I have used some free reverb vst plugins on my PC-daw
but I always feel unconfortable with them: the result seems always clangy and metallic, flat, lifeless.
Beeing reverb (IMO) a fundamental part in every plug-in set, I'm gonna spend my money if it's worth it...So I need your advice for a good quality/price reverb because there are too many and I really don't know If there's one that stands out to choose.
P.S. btw I'm not looking for room emulators, I'm not trying to emulate a particular room/environment.
need advice on reverb
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- KVRian
- 595 posts since 6 Mar, 2005 from Italy
Cerca almeno di essere l'uomo che il tuo cane immagina tu sia.
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- KVRAF
- 6504 posts since 25 May, 2002 from Bobo-dioulasso\BF__Geneva/CH
try Ambiance at first, i think ... ( free/donationware )
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- KVRAF
- 6504 posts since 25 May, 2002 from Bobo-dioulasso\BF__Geneva/CH
if you don't mind about price, have a look at :
- art acoustic reverb ( algorithmic technique )
- quickquack rayspace ( inverse raytracing )
- voxengo pristine space ( Impulse response )
- art acoustic reverb ( algorithmic technique )
- quickquack rayspace ( inverse raytracing )
- voxengo pristine space ( Impulse response )
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- KVRAF
- 3002 posts since 24 Nov, 2003 from Heidelberg&Hamburg
concerning reverb you MUST 
demo all the different ones yourself, everybody loves other reverbs.
freebies are already mentioned, the Ambience from www.smartelectronix.com is donationware (and I gladly donated, it's first class). Glace verb is free, like many other good ones.
Don't forget to test the 2 at www.silverspike.com, Reverb-it and R2, I like them. There's also a freebie there, roommachine844, and besides a nice other freebie (not a reverb) called ruby-tube.
On every Computermusic-mag - CD you find a free reverb (well, costs you 1 mag, a bit expensive in Germany, so it might be expensive in Italy too - but you get a lot of effects not to be found elsewhere...) from PSP Audio, those who make this "vintage warmer". The free reverb is a spring-reverb, called, you guessed it Springverb. There's also a free Pianoverb of the same brand, more for adding charm to piano-strings-like-sound, but VERY useful for other things... Sadly enough PSP turn to strange copy-protection-methods now too, like IK Multimedia does, so you'd have to decide if you'd like this sort of customer-support (I don't, and won't buy something from the likes again.)
A very expensive one, and only directX instead of VST, is ReverbX from sonictimeworks. But the demo is 14 days fully functional without any restrictions, no bleeeee or silence, so if you got a directX-host you might want to test it. It is a bit older, and expensive (249 Euro
) and was the first plugin I bought, as I had no clue how much those effects usually are 
. I would never pay that price again for it, but for experimental settings I love it. Others say it can sound metallic, so it might not be the one for you (and the price, e-hemm), but a free 14days-trial, why not...
demo all the different ones yourself, everybody loves other reverbs.freebies are already mentioned, the Ambience from www.smartelectronix.com is donationware (and I gladly donated, it's first class). Glace verb is free, like many other good ones.
Don't forget to test the 2 at www.silverspike.com, Reverb-it and R2, I like them. There's also a freebie there, roommachine844, and besides a nice other freebie (not a reverb) called ruby-tube.
On every Computermusic-mag - CD you find a free reverb (well, costs you 1 mag, a bit expensive in Germany, so it might be expensive in Italy too - but you get a lot of effects not to be found elsewhere...) from PSP Audio, those who make this "vintage warmer". The free reverb is a spring-reverb, called, you guessed it
Springverb. There's also a free Pianoverb of the same brand, more for adding charm to piano-strings-like-sound, but VERY useful for other things... Sadly enough PSP turn to strange copy-protection-methods now too, like IK Multimedia does, so you'd have to decide if you'd like this sort of customer-support (I don't, and won't buy something from the likes again.)A very expensive one, and only directX instead of VST, is ReverbX from sonictimeworks. But the demo is 14 days fully functional without any restrictions, no bleeeee or silence, so if you got a directX-host you might want to test it. It is a bit older, and expensive (249 Euro
) and was the first plugin I bought, as I had no clue how much those effects usually are . I would never pay that price again for it, but for experimental settings I love it. Others say it can sound metallic, so it might not be the one for you (and the price, e-hemm), but a free 14days-trial, why not...-
- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 595 posts since 6 Mar, 2005 from Italy
thak you mates...hope to find some useful demos to try them all.
Edit: Klemperer, agreed...I have to listen to them and make my own mind!
Edit: Klemperer, agreed...I have to listen to them and make my own mind!
Cerca almeno di essere l'uomo che il tuo cane immagina tu sia.
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- KVRian
- 1359 posts since 5 Mar, 2005
I second CSR, i'd like to add wizooverb 2. Both reverbs are the best i've heard and compliment each other well, for they both sound great in very different ways and are strong in the others weak points.Wizoo has the most transparency, naturalness and realistic sound out of any verb i've heard. and CSR has character,flexibility,smoothness and just high quality all together.kmonkey wrote:And maybe best of them all is CSR Classik Studio Reverb.
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- KVRAF
- 8740 posts since 24 May, 2002 from Tutukaka, New Zealand
I'd also suggest you have a look around at some 2nd hand h/w units. There are now one or two decent reverb plugins, but they are the ones that cost the most...for a similar price you may be surprised at what hardware you can buy. Obviously not the really good ones, but some of the budget end are still (IMO) at least several steps above anything given away for free in s/w land. And often better than the majority of the commercial ones.
Obviously reverb is very much down to taste...but I'm sorry that I have to say that I snigger quietly to myself whenever I hear things like Ambience being all you ever need for reverb. Yes, it can be all you ever need...as long as all you have ever heard are 3rd rate reverbs. Price has nothing to do with it there...it just so happens that most of the freebie ones are 3rd rate (there are one or two 2nd rate ones for specific needs though)...as indeed some of the commercial ones are 2nd and 3rd rate.
I don't currently use AAR or CSR reverbs, so I can fairly and neutrally say that they are very good indeed. If I were to go the s/w algorithmic route...those would be the ones. As would the Princeton ones - they are quite divine, but alas for me use PACE, so I won't buy them. Quality-wise, all of those are good enough, easily.
Also there are TC DSP cards (I don't like TC reverb at all...but it does have a certainly quality to it which you either like or don't)
UAD DSP cards - the EMT plate emulation is fantastic, no other words for it.
But have a real good look at 2nd hand h/w...the added benefit is no CPU useage. Latency can be a problem depending on your setup, but that really is easily overcome if you're sensible and render things to audio just a little bit. You might find you'll be surprised at how cheap the budget end Lexicons are. Even some of top range Digitechs can be very good. Ensoniq D/P units (2 or 4) Yamaha reverb can be useful if you like that bright 80s style in-yer-face reverb. it sounds like a few people like that Behringer v-verb, surprisingly - I've never heard it, so I can't say...but for sure, not everything Behringer release is poor quality.
All I'm saying is don't limit yourself only to s/w. You can use both s/w and h/w to good effect nowadays. But be careful to extensively demo any s/w reverb - I've found alot of them have some useful niche uses, but very very few of them are general workhorses...mostly they sound bloody awful outside of their speciality sphere.
Oh! Of course there are convolution reverbs. Personally I don't hear much difference between the convolution engines to bother me, and any convolution plugin has its drawbacks in realtime use. If you really are after good quality, then pay more attention to the quality of the impulses you use. It's well worth considering the expensive commercial ones simply for their good libraries provided - I heard Altiverb is now released for PC - that one has tempted me, because I've heard multiple sources tell me their libraries are 2nd to none. Use 24bit impulses minimum. Avoid 16bit.
Obviously reverb is very much down to taste...but I'm sorry that I have to say that I snigger quietly to myself whenever I hear things like Ambience being all you ever need for reverb. Yes, it can be all you ever need...as long as all you have ever heard are 3rd rate reverbs. Price has nothing to do with it there...it just so happens that most of the freebie ones are 3rd rate (there are one or two 2nd rate ones for specific needs though)...as indeed some of the commercial ones are 2nd and 3rd rate.
I don't currently use AAR or CSR reverbs, so I can fairly and neutrally say that they are very good indeed. If I were to go the s/w algorithmic route...those would be the ones. As would the Princeton ones - they are quite divine, but alas for me use PACE, so I won't buy them. Quality-wise, all of those are good enough, easily.
Also there are TC DSP cards (I don't like TC reverb at all...but it does have a certainly quality to it which you either like or don't)
UAD DSP cards - the EMT plate emulation is fantastic, no other words for it.
But have a real good look at 2nd hand h/w...the added benefit is no CPU useage. Latency can be a problem depending on your setup, but that really is easily overcome if you're sensible and render things to audio just a little bit. You might find you'll be surprised at how cheap the budget end Lexicons are. Even some of top range Digitechs can be very good. Ensoniq D/P units (2 or 4) Yamaha reverb can be useful if you like that bright 80s style in-yer-face reverb. it sounds like a few people like that Behringer v-verb, surprisingly - I've never heard it, so I can't say...but for sure, not everything Behringer release is poor quality.
All I'm saying is don't limit yourself only to s/w. You can use both s/w and h/w to good effect nowadays. But be careful to extensively demo any s/w reverb - I've found alot of them have some useful niche uses, but very very few of them are general workhorses...mostly they sound bloody awful outside of their speciality sphere.
Oh! Of course there are convolution reverbs. Personally I don't hear much difference between the convolution engines to bother me, and any convolution plugin has its drawbacks in realtime use. If you really are after good quality, then pay more attention to the quality of the impulses you use. It's well worth considering the expensive commercial ones simply for their good libraries provided - I heard Altiverb is now released for PC - that one has tempted me, because I've heard multiple sources tell me their libraries are 2nd to none. Use 24bit impulses minimum. Avoid 16bit.
Last edited by kritikon on Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TotcProductions TotcProductions https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6202 - KVRAF
- 5157 posts since 5 Mar, 2003 from Franklin, NH
I LOVED the Arts Acoustic demo.....I've read nothing but good reviews on IK Multimedias new CSR plug.
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- KVRian
- 804 posts since 16 Nov, 2004 from Kangzhou
If you like convolution reverb, scitscat.com is selling the Tascam Giga Pulse VST for $169; but they're selling it on eBay for $99.99. Of course SIR is free, but the bitrate is lower. And there are plenty of other decent reverbs for free, as has already been mentioned.
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- KVRist
- 261 posts since 19 Jan, 2005
The bitrate is lower? I can use 96K and 32-bit just fine in SIR (haven't tried higher), and there seems to be no limit on impulse response length... The bitrate conversion (and possibly the fft convolution method) supposedly introduces artifacts that can be audible under certain circumstances - one person reported a subtle, pleasant 'shine' obtained with an EQ or cab impulse or something, and the effect wasn't reproducible in Pristine Space. In general it's probably not noticeable except in A/B testing, and maybe not even then. I use the free version of R8brain (Voxengo) to convert files between sample rates.
There are some good impulses around the 'net - Noisevault has some, but not all of them are good. If you want versatility and high quality together, you'll probably have to spend some money, unless you want to spend hours fighting the demo restrictions on Voxengo Impulse Modeler (no save, 3 renders per session) and fiddling with the routing to get true-stereo from two instances of SIR. Even this won't do anything but room modeling, so if you want a good modulated reverb, you're in AAR territory.
Please note that I am not advocating serious studio use of Voxengo's IM demo. Not that such is reasonable - the restrictions are quite well designed...
There are some good impulses around the 'net - Noisevault has some, but not all of them are good. If you want versatility and high quality together, you'll probably have to spend some money, unless you want to spend hours fighting the demo restrictions on Voxengo Impulse Modeler (no save, 3 renders per session) and fiddling with the routing to get true-stereo from two instances of SIR. Even this won't do anything but room modeling, so if you want a good modulated reverb, you're in AAR territory.
Please note that I am not advocating serious studio use of Voxengo's IM demo. Not that such is reasonable - the restrictions are quite well designed...
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- KVRian
- 804 posts since 16 Nov, 2004 from Kangzhou
Something I've read recently, although the website FAQ says "Wave Import 24-32 bit" starting with beta 0.86.93143 wrote:The bitrate is lower?