Ultimate Best Reverb presently

[polyslax]

a. Altiverb would be the "quintessential" verb........but then again, it's the quintessential price btw, is it a cpu hog?

It's very much a CPU hog but then again, it also does much more than an average reverb.

Interesting... not true in my case at all. Using v6 AU, I'm continually amazed at how light it is on the cpu.

Indeed. I'm still on Altiverb 5.x (vst). Maybe AU version is lighter on cpu? I'm able to instantiate 4 Altiverbs for mixdown purposes but only if I don't have much other effects going at the same time. I'm on AMD 3200+ single core, 2GB ram.

Isn't v6 a free upgrade from v5?

[gravehill]

a. Altiverb would be the "quintessential" verb........but then again, it's the quintessential price btw, is it a cpu hog?

It's very much a CPU hog but then again, it also does much more than an average reverb.

Interesting... not true in my case at all. Using v6 AU, I'm continually amazed at how light it is on the cpu.

Indeed. I'm still on Altiverb 5.x (vst). Maybe AU version is lighter on cpu? I'm able to instantiate 4 Altiverbs for mixdown purposes but only if I don't have much other effects going at the same time. I'm on AMD 3200+ single core, 2GB ram.

Isn't v6 a free upgrade from v5?

The upgrade from 5 to 6 (basic) is free but AFAIK it won't work on Win2000. I'm planning to skip Win XP altogether and upgrade to Vista next, whenever that is. At that time I'll upgrade lots of other things as well, like Altiverb 6 XL (which isn't free upgrade). Or maybe there's even Altiverb 7 at that point already...

[Bubbamusic]

Waves Trueverb

The "absolute best" reverb? I like Trueverb for stereo room effects...but best overall? Yikes!

Yikes? There's a professional opinion. I have Waves IR verb, before that came out, I used SIR. Impulse verbs can be beautiful, but for my purposes, Trueverb has the best plate verb for vocals that I have yet heard. I am not alone in this opinion. I use a little verb on snares and toms, but because I don't use loops and arpeggiators heaped with delay and verb, I use the IR sparingly.

Peace: bubba

[JeffSanders]

I sold my ArtsAcoustic license when I bought the CSR verb. Now I want to buy the AA verb again. The honeymoon's over with the CSR and after demoing the AA again and comparing, I do prefer it by far. Feeling a lot like ttoz right now.

I also love the Variverb demo.

(By the way, the Arts Acoustic is on every vocal and guitar track on my last CD...you can download every song at http://www.mountainmirrors.com/music.html )

[fgimian]

Jeff, just out of curiosity, can you elaborate on why you prefer AA to CSR, I'm very curious

I think I'm starting to feel the same way. Could it be the AA type modulation that CSR lacks ?

Best Regards
Fots

[JeffSanders]

It's the general character that I prefer. And the way it never dulls the original track. Especially in 64 bit mode, I quickly can dial in a sound and say, "that's it". Where the CSR always sounds great, but I never seem to feel 100% that I've found the sound in my head...i don't know why...

[fgimian]

Understand, thanks a lot for your insight. This thread is of great interest to me since I'm in the market for a verb and basically ready to buy.

I think a lot of the verbs that have been mentioned in this thread are exceptional. Here are my thoughts so far...

R66 on long verbs sounds wonderful. Sounds metallic and crappy on small rooms which is the main reason I won't be going for this. It's also quite buggy in Cubase, when you save a project with the R66, it takes ages and makes the audio crackle.

CSR I like due to its flexibility (e.g. Plate verb, Room .etc). I find it to have a very smooth subtle character. I wish it had modulatin controls like AA and for it's price and copy protection, this one is almost out of the question for me. I don't like C/R protection one bit, I would prefer it to be on my Syncrosoft dongle it by far ... or better still, use serial number protection.

ArtsAcoustic sounds gorgeous, I find that I can simulate rooms, halls and plates with it along with some pretty wierd verbs too. Try using the echo feature in combination with modulation, it sounds extremely dreamy and huge. Certainly seems to be the best all-rounder due to it's price / copy protection / flexibility. I find that this can produce the most natural and ambient verbs. It also can produce really good drum rooms, I compared it to CSR Plate and could almost duplicate the same sound. The other verb that is also great for plates is the free Classic Reverb by Kjaerhus.

RaySpace: I think this verb is underrated ... mainly because it's very hard to program since most of us don't understand exactly how different objects in a room affect it's characteristics. It's also higher on the CPU but the price is extremely reasonable. I find that it takes a lot more tweaking to get the sound I'm after with this but it can potentially produce sounds that rival CSR and AA. I find that the high frequency roll off on this one is not adjustable enough but overall, it sounds absolutely gorgeous after some tweaking. I find that the width must be set at about 1.

Variverb: I think I'm alone on this one but I just don't like it, it doesn't have the open sound that the others have to my ears. It also uses C/R copy protection which means that it's off limits to me.

I'm leaning towards AAR right now, I would love to see them do a group buy or discount

Cheers
Fots

[GHOST19]

How do you guys consider audiodamage reverence ? It's not demoable.
Also are there cheap commercial reverbs that deserved to be picked over freeware ?
I only see mentioned >$100 or free reverbs and $100 is already too expensive for me.

[fgimian]

GHOST19, check out Rayspace for 90$ US, best that I've heard under 100$ imho.

I want to try Reverance, I think it would be a great Plate verb. But no demo = no money from me

Cheers
Fots

[pdxindy]

I agree with bmanic.

In addition, I found the algortihmic part of w2 not that impressive. By far not so flexible like ArtsAcoustic or CSR. So the "quality" of w2 reduces imo to a "good sample libary", but nothing really more, maybe the HDIR feature. But hey, it's still #3 in the poll!

I think, the "ultimate reverb" collection is ArtsAcoustic, CSR or any Lexicon Reverb >= PCM90, Wizooverb or any other good convolution reverb.

Btw, that is what I like most with ArtsAcoustic, that it's not just an imitation of an existing reverb, it's quiet unique and not so easily replaced by another reverb...

I have Arts Acoustic and Wizoo for a convolution. I feel well covered with just those 2

[GHOST19]

GHOST19, check out Rayspace for 90$ US, best that I've heard under 100$ imho.

I want to try Reverance, I think it would be a great Plate verb. But no demo = no money from me

Cheers
Fots

Thanks
Rayspace has a 40% student discount that makes it more affordable for me and seems fun to use.
I will check it further.

[gunnar]

R66 on long verbs sounds wonderful. Sounds metallic and crappy on small rooms which is the main reason I won't be going for this. It's also quite buggy in Cubase, when you save a project with the R66, it takes ages and makes the audio crackle.

r66 can get metallic on small rooms.
but it dont have to.
go into programming, dont use the presets. some presets are just NOT good.

i agree with long saving times.
and the company seems not interested into improvement.

[headquest]

I want to try Reverance, I think it would be a great Plate verb. But no demo = no money from me

Cheers
Fots

The audio demos on their site sound lovely though...

[Sam@Megablastic]

I liked the Arts Acoustic for algo reverb a lot, love the Nebula ones though...but for me my favourite reverb is the Lexicon Pcm 70

[fgimian]

R66 on long verbs sounds wonderful. Sounds metallic and crappy on small rooms which is the main reason I won't be going for this. It's also quite buggy in Cubase, when you save a project with the R66, it takes ages and makes the audio crackle.

r66 can get metallic on small rooms.
but it dont have to.
go into programming, dont use the presets. some presets are just NOT good.

i agree with long saving times.
and the company seems not interested into improvement.

I actually did program it manually (I don't like presets). I tried everything I could but no joy. If they ain't interested in fixing the save thing, I think I'll have to pass, it's really bad on my system.

Cheers
Fots