Best Reverbs
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- KVRAF
- 19156 posts since 13 Feb, 2003 from Vancouver, Canada
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- KVRist
- 108 posts since 28 Jan, 2005 from Orange County, CA
I'd have to agree both with greendoor and bobby and bduffy (Hi, guys!): I bought AAR after a long exhaustive search for a real-time NO LATENCY (sorry Powercore or UAD-1, but I track everything "live and in person!") VST reverb plug-in. I was on the fence for a while about RoomverbM2 – it’s pretty good, but sounded just a bit on the metallic side once I put the “acid test” on it (I’ll explain below in a minute). Once hearing AAR, and testing it as below, I bought it right away.
Here is that “acid test” that I use to find out how metallic or rough a reverb can sound. These two factors, in my opinion, have hampered native reverbs for as long as they have been around it seems. They are getting better and better, though, which is great for us all!
Try this test and you'll see:
- Play something (like a piano patch) that's fairly dry to begin and run it through the reverb on test at 100% wet - running it through ONLY the surround bus / surround speakers while sitting in your usual sweet spot. If you aren’t set up for surround, just throw up a simple prerecorded sequence or something, and turn yourself 180 degrees around from your usual listening position (obviously, you can’t play anything this way, hence the need for the prerecording). The object of this is you will be listening to the reverb AS IT'S OUTPUTTING PHYSICALLY BEHIND YOU ONLY.
For some reason, at least for me, if the reverb being tested this way has even a slight hint of having a metallic or rough sounding character, in its body sound or tail, you will really hear it for sure. Put that up on the front set, and you don't hear these anomalies nearly as much - I'm not sure why that is.
Try this test if you can – it’s never failed me.
The AAR plug-in, again to me, exhibited the least amount of anomalies of the bunch that I tested in this very test. This reverb very much reminds me, in the tail design anyway, of the aforementioned Roland SRV-330 hardware reverb. I bought the newer SRV-3030D thinking it was an updated digital I/O version – boy was I wrong! I remember the great Eric Persing (one of the designers of the original 330 algorithms) mentioned on another forum in the past, that the 3030D was a brand new Japanese design, and didn’t take it’s algorithms from the 330 at all. Using this test I mentioned above – the 3030D failed miserably. I remember spending like $800 on that darn thing to be so disappointed with it. I sent it back consequently.
Well, now I’m rambling! Take your reverb out for that test – you might be surprised! AAR is my choice!
Here is that “acid test” that I use to find out how metallic or rough a reverb can sound. These two factors, in my opinion, have hampered native reverbs for as long as they have been around it seems. They are getting better and better, though, which is great for us all!
Try this test and you'll see:
- Play something (like a piano patch) that's fairly dry to begin and run it through the reverb on test at 100% wet - running it through ONLY the surround bus / surround speakers while sitting in your usual sweet spot. If you aren’t set up for surround, just throw up a simple prerecorded sequence or something, and turn yourself 180 degrees around from your usual listening position (obviously, you can’t play anything this way, hence the need for the prerecording). The object of this is you will be listening to the reverb AS IT'S OUTPUTTING PHYSICALLY BEHIND YOU ONLY.
For some reason, at least for me, if the reverb being tested this way has even a slight hint of having a metallic or rough sounding character, in its body sound or tail, you will really hear it for sure. Put that up on the front set, and you don't hear these anomalies nearly as much - I'm not sure why that is.
Try this test if you can – it’s never failed me.
The AAR plug-in, again to me, exhibited the least amount of anomalies of the bunch that I tested in this very test. This reverb very much reminds me, in the tail design anyway, of the aforementioned Roland SRV-330 hardware reverb. I bought the newer SRV-3030D thinking it was an updated digital I/O version – boy was I wrong! I remember the great Eric Persing (one of the designers of the original 330 algorithms) mentioned on another forum in the past, that the 3030D was a brand new Japanese design, and didn’t take it’s algorithms from the 330 at all. Using this test I mentioned above – the 3030D failed miserably. I remember spending like $800 on that darn thing to be so disappointed with it. I sent it back consequently.
Well, now I’m rambling! Take your reverb out for that test – you might be surprised! AAR is my choice!
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- KVRAF
- 19156 posts since 13 Feb, 2003 from Vancouver, Canada
Well, that's interesting, I'll give that a try sometime. Fortunately, in a generally un-scientific way, AAR simply leaped out at me the moment I tried it; I just heard the sound I was looking for, and it "sticks" to the instruments in a mix far better than any other reverb, so I wouldn't have to waste cycles putting more EQ's and compressors after it. My gut said, "this is it."
Unfortunately, I'm being seduced by too many Group Guys to get it right now.
Unfortunately, I'm being seduced by too many Group Guys to get it right now.
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- KVRist
- 108 posts since 28 Jan, 2005 from Orange County, CA
My ears (and gut) told me the same thing. You know what sold me? I put a DX7 dry rhodes sound through AAR's preset called "dream rhodes". That did for me right on the spot!
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- KVRAF
- 19156 posts since 13 Feb, 2003 from Vancouver, Canada
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