FabFilter Pro-R 2 -> Released Thursday November 2, 2023

[bmanic]

Update price is shlightly steep for 2023. agreed.

You know other Funky, that's an interesting way to put it. I think you might be on to something with the "steep for 2023" part. We've seen a few "expensive" plugins get released recently and price comes up time and time again. To the point of being a major or the main topic of discussion in release threads.

My update price is $101 USD with no upgrade. Just because I own other FF plugins. 15 years ago, a top quality reverb for $100 would've been about the going rate if not downright cheap. It wasn't until Valhalla that I really remember anyone having a high quality $50 reverb. Now, we're so used to $29 plugins and 80% off sales, not to mention so many high quality plugins, that it feels like the market has shifted and is generally pushing back on higher priced plugins. There are more consumers, there's more competition, more sales, there are mobile platforms with super low prices ("hey, the iOS version of this is $15! WTF?").

I think the market is doing what free markets are supposed to do and it's benefiting the consumers by lowering prices. But on the other hand, it's like, "I've been around a while, and this is a high quality reverb for relatively cheap, what is there to complain about?" Interesting times.

Very true words and I absolutely agree with both of you. The market has changed and this is indeed expensive considering the market of today.

However, in terms of retail price for other reverbs, it's right in there in price point with other good ones. Tai Chi is 199$, UAD L480 is 399$ but is on sale for 199$ now. Relab L480 is 349$ with 50% off right now. Arturia LX24 is 99$ (which is an absolute bargain in my opinion!). Lexicon PCM bundle is around 250$. Established brands reverbs seem to be among the more expensive plugins, with the sole exception of Valhalla who has incredible plugins for relatively affordable prices (and Supermassive which is one of the best gifts to the community ever given! It's the one I always tell my students to download first and never bother thinking about spending actual money on reverbs when they begin their hobby).

And are low prices really benefiting us? Or are they just manipulating us into buying a bunch of plugins we barely use? That's a question for a different thread.

.. also very true words. I've probably spent hundreds of dollars on stuff I don't really need but because it was just "lunch + dinner money" I never thought much about it.

There was a good discussion about this here on KvR when Plugin Alliance started undercutting everybody like crazy. Waves soon followed as did some other plugin manufacturers. We decide with our wallets how things go.

[bmanic]

For starters, reverbs in 2023 shouldn’t even have knobs and filters and envelops and frequency graphs. They should have 3D visual representations of resizable rooms with source and mic placement within the room, and selectable materials and humidity. That’s what a reverb actually is.

I would love such a reverb! I always wondered why nobody tried to make a new "ray traced" reverb again. I don't remember the company name but there was one dude who made a literal ray traced reverb where he even animated all the rays bouncing and you could completely customize the room yourself, it's shape and size. It worked in real time and sounded pretty bad but it was possible to get some really interesting ambiences out of it if you really tried.

However, from a production standpoint at least for many modern genres, "realistic" very rarely equals "better". For complex mixing tasks, unrealistic usually sounds better within context. Casey of Bricasti talked about this a lot many years ago on GS. Usually this is down to properties like resonances that are virtually impossible to get perfectly even in a real space. Also you can't control the density of a reverb easily in a real space. One of the best "mixing reverb tricks" is to not use a reverb at all, just some simple delay taps in rapid succession. Keeping it super sparse in a dense mix will give the illusion of space while crowding the mix less than a set of highly diffused delay taps in a feedback (or feed forward) network (aka reverb).

My point is: I would love to see somebody develop what you described but it's probably not what is most useful in terms of mixing.

[koalaboy]

Fabfilter are one of those companies that have great customer loyalty offers - I think the 'race to the bottom' has become crazy in recent years, and it's not sustainable.

Personally, I found the upgrade to be very reasonable (as someone owning some of their plugins already) and for the quality and ease of use I get from it, it's an instant buy.

I hear the same argument about video games, and others... and I always use the very simple metric: how much time will you spend/use it, and how much does that equate to your own income rate ?

If you don't have a job (or other income), of course it's expensive and you probably shouldn't be buying plugins. Otherwise, how many hours would you have to work at whatever you do, to afford it ? How many hours do you expect to use it ? How long would it take for you to create it yourself and/or how many hours will it save you ?

Time is money - it takes time (money) to develop things, and things can save you time. No plugin is 'necessary' - they're all luxury items, and so the value is taken as above.

For most people, if you had to make your living only developing plugins, I suspect you wouldn't have 'low' prices...

EDIT: To bring things back around... I really like the update, and the IR 'import' made it a day one purchase for me. It's obviously not a direct emulation, but it gets close enough to 'feel' right in many situations, and is another creative tool - along with all of the other great aspects wrapped in a really nice UX. I like it.

[bmanic]

And are low prices really benefiting us? Or are they just manipulating us into buying a bunch of plugins we barely use? That's a question for a different thread.

Something you seem to overlook: without us buying stuff we don't need they could all pack in...

This can be said for the world in general. If every single one of us was actually a good person, truly, in every single circumstance and never corrupt in any way (and I do mean the absolutely tiniest form of corruption, like littering or not "bothering" doing the tiniest small thing that is right because one is lazy) there would be world peace.

Simple, right? Lets do this!

[jens]

I just tried the demo and they cleverly redesigned(some parts) of the UI to make it all look shiny and new, when in fact, most buttons do the same as in Pro-R1 and there is actually not much new stuff that would justify a 50$+ upgrade price (at least for me).

Vastly improved UI.
Two new algorithms.
Dolby Atomos.
The IR import thing.
Thickness
Ducking
Auto Gate
Freeze
Decay Rate EQ

Yeah such a small list. Cant f**king believe the nerve charging $50.

This place kills me.

lol...


By the way: since you've not been a Pro-R V1 user anyway, where do your apparently strong feelings regarding this stem from?

[koalaboy]

I would love such a reverb! I always wondered why nobody tried to make a new "ray traced" reverb again. I don't remember the company name but there was one dude who made a literal ray traced reverb where he even animated all the rays bouncing and you could completely customize the room yourself, it's shape and size. It worked in real time and sounded pretty bad but it was possible to get some really interesting ambiences out of it if you really tried.

9th March 2023
RaySpace is being remade.
The first Quikquak plug-in is to return with a brand new 64 bit high-resolution version.
Old RaySpace information HERE

I agree that we should see more creative tools.

[jens]

And are low prices really benefiting us? Or are they just manipulating us into buying a bunch of plugins we barely use? That's a question for a different thread.

Something you seem to overlook: without us buying stuff we don't need they could all pack in...

This can be said for the world in general. If every single one of us was actually a good person, truly, in every single circumstance and never corrupt in any way (and I do mean the absolutely tiniest form of corruption, like littering or not "bothering" doing the tiniest small thing that is right because one is lazy) there would be world peace.

Simple, right? Lets do this!

Huh? I must admit that you lost me on this... *scratches head*

[jens]

with the sole exception of Valhalla who has incredible plugins for relatively affordable prices (and Supermassive which is one of the best gifts to the community ever given! It's the one I always tell my students to download first and never bother thinking about spending actual money on reverbs when they begin their hobby)

Supermassive is a bit special (well, it's pretty unique actually) and hence rather unusual and atypical, however you could tell them that they only have to spend 50$ and get it all with V³ - now that there's Palace in there, I think it's really a pretty complete reverb solution - the only problem is finding the sweet-spots with the rather generic interface. But if we'd stop tinkering with dozens and dozens of other reverb plugins, we'd have enough time to develop sufficient... er... muscle-memory? to get the best out of the 20 algos (and we'd still have plenty of time left we could put ot good use, especially since we'd also safe quite some time by not swapping reverb plugins in our projects like we would getting paid for it*)...


But now there's Pro-R2 apparently seeking to be "the only reverb you'll ever need"...



*I've seen your extensive list of "most used reverb plugins" (or something along these lines, i.e. these were only your most favourite ones), so there's no point in denying it

[martiu]

For starters, reverbs in 2023 shouldn’t even have knobs and filters and envelops and frequency graphs. They should have 3D visual representations of resizable rooms with source and mic placement within the room, and selectable materials and humidity. That’s what a reverb actually is.

I would love such a reverb! I always wondered why nobody tried to make a new "ray traced" reverb again. I don't remember the company name but there was one dude who made a literal ray traced reverb where he even animated all the rays bouncing and you could completely customize the room yourself, it's shape and size. It worked in real time and sounded pretty bad but it was possible to get some really interesting ambiences out of it if you really tried.

However, from a production standpoint at least for many modern genres, "realistic" very rarely equals "better". For complex mixing tasks, unrealistic usually sounds better within context. Casey of Bricasti talked about this a lot many years ago on GS. Usually this is down to properties like resonances that are virtually impossible to get perfectly even in a real space. Also you can't control the density of a reverb easily in a real space. One of the best "mixing reverb tricks" is to not use a reverb at all, just some simple delay taps in rapid succession. Keeping it super sparse in a dense mix will give the illusion of space while crowding the mix less than a set of highly diffused delay taps in a feedback (or feed forward) network (aka reverb).

My point is: I would love to see somebody develop what you described but it's probably not what is most useful in terms of mixing.

Prosoniq RayVerb probably.

[bmanic]

Prosoniq RayVerb probably.

Nope. That's not the one. The one I'm thinking of you could actually build the room, like draw walls and they would be shown in pseudo 3D.

EDIT: I remember now!!!! QuickQuack RaySpace!!!!

https://www.quikquak.com/Prod_RaySpace.html


EDIT2: WOW!!! https://www.quikquak.com/index.html

The first news item on the list, from March this year, is that RaySpace is being remade!! This really is amazing news!

EDIT3: @koalaboy already was way ahead of me! He remembered first!

[bmanic]

And are low prices really benefiting us? Or are they just manipulating us into buying a bunch of plugins we barely use? That's a question for a different thread.

Something you seem to overlook: without us buying stuff we don't need they could all pack in...

This can be said for the world in general. If every single one of us was actually a good person, truly, in every single circumstance and never corrupt in any way (and I do mean the absolutely tiniest form of corruption, like littering or not "bothering" doing the tiniest small thing that is right because one is lazy) there would be world peace.

Simple, right? Lets do this!

Huh? I must admit that you lost me on this... *scratches head*

My point was simply this: Easier said than done.

[jens]

The first news item on the list, from March this year, is that RaySpace is being remade!! This really is amazing news!

Already quoted here by Koalaboy (a few posts up)

[jens]

My point was simply this: Easier said than done.

But my point was not that it is a bad thing that we do this - we help keeing the industry - and hence innovation - alive after all.

And for this very reason I like companies who have prices that kind of ignore the oversaturation of the market and act like there was only a handful of plugin vendors to support not so very much. (Yes, looking at you, Fabfilter).

[MrJubbly]

Whats also seems too much to ask for is drag and drop for the IR´s in 2023(i really hope its only not working for me,they cant forget sth that simple like drag and drop, right? ).

This feature request has been made on FF's forum.

[egbert101]

So how good is this new upgrade? Any good examples?