, TC and others too. Does anyone have any technical explanation as to why this is impossible to achieve in real time?

but technically a bricasti COULD be ported directly as a plugin if Casey ever allowed it, right? a 1:1 emulation?

According to Casey - no. It was something about current RAM not being fast enough, and processors not having enough cache. An offline (not realtime) emulation should be technically possible, though.

Edit: what jdnz said

[do_androids_dream]

No, we're still a long way away imo. There's reverbs in some of my dads cheap guitar pedals that sound better than anything I've heard itb. Some of the old cheap Alesis boxes sound better than most itb verbs. So, my answer is no - still a long way to go - just like with analog synth emu's.

[cron]

That is interesting, I wonder what types of memory chips and dsp are used in the Briscati that would preclude emulation? The lexicon stuff has been done, Eventide, TC and others too. Does anyone have any technical explanation as to why this is impossible to achieve in real time?

but technically a bricasti COULD be ported directly as a plugin if Casey ever allowed it, right? a 1:1 emulation?

According to Casey - no. It was something about current RAM not being fast enough, and processors not having enough cache. An offline (not realtime) emulation should be technically possible, though.

Edit: what jdnz said

A few reverb plug gurus post in this thread which has some interesting info across the first 3 or 4 pages. http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=393688

I programmed Blackfins for audio for several years at Analog Devices, including several reverb algorithms. My back of the envelope estimate is that the M7 is somewhat more powerful than a single core of any existing Intel processor. If the algorithm can't be divided into parallel threads (and many reverb algorithms can't), then it would be impossible to run this as a native plugin. Even if the algorithm could *barely* fit on a core, running that close to the max CPU of that core would result in stuttering in any real world situation.

The memory access speed of the M7 would also be difficult/impossible to reproduce on current Intel CPUs. Algorithms such as the Lexicon topologies tend to use around 1 to 2 seconds of delay memory, max. This will allow the memory to stay in the cache of modern CPUs. Casey has mentioned that the algorithm uses over 30 seconds of delay memory. This won't fit in the cache of modern CPUs, and would require a lot of swapping with the main memory, which is MUCH slower.

Blackfins also have hardware support for circular buffers, which is how delay lines are built. You can get faster delay lines on software reverbs w/o hardware circular buffer support by using bitwise tricks, but those hardware circular buffers allow for a HUGE number of delay taps to be calculated without breaking a sweat.

Over at Gearslutz, Casey has mentioned that he uses 32x16 bit multiplications where appropriate, as opposed to the 32x32 multiplications that are commonly used for audio. This suggests to me that the 32x16 bit multiplications are being used for delay taps, where a 16 bit coefficient would make no audible difference. It also suggests that Casey is working pretty close to the metal, as opposed to just running generic C code and letting the high power processors deal with the overhead.

Sean Costello

[Heartfeltdawn]

No, we're still a long way away imo. There's reverbs in some of my dads cheap guitar pedals that sound better than anything I've heard itb. Some of the old cheap Alesis boxes sound better than most itb verbs. So, my answer is no - still a long way to go - just like with analog synth emu's.

What pedals are we talking here?