Is there any reverb sound you CAN'T do with the full set of Valhalla reverbs?

[Robert Randolph]

You don't really get many of those 'weird space' sounds winh valhalla stuff. I'm talking like tin-can or carboard tube sort of stuff. You can get close with some tweaking. Likewise, you lose a lot of the non-reverb functionality you get with convolution reverbs.

For "normal" reverb sounds, I really enjoy being able to easily create ultra-bright or ultra-muffled reverbs like you can with Pro-R. The parameterization on Valhalla products doesn't make it easy to create ancillary reverb sounds that are on the extremes of normal reverb sounds.

I like to do a lot of reverb layering, which often requires using reverbs that have extreme traits that are blended with other spacial sounds with extreme traits. Valhalla stuff does great for those big crazy long-tail chaotic hall/cathedral things, but not so much for 'tame' sounds that have extreme traits other than long tails.

(If you told me a year ago that I'd say something positive about Pro-R ever, I'd have laughed quite heartily. )

[dangayle]

I like Pro-R, it seems much easier to dial in a good techno kick reverb.

[Zexila]

I only have Vintage and I could not get this verb with that.

Try with Plate.

[ghettosynth]

I only have Vintage and I could not get this verb with that.

Isn't that based on a vintage digital EMT Plate (EMT 250-era)? If so, the Sanctuary mode in VintageVerb is based on the EMT-250 if memory serves me well, so I'd bet it could at least get in the ballpark of the PSP.

Nope!

PSP 2445 EMT is a reverb processor plug-in (VST, AAX and RTAS for Windows; AudioUnit, VST, AAX and RTAS for Mac OSX) inspired by two legendary early digital age reverberators: the EMT 244 and the EMT 245.

Reverb algorithms vary quite a bit and I think that the answer depends very much on context and the person involved. Simply, of course there are sounds that you can't do with the Valhalla reverbs, whether that matters to you is a different question. Even if the Valhalla reverbs served as some sort of basis set, it's still a function of the user, no? Maybe someone can get the sound of Little Plate out of Valhalla Plate, but I can't.

[yellowmix]

What kind of question is OP asking anyway?

There are more reverb sounds the Valhalla collection can't do than it can because the reverb possibilities are endless (or in the case of Adaptiverb, patented). It's impossible to satisfy.

So the question becomes are there reverb sounds Valhalla can't get close enough to with respect to how much I'm willing to buy other plugins (I assume hardware is out of scope), which is a completely personal decision.

I love VVV to pieces, but it doesn't have the depth and nuance of the controls available in the Lexicon plugs. That is objective fact. But I can make VVV sound great for what I'm doing so I personally don't need the Lexicon plugs. YMMVVV.

On the other hand, I don't like Valhalla Shimmer. Shimmer to me is a technique that is customizable and flexible. There's no shimmer reverb that satisfies me since I'd rather rig up my own feedback routing. For example, I'm liable to put Crystallizer in there, and while Shimmer has a reverse grain algorithm, it isn't as flexible. But maybe you want the specific Lanois sound and are happy with that.

[dangayle]

What kind of question is OP asking anyway?

There are more reverb sounds the Valhalla collection can't do than it can because the reverb possibilities are endless (or in the case of Adaptiverb, patented). It's impossible to satisfy.

So the question becomes are there reverb sounds Valhalla can't get close enough to with respect to how much I'm willing to buy other plugins (I assume hardware is out of scope), which is a completely personal decision.

Of course there are infinite reverbs, but that doesn't mean we can't classify them into generally acknowledged styles or types. I think your point above is valid though, can I get close enough with Valhalla?

[ghettosynth]

What kind of question is OP asking anyway?

There are more reverb sounds the Valhalla collection can't do than it can because the reverb possibilities are endless (or in the case of Adaptiverb, patented). It's impossible to satisfy.

So the question becomes are there reverb sounds Valhalla can't get close enough to with respect to how much I'm willing to buy other plugins (I assume hardware is out of scope), which is a completely personal decision.

Of course there are infinite reverbs, but that doesn't mean we can't classify them into generally acknowledged styles or types. I think your point above is valid though, can I get close enough with Valhalla?

Again, that depends on you. Some people think that you can. I don't and you've already heard that others don't believe that you can either. What more do you want to know, the answer is no.

[dangayle]

What kind of question is OP asking anyway?

There are more reverb sounds the Valhalla collection can't do than it can because the reverb possibilities are endless (or in the case of Adaptiverb, patented). It's impossible to satisfy.

So the question becomes are there reverb sounds Valhalla can't get close enough to with respect to how much I'm willing to buy other plugins (I assume hardware is out of scope), which is a completely personal decision.

Of course there are infinite reverbs, but that doesn't mean we can't classify them into generally acknowledged styles or types. I think your point above is valid though, can I get close enough with Valhalla?

Again, that depends on you. Some people think that you can. I don't and you've already heard that others don't believe that you can either. What more do you want to know, the answer is no.

My question is what sounds can't I do with Valhalla, which turns out is a lot of sounds. But are there more reverb sounds that they can do than they can't do?

What more do I want to know? Everything. What can't I do with Valhalla plugins? That's not a hard question to answer, and I do really want to know the answers. If it depends on me, it depends on others also, so I want to know what those things are.

[plexuss]

This video I did might help. (this is my 2000th post! rock on!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usr__kFk2qQ

[ghettosynth]

What kind of question is OP asking anyway?

There are more reverb sounds the Valhalla collection can't do than it can because the reverb possibilities are endless (or in the case of Adaptiverb, patented). It's impossible to satisfy.

So the question becomes are there reverb sounds Valhalla can't get close enough to with respect to how much I'm willing to buy other plugins (I assume hardware is out of scope), which is a completely personal decision.

Of course there are infinite reverbs, but that doesn't mean we can't classify them into generally acknowledged styles or types. I think your point above is valid though, can I get close enough with Valhalla?

Again, that depends on you. Some people think that you can. I don't and you've already heard that others don't believe that you can either. What more do you want to know, the answer is no.

My question is what sounds can't I do with Valhalla, which turns out is a lot of sounds. But are there more reverb sounds that they can do than they can't do?

What more do I want to know? Everything. What can't I do with Valhalla plugins? That's not a hard question to answer, and I do really want to know the answers. If it depends on me, it depends on others also, so I want to know what those things are.

So, for every kind of reverb that you can do, there are flavors of that reverb that I don't think that Valhalla can achieve. Someone mentioned Lexicon, I have to agree, even though I don't have them I often like them in shootouts. I also don't think that any Valhalla reverb can come close to Ircam Verb3 in terms of sounding like it isn't there.

Practically, I don't think that it does all hardware emulations and just having different flavors matters. It doesn't emulate the Eventide 2016 which is one of my favorites, the aforementioned 2445, also a favorite, and other variants of the plate. Sean used a particular plate from a Seattle studio to tweak his model. It sounds good, but, it doesn't sound, to my ears, like the Abbey Road plates or Soundtoys Little Plate.

There's no IR reverb at all in his collection and there are great and interesting spaces that you can obtain IRs for so I don't think that it can replace my favorite IR verbs Waves IR1 or Liquidsonics Reverberate 2. Let's not get started on top of the line IR verbs like Altiverb or special purpose verbs like VSL MIR.

More practical considerations, it can't do anything like S.T.E.E.D. in the new Waves Chamber reverbs unless you have some external routing that allows for feedback. Also along this line someone else mentioned the limitations of shimmer. It can't do really bad weird metallic reverb like dreamscape from Minimal Systems Group. It can't move microphones in the space and apply gates to them like Eventide T-Verb. Maybe you can simulate that and make that sound using external gates and playing with other parameters, but it's not clear to me how to get exactly the same effect. On a similar line, you don't have the ribbon with the smooth modulation of Eventide Blackhole or Mangleverb. I don't think that it can get that almost saccharin tail of Exponential Audio's R2.

Reverb is complex, detailed, and varied. If you just want a room/hall/plate and you like the sound of Valhalla, you're good. I don't think that just having those "types" though means that you can replace any similar type with Valhalla, the devil is in the details.

[ghettosynth]

This video I did might help. (this is my 2000th post! rock on!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usr__kFk2qQ

This is an awesome video, watch it all the way through, it will be worth your time.

[Michael L]

Valhalla can't do nice outdoor spaces. IR does those well.

[Vortifex]

..

[switchonsid]

There's few think you cannot do but keep in mind that every plug-in have different sound color.

I recently played with Valhalla and lexicon plug-in and I decided to sold my Strymon BigSky. Those plug-in sound good enough for me and the thing is the BigSky is super Clear and Crisp, a bit too much for what I used it for.

So yes, there's few sound you cannot make with Valhalla but keep in mind that each plug-in sound different so it will be mostly impossible to duplicated the exact sound.

Cheers

[foosnark]

There are all kinds of things that can be done with reverb, that aren't in any Valhalla plugins (yet, and in some cases, probably ever).

- Spring of course
- IR: probably not much point in a DSP guru like Sean writing another IR plugin when there are fine ones out there already.
- Open feedback loops: add your own saturation, EQ, bitcrushing, chorus/phaser, wavefolders, whatever.
- Tempo syncable predelay
- Reversable reverb (sorta doable in UberMod)
- Infinite/freeze
- More extensive modulation options besides "good" ones
- Any sort of ducking
- Sympathetic string/resonator based reverb (e.g. Pianoverb)

Check out some of the Eurorack and guitar pedal stuff out there: Make Noise Erbe-Verb, AC Noises AMA, Industrialectric RM-1N, Earthquaker Afterneath, Caroline Meteore...