Is there a reverb that sounds really good for ambient piano?

[empphryio]

I have a bunch of Kontakt pianos: Una Corda, The Maverick, The Gentleman. Not the greatest but ok. But for ambient not working well. Have tried MCharmverb, Glaceverb, Valhalla vintage, Valhalla supermassive, dragonfly, oril river, fogconvolver... cheap or free stuff. So far a piano preset on Straylight without anything added sounds better than anything else for ambient.

If I put out some actual money for a reverb will it make a difference..? Except for use with pianos I'm decently happy with the reverbs I have...I think.

[Etienne1973]

Do you want to achieve the shimmer reverb effect?

Edit:

No shimmer. But good ambient piano effect chain inspiration. Should be even possible with your stock plugins.

[xalama qo]

You could try Stone Voices Ambient Reverb for loooong decays. Sinevibes Albedo for smooth granular clouds, and Sinevibes Hollow for big reverbs.
You don't mention what specifically isn't right about the reverbs you've tried already, so if you can describe the problem we could make more helpful suggestions.
I don't have Straylight, but if you name the preset you like I'm sure someone else here could help direct you. Iirc Straylight is a granular instrument, that's why I suggested looking at Sinevibes Albedo.

[empphryio]

No shimmer. But good ambient piano effect chain inspiration. Should be even possible with your stock plugins.

Thanks. That's a great video.

[empphryio]

You could try Stone Voices Ambient Reverb for loooong decays. Sinevibes Albedo for smooth granular clouds, and Sinevibes Hollow for big reverbs.
You don't mention what specifically isn't right about the reverbs you've tried already, so if you can describe the problem we could make more helpful suggestions.
I don't have Straylight, but if you name the preset you like I'm sure someone else here could help direct you. Iirc Straylight is a granular instrument, that's why I suggested looking at Sinevibes Albedo.

Thanks. The video of the other comment is probably what I'm looking for. Probably not a specific reverb....

[arkmabat]

Do you want to achieve the shimmer reverb effect?

Edit:

No shimmer. But good ambient piano effect chain inspiration. Should be even possible with your stock plugins.

Or just use Reflex Free. You need a DAW with 32-bit bridging is all.
https://www.stw-audio.com/products-1/reflex-free/

[El°HYM]

I would still also recommend to check out Ambient Reverb, you can also apply those techniques to that one. http://stone-voices.ru/vst/ambient_reverb

[4damind]

Reverbs that do not color too much and modulate strongly would be my first choice (I would not take Valhalla for this).
The Lexicon stuff is very good but also the reverbs from Relab which are partly Lexicon emulations (Sonsig, LX Essentials, LX 480). The Eventide Ultraverb is also excellent on pianos and is sometimes available for a good price.
The king of transparent ambient reverbs that work great on pianos were the Exponential Audio reverbs from Lexicon reverb guru Michael Carnes (now part of iZotope).

(personally, I'd check out the Relab stuff first).

[MogwaiBoy]

Subscribed. I always struggle implementing some really nice ambience around a piano without drowning it. Best I can manage is a combination of reverb and compression (ducking) on a send, and automating tails.

I really like Eventide's Blackhole for anything "ambient", but it takes up a lot of space in the mix.

Recently picked up Neoverb so will try that next time I encounter piano.

[Lazarus451]

I keep forgetting that I have Blackhole. It's great for pads, drones etc.

[nathanj]

Audio Damages (with Sean Costello) Eos 2

[HotCoffee]

Another vote for Blackhole.

[Broken]

Valhalla Vintage Verb and Supermassive are excellent ambient tools. The problem is more likely that all the instruments mentioned are fairly close mic'd and full frequency. Without any treatment they're going to take up a lot of space in the mix, which is not really what you want with ambient music. You want to exaggerate the sense of space and having a piano take up most of the stereo spread is really working against that goal.

Try reducing the frequency response and stereo width of the instruments you're sending to the reverbs. I'd recommend starting with the piano in mono and filter out as much of the lows and highs as you can get away with.

[Ah_Dziz]

Valhalla room does very well for insanely big reverb.

[Jafo]

Simple reverb is flat, static. Try adding modulations to add movement and depth. Some reverbs allow you to do so directly (especially tape sims), but you can also apply a little bit of good old-fashioned chorus or even flanging. Try chaining reverbs. Try different types of reverb -- you'd be surprised at what a touch of spring, plate, or tape reverb can do to a sound. And don't forget (modulated) delays for cleaner, sparser results. It all depends on what works for a given part and piece.

Just save the heavy stuff for when it's needed, since not everything needs to be trippy AF all the time. (And for that, feed a flange into a reverb: the amount of reverb will be affected by how much flanging is taking place at any given moment.)