SIR1

Reverb is one of those things, along with a compressor, that's used all over the place - which kind of means you need to find a really good one, or have lots for different jobs...

... and so enter SIR. I'll spare the science bit, suffice to say that it doesn't have a sound or characteristic of its own, but rather borrows reverb tails from 'real' effects, rooms, cabinets etc. The upshot of this is that you can add the reverb from a £11k Lexicon, to your sampled/recorded drum track. Brilliant! Impulse reverbs are getting more common now, so there are loads of useable impulses out there on the web, or of course you can always make your own.

Interface - Basic but effective.

Sound - Depends on the impulse. 0/10 for that badly recorded impulse of my bathroom, 10/10 for the 960L, Eclipse, TC 6000 etc...

Features - Not as many knobs as say, Ambience, but then again it doesn't really need it. no damping or anything like that but the EQ is powerful, and the reverb tail can be cut, stretched and so on, so some great sounds can be easily produced.

Documentation - Doesn't really need it. Simple idea and it's easy to use.

Presets - None. But that's kind of the point. I'm giving it 9 because at least the SIR page has links to some impulse hosting sites. Be warned that these impulses can be big...

Customer Support - haven't had to deal with them, but since it seems to be a one-man operation, would expect support to be good.

VFM - No question, it's free...

Stability - Never crashed yet.

Make sure your host has full PDC, and run as a SEND effect. Either that, or only use it when mastering and use a lower latency/CPU reverb for recording. But come on... it's free. It loads top quality impulse responses. Works well and deserves a space on your hard-drive :D you won't be disappointed.Read Review