Exponential Audio Verbs: PhoenixVerb, Nimbus, R4. Your Thoughts?

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Winstontaneous wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:15 am Michael Carnes [...]
Yeah, it really was just a very stupid misreading on my part - there absolutely isn't any more to it... please don't increase the chance of it becoming a rumour by discussing even just the possibility - even though your points are well made. There is actually nothing to discuss. I basically just accidentally made it up myself. I would edit my posts, but then again I hate sneaking out of something instead of taking full responsibility for whatever I did...
"Preamps have literally one job: when you turn up the gain, it gets louder." Jamcat, talking about presmp-emulation plugins.

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The R4 crossgrade is tempting, but if it's anything like R2 I'm not sure how much I'd use it. PV/Nimbus are among my favorites for realistic spaces, but I much prefer other algorithmic reverbs over R2 for the synthetic "swirly" Lexicon thing.

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Tronam wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:58 am The R4 crossgrade is tempting, but if it's anything like R2 I'm not sure how much I'd use it. PV/Nimbus are among my favorites for realistic spaces, but I much prefer other algorithmic reverbs over R2 for the synthetic "swirly" Lexicon thing.
Same actually - love PV/Nimbus, wasn't feeling R2. Thought I'd try the R4 demo but felt the same way. Extremely dense sounding but seems to lack a certain sparkle.

I'll assume this is down to my personal taste as I noticed a Spitfire Audio video where one of them ranked R2 over Lexicon PCM native and a real Bricasti among others in a blind test!

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Or you can have a delay and reverb like Phoenix and can simulate things

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Demoed R4 but wasn't really impressed. Just like others i like Phoenixverb for the realistic spaces, but don't see the advantage of R4 over my other stuff.
More BPM please

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Always a matter of taste.
I haven't spent much time with a Bricasti so can't really comment on personal knowledge of that (although I have two friends locally who have them)......But certainly for Software Reverbs, other than Relab, no other software Reverb comes anywhere close to Phoenix/Nimbus for transparent and R2/R4 for the Lexicon style sound for me.

Michael did both Lexicon PCM and R4, many years apart... To me he gained from his experience from the Lexicon PCM et al when he was doing the R4.

But I like Reverbs that I don't really obviously hear. That blend into the source, that sound like they are part of the source and are not obvious and standout-ish. That is I don't like Reverbs that become the sound.

For those who have different expectations from their reverbs I don't think the EA stuff would really appeal to you that much.

But for those who like Reverbs that really blend, I can't imagine you finding anything other than Relab stuff that are even close.
rsp
sound sculptist

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zvenx wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:22 pm Always a matter of taste.
I haven't spent much time with a Bricasti so can't really comment on personal knowledge of that (although I have two friends locally who have them)......But certainly for Software Reverbs, other than Relab, no other software Reverb comes anywhere close to Phoenix/Nimbus for transparent and R2/R4 for the Lexicon style sound for me.

Michael did both Lexicon PCM and R4, many years apart... To me he gained from his experience from the Lexicon PCM et al when he was doing the R4.

But I like Reverbs that I don't really obviously hear. That blend into the source, that sound like they are part of the source and are not obvious and standout-ish. That is I don't like Reverbs that become the sound.

For those who have different expectations from their reverbs I don't think the EA stuff would really appeal to you that much.

But for those who like Reverbs that really blend, I can't imagine you finding anything other than Relab stuff that are even close.
rsp
So far, EA and Relab are my reverbs of choice, as well. Nothing else, to my ears and taste, matches them. Someday I'd love to get more of the Relab products.

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It's the mood of whatever you play that requires the sauce

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The Lexicon 224 is one of the main reasons why I continue hanging onto my UAD (I've found satisfactory replacements for almost everything else). I’m a bit surprised at how much I love that thing considering how ancient its reverb algorithms are by today’s standards. I even like it on orchestral sounds. I’d chock it up to nostalgic bias, but I’ve never used any of their hardware reverbs before. I was really hoping R2 could be a possible alternative, but it just doesn’t do what the 224 does, at least not to my ears. There’s something about the way it blends with the source signal I’ve found difficult to replace and I don’t think the NI RC24 or VintageVerb quite nail it either. I even like the 224 better than the 480, which I don’t fully understand because I thought it was just an expanded version of the older model. I’m no expert at programming reverbs though, so it may just come down to my inability to dial in the correct settings. Maybe my personal taste sucks. 😂

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try raum.

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Tronam wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:21 pm The Lexicon 224 is one of the main reasons why I continue hanging onto my UAD (I've found satisfactory replacements for almost everything else). I’m a bit surprised at how much I love that thing considering how ancient its reverb algorithms are by today’s standards. I even like it on orchestral sounds. I’d chock it up to nostalgic bias, but I’ve never used any of their hardware reverbs before. I was really hoping R2 could be a possible alternative, but it just doesn’t do what the 224 does, at least not to my ears. There’s something about the way it blends with the source signal I’ve found difficult to replace and I don’t think the NI RC24 or VintageVerb quite nail it either. I even like the 224 better than the 480, which I don’t fully understand because I thought it was just an expanded version of the older model. I’m no expert at programming reverbs though, so it may just come down to my inability to dial in the correct settings. Maybe my personal taste sucks. 😂
Did you try the Sonsig?
"Preamps have literally one job: when you turn up the gain, it gets louder." Jamcat, talking about presmp-emulation plugins.

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jens wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:17 pm Did you try the Sonsig?
I've never heard of it, but I'll definitely give it a try.

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jens wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:17 pm ....
Did you try the Sonsig?
Right that has flavours of the 224 in it too, correct?
Highly recommend this too, it is the only Reverb I use beyond Nimbus/R4.
rsp
sound sculptist

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Yes, indeed - it has bits of it in there, but some other bits too - it's kind of a highly flexible Frankenstein sort of thing...
but as Relab is known for its perfect accuracy regarding vintage reverb emulations, the 224 bits should be spot on.
"Preamps have literally one job: when you turn up the gain, it gets louder." Jamcat, talking about presmp-emulation plugins.

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Tronam wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:21 pm I even like the 224 better than the 480, which I don’t fully understand because I thought it was just an expanded version of the older model. I’m no expert at programming reverbs though, so it may just come down to my inability to dial in the correct settings. Maybe my personal taste sucks. 😂
Nah, your taste doesn't suck. There is in fact a name for this condition: it's called Vangelitis. Once you've seen+heard Blade Runner, from that point forward all reverb sounds inferior to the Lexicon 224.

I suffer from this as well, but I refuse to buy into UAD, let alone get the actual hardware.

I'm also, as already noted in this thread, very much on Team Exponential, and use Nimbus and R4 as my go-to reverbs.

But, no, they don't do that 224 Vangelis / Blade Runner thing -- but I found a solution. I use Past to the Future's (an Impulse Response shop) 224 collection. He has a couple different ones, including one literally named 'Blade Runner...' which focuses on IRs with very, very long tails from the 224. There's also a more 'standard' 224 pack.

I use those with Ableton's Convolution Reverb (max for live) when I need that 224 magic. Otherwise, I'm Exponential all the way. I see Nimbus / R4 as 'mixing' verbs, to create space and spatial cohesion. The 224 is, for me anyway, very much an 'effect' verb -- and again, of course, the sound of just about every single sound in Blade Runner comes to mind again :) (But, finally, I don't want to short-change R4: it can do some very nice lexicon 'effect' sounds as well).

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