How are you using Melda's reverbs ?

[mevla]

When you have each reverb made by Melda, what makes you go for instance for MReverbMB instead of MTurboReverb(LE) ? Are you going for a specific reverb according to the task and if so, what are the decision points ? How would you qualify the range of usefulness of each reverb ?

[Chandlerhimself]

MReverb - its an older reverb that i generally don’t use because I feel MTurboreverb is better in almost every area. The head view is cool though. Its not bad, but IMO MTR covers the same territory and more.

MTurboReverb - IMO its a general use reverb and its what I usually reach for when I need some verb. It can be used for almost anything.

MConvolutionMB - I use this when I need a specific reverb sound that I jave an impulse for. IMO it works well with percussion and drums. Its also useful for other non-reverb uses such as guitar speakers and special fx.


Of course these are just my opinions and of course other people might use them differently than I do.

[Fourstepper]

might give you an idea or two

[mevla]

Thanks for the comments ! The video is quite interesting, I'll explore this technique.

I might add, from Mike Senior (Sound on Sound Mix Rescue) that '2nd grade' reverbs can actually be used not for quality reverb but for adding tonal characteristics added to an instrument, mostly short reverbs blended closely with the original sound.

If anyone else has comments on how they use Melda reverbs, please share !

Cheers.

[jmg8]

I have to be honest, I don't like the sound of MReverb. It can work sometimes for me, but hardly ever.
I have even gone back to old presets and replaced it with MTurboReverb and things sound better.
I use both MTurboReverb and MConvolution.

MTurboReverb for pretty much all my reverb needs. It really does everything, sounds amazing and is so fast to use and flexible. It is, without a doubt, the best reverb I have ever used/ heard.

MConvolution for adding character to sounds. I use it for emulations of hardware, adding tonal characteristics of one sound onto another. I used to use it for natural reverb, but no more, it is just not as flexible as an algorithmic reverb and uses too much CPU.

[MeldaProduction]

Personally, I only use MTurboReverb , like literally only that one . MReverb(MB) is cool for 2D positioning, but generally sounds worse I'm afraid.

[SeanHarrisPosner]

Personally, I only use MTurboReverb , like literally only that one . MReverb(MB) is cool for 2D positioning, but generally sounds worse I'm afraid.

this kind of comment from the developer is a good sign.

[Starship Krupa]

I got MReverbMB as a freebie from Pluginboutique a couple of years ago (I see it's on there again). At the time, my go-to reverb was Exponential Audio Phoenix. When I compared them, MReverbMB wasn't really a threat to Phoenix.

Then 6 months later I got the MEssentials bundle, which comes with MTurboReverble. MTurboReverble is in the same league as the Exponential reverbs. iZotope just announced that the Exponential branded products are end-of-life, so I'm confident that if they eventually stop working properly, I'll still have a reverb (or is it actually multiple reverbs?) that sounds that good.

I've never quite managed to get results from the spatial positioning feature, but if I do someday, I'll probably use MReverbMB as an insert effect rather than as a send (which is how I usually use reverb).

[simit]

Has this plugin been updated lately? Any improvement? How does it compare with the Cubase stock reverb?

[Hexspa]

Old thread!

The basics of reverbs are thus:
Part 1: Components of Reverb
1. Reverbs have their origin in acoustics. Therefore, the more you understand acoustics, the better you'll understand most mechanical and electronic reverbs.
2. Reverb is not just a type e.g. hall, room, etc. It is made up of two components: early reflections and the diffuse tail. Not all real rooms have a diffuse tail but most rooms have early reflections, the exception being anechoic chambers but even they have reflections at very low frequencies.
3. To the last point: early reflections are not simple broadband reflections—they are spectrally biased by the construction and absorption of the room. That's why thin foam makes for bad acoustic treatment: it only absorbs high frequencies while midrange and bass frequencies reflect freely.
4. Reverb tails are ideally diffuse i.e. equal energy from all directions. This is why RT60 is NOT an appropriate measure of acoustic performance in small rooms: small rooms do NOT have diffuse fields, at least not in the majority of the spectrum.
5. Diffuse is the opposite of specular. Think of the sun shining off chrome in broad daylight. That's a specular reflection. Harsh, right? Diffusion is like the glass in your shower or bathroom preventing people from seeing your glorious body. Acoustic diffusion is NOT scattering. Therefore, bookshelves and random crap is NOT diffusion. Diffusion breaks up specular reflections in time (delaying and phase shifting) and space (scattering in a specific pattern).
6. Mechanical reverbs like plates and springs are something else entirely, or at least I don't know as much about their behavior, but the general principles of decay time apply.

Part 2: Use
The Sound on Sound article: Use Reverb Like A Pro has you set things up like this:
1. Ambience: this is an early reflections algorithm or IR. Its use is to place a sound further back in the sound field. It does this by introducing comb filtering. These components tend to be shorter than 100 ms. In MTR, just turn the knob all the way to ER and put it on a separate aux. If you use too much, it'll sound weird.

2. Tail: also known as late reflections. These are for giving the sound character and drama. They function less well for creating depth because they tend to build up and bloom later than early reflections. Unlike ERs, they're used for filling space and obvious reverb effects like generic clap transitions or gated reverbs. You generally will want to use predelay to make space for your early reflection return, assuming you're putting these on separate busses, which I do and you should definitely try.

3. Length: Per Fab DuPont, the type of reverb tail matters less than the length. In a mix, you're going to be hard pressed to identify a long plate vs a long hall. One may be brighter or more dense, but either can be made to be similar. Fast and dense songs should use shorter decay, slow and spare songs should use longer decay, for a conventional sound.

4. Other controls: like the previous point, you can typically adjust diffusion, modulation, filtering and damping in electronic reverbs. Filtering is the whole signal, damping is effected in the reflection behavior itself, gradually changing the spectral content of each reflection.

All reverbs can be used like this. Every beginner should probably just use the default presets in MTR. Once you want more control over depth and length, try using the above techniques.

[simit]

Thanks for the replay and for the technical info about reverb. I was anyhow asking not about the reverb theory, but about the MReverb (not MAutoReverb) plugin quality that some other users were referring in not a positive way.