Am I crazy a crazy person or is Spatio Lite the best free reverb?

[briefcasemanx]

I tried a ton of free reverbs because I want good free plug-ins for the OSC contest in the instruments forum.

I had heard of Anwida 15-20 years ago back when plugins were in DX format, lol. IIRC they were well regarded back then but disappeared I think as DX got phased out, or at least I stopped hearing about them.

They seem to be back and no one is talking about them. I'm guessing this is due to lots of people not being around back then, their UI being basic, and there not being demos on the site. Note to devs: Typically people don't want to try out every plug-in without having heard a demo, or without it having good reviews from users, because otherwise we'd be wasting too much time trying every plugin that comes out. Even a basic demo is better than nothing.

So anyway, this plugin is REALLY good. It does one thing. It's not going to emulate every different type of reverb you can imagine, but what it does it does extremely well. I find it goes really well on drums. Makes them sound nice and big. This forum seems edm centric so I don't know if that's a good sound for edm drums, but it's sounded anywhere from good to great on most other things I've put it on.

To me this sounds better and is more usable, even if it's limited, than any other free reverb. I've tried TAL, OrilRiver, Sanford, Supermassive, Smartelectronix, Voxengo, etc. Would definitely like to hear other opinions to make sure I'm not way off the mark in thinking this sounds REALLY good.

I've been testing out their payware plugins too and they sound great so far but I've only just downloaded the demos for them all for less than a. hour, so I can't say anything definitive other than the inverse verb needs at least one other tweakable parameter IMO. I'll talk about those if or when I have more time with them.

Edit: link for the lazy ---
https://www.anwida.com/as_plugins/spatio-light/

[aMUSEd]

I remember the original being well regarded but why did they have to split off every algorithm into a separate plugin instead of just having a Spatio reverb plugin like they used to? (I know - money - but I would prefer one multifunctional reverb to lots of separate ones)

[sprnva]

Have you tried the free Acon Verberate Basic too?

I like how Anwida looks but requiring an account for a free download is a big put-off for me. I understand the reasoning from a business angle but I've suffered from chronic "new account creation fatigue" for long enough now that something has to be pretty special to encourage me to take that step.

[Obsolete462444]

I doubt I need another free reverb with Acon Verberate Basic, Orilriver, Dragonfly, Voxengo Oldschool and Convology (+ a few plate reverbs by Arturia, Soundtoys and Fuse Audio that I got for free) covering all potential bases. Not to mention my impulse response collection. But thanks for letting us know, probably a good idea to try for someone who doesn't already have dozens of reverbs.

[briefcasemanx]

Have you tried the free Acon Verberate Basic too?

I like how Anwida looks but requiring an account for a free download is a big put-off for me. I understand the reasoning from a business angle but I've suffered from chronic "new account creation fatigue" for long enough now that something has to be pretty special to encourage me to take that step.

Yes I've tried Acon. It sounds very good but also very cold and has no adjustments at all. Hard to fit a reverb into a song if theres not even a time adjustment. It sounds like, too mathematically precise or something, kind of characterless, a tone which might be extremely good for certain specific types of work. The quality is high and if I didn't have a bunch of payware reverbs I'd probably find a way to fit it in to productions. I may use it on the OSC at some point but I'm not using it in real productions. For that style reverb I would just use any of the tons of other high quality paid reverbs that don't sound as cold, sound just as good or better, and that I can adjust.

I downloaded Spatio Lite off some random freeware plugin website when I was testing a bunch of them out, not off the Anwida website so I didn't have to sign up for anything. Found it: https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3423/

I doubt I need another free reverb with Acon Verberate Basic, Orilriver, Dragonfly, Voxengo Oldschool and Convology (+ a few plate reverbs by Arturia, Soundtoys and Fuse Audio that I got for free) covering all potential bases. Not to mention my impulse response collection. But thanks for letting us know, probably a good idea to try for someone who doesn't already have dozens of reverbs.

I'm not really sure why you commented. I have dozens of free and payware reverbs that I didn't get for free and it's still a very useful plugin. If your reverb needs are already covered and it's impossible for another reverb to do anything better than what you already have, seems like there was no reason to even click on this thread.

[Obsolete462444]

@briefcasemanx

Oh sorry, I was under the impression this is a forum to exchange opinions on audio software related topics?

[OzoneJunkie]

Tried the free TAL reverb? It has an interesting top end to me that I like. If I try to imitate it with other verbs, I usually need to put some type of shimmer verb after a plate verb.

[El°HYM]

Protoverb is the best free Reverb.

[Teksonik]

The Sanford reverb has long been one of my favorites free or not.

Come to think of it isn't Spatio pretty much their DX Reverb from 2005 ?

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2016/0 ... b-light-3/

[briefcasemanx]

@briefcasemanx

Oh sorry, I was under the impression this is a forum to exchange opinions on audio software related topics?

Yes, you're correct, and If you want to talk about how you're satisfied with your reverb options and don't need to try other reverbs, you can make your own thread to do that. I'm not sure how that's relevant to this topic though which is about "opinions" on Spatio reverb, not "opinions" on whether or not you have enough reverbs already. You can also just keep commenting in this topic too, no one's going to stop you, but I'm just not understanding the point.

Tried the free TAL reverb? It has an interesting top end to me that I like. If I try to imitate it with other verbs, I usually need to put some type of shimmer verb after a plate verb.

Yes I said in the OP I tried TAL. Really dislike the top end sizzle stuff going on in TAL. Sounds janky and unrefined to me.

[heavymetalmixer]

For me Orilriver is still the best one, mostly because of its sound and how many options it has. I don't like Spatio Lite because it sounds kinda harsh to my ears.
My other options are the reverb in Panagement 2 and Analog Obsession's Room041 (I don't like using Valhalla's Supermassive as a reverb because the Delay knob doesn't really work as a Pre-Delay control).

[Teksonik]

While I'm waiting for the football games to come on I did a little test. I loaded the Spatio and Sanford reverbs and A/B'd them.

So to answer the question posed in your thread title yes you are a crazy person if you think Spatio is the best sounding free reverb.

But all that proves is opinions vary wildly from person to person. We all make different music, we all use different sounds, and we all have different personal taste.

So if you think Spatio is the best free reverb then it is....to you. What other people think is irrelevant.

[briefcasemanx]

While I'm waiting for the football games to come on I did a little test. I loaded the Spatio and Sanford reverbs and A/B'd them.

So to answer the question posed in your thread title yes you are a crazy person if you think Spatio is the best sounding free reverb.

But all that proves is opinions vary wildly from person to person. We all make different music, we all use different sounds, and we all have different personal taste.

So if you think Spatio is the best free reverb then it is....to you. What other people think is irrelevant.

What did you try it on?

[Teksonik]

Drums and Synth pads.

[briefcasemanx]

Yeah I dunno. Its excellent on drums but it probably depends on what style of music you're working on and how big you want the drums to sound.

I have a feeling some people (not Teksonic) haven't tried it out or even read the OP, and instead used this as a "I'm gonna drive-by post my favorite free reverb" thread.