sonible smart:reverb 2 is here

[kinkajou]

smart:reverb 2

sonible says:

Step into a new dimension of space and depth with smart:reverb 2, the content-aware reverb that shapes itself around your sound. Whether you’re dialing in subtle space or crafting immersive depth, smart:reverb 2 gives you clarity, control, and creative freedom. It understands single tracks and entire mixes, helping you create exactly the reverb environment you imagine.

[hightyde]

I’ll tell you what. Between Sonible and Nuro audio. I feel like these two companies can do no wrong. Looking forward to testing out smart reverb 2 here in a few minutes.

[chagzuki]

My upgrade price is fair. Version 1 didn't cut it for me, the lack of modulation control meant that it was limited to icy smooth sterility. In the promo video for this it looks like the've added mixing tools but I don't see additional parameters for the reverb character.

[kraster]

This is one of the most interesting takes on reverb I've come across in a good while.

It has even less control than the first one over the reverbs parameters.

You have four algos you can select on an XY pad. Spring, plate, Hall and Room, a size control, a width control and a distance control. The distance control also appears to the right of the control as a slider. It's essentially a wet/dry control but it can also be set to filter with distance.
You also have color which is a basic tone control and "clarity" that is like some sort of ducker. Finally you have a "wet" control that's used for using it as a send effect.

In the main reverb output window you can engage further controls in manual mode.
You have a three band frequency weighting control where you can set the crossover points and the weighting (level) for the three bands.
You also have access to a manual length for the tail which can be set in ms or beats. Sonible calls this a "ducking" control but if anything it behaves more like a gate.
There's also a "mono below" control which makes the reverb mono below a certain frequency and an output level which can be set to auto.
There are also four different global modes. Normal, Infinite, reverse and bounce (bounce alternates between forward and reverse)

The big selling point of Smart reverb 2 is the ability to control more than one instance from one window and that each instance is "aware" of the others and can adapt accordingly.
You can set up different groups of instances (e.g all the drum reverbs could be in one group and vocals and backing vocals could be in another )

All the nodes in a group appear in the XY window and clicking on a node opens all the parameters for that instance. At the bottom you have a "source adaptation" control.

In use it's similar to the first Smart reverb where you choose a source and hit the learn button and it will choose the parameters automatically.

One thing I would say off the bat is that it sounds considerably better than the first one. I always found the first one sounded kind of synthetic whereas this sounds very good in general. There's a lot of variety with the ability to smoothly transition between the four algos and there's enough control to tailor it even more.

The Smart features work really well. The source adaptation controls do a lot to clean up the overall reverb output and the ability to dial it in in degrees really helps tame it if it's too aggressive.

At first I missed having more control like ER level, an actual duration control, damping, diffusion and a basic wet/dry control but the more I use it the less I missed those controls and let it do its thing.

In general it's pretty conservative with its settings but I think this is better than getting too washy.

Overall the more I used it the more I liked it. It's definitely a pretty unique take and the results are very good.