Replacing the Arts Acoustic Reverb

[Weasel-Boy]

• Sonsig Rev-A
(relab) this thing is incredibly good at huge washes of verb, tails 10sec and onward, etc. Very similar vibe as AAR doing the same style. Check out the presets in the "fantasy" folder, especially '1Reverb' and 'Spaceverb2' -- ahhhhh that's the sound.

• NI Rev-24
(NI / Softube collab) - this is an old one, but hey so is AAR, ha! I think this verb is really overlooked in general. People complain it doesn't have all of the 224 algos, even though it has the most popular ones. It sounds excellent and, as above, it does super long tails w/ heavy modulation *beautifully*. Plus it's just so quick and easy to use, instant results every time.

Thank you for these suggestions. I will look into them.

[masterhiggins]

It's such a shame when companies like that just throw away amazing software. Loomer was like that, too. It really sucks. Architect was truly different.

[Trancit]

I don´t know if you have considered this but how about making a collection of impulse responses of your AA Reverb with settings you liked most?

Might take some time and yes, you would lose a bit of modulation but maybe you could pair these IRs with another reverb to get what you are after... or a chorus...
Many times I don´t find any difference in sound between the realtime device and an IR of it...especially not inside of the whole Mix.

I personally never got the hype around that device... it never convinced me soundwise, had always something ugly in it´s tails but different people, different taste...

[Weasel-Boy]

I don´t know if you have considered this but how about making a collection of impulse responses of your AA Reverb with settings you liked most?

Thank for the suggestion, Trancit. I actually tried this with WaveArts free Convology Plug-in...

https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/convology

...which provides more than enough tools to make some reasonable facsimiles and variations. I used a short white noise burst to excite AAR, then recorded and edited the result in my DAW (Cubase), finally loaded it into Convology. The results were surprisingly good. Not perfect...but quite passable.

Good tip. And for free, Convology is hard to beat.

[secomo]

The last time i had contact with AA support was about a year ago. Alexander fortunately helped me out with something about my AAR install. Some years before that they said they were planning something for the future, so hopefully we will see them again.

how can you say this with any seriousness at all......It has been 13 years since ANYTHING, but you're still holding out hope? Amazing....

I'm just relaying something i was told. Maybe it means something to someone, maybe not. To answer your question, it costs me nothing to be positive.

[Aloysius]

I found my download links and codes for big rock and the reverb. No joy downloading.

[Weasel-Boy]

The last time i had contact with AA support was about a year ago. Alexander fortunately helped me out with something about my AAR install. Some years before that they said they were planning something for the future, so hopefully we will see them again.

It's been established that support has occasionally answered in a timely fashion and that the website is still up and offering AAR for sale. But, as we all know, development/updates (particularly for Silicon CPUs and a resizable GUI) has all but died for the last 13 years. Hope is nice, but I think they were done working on the reverb a long time ago.

This is why I originally posted, looking for something that comes close to the sound of the original. I recently tried making impulse files from various AAR settings. Interesting results, but still not close to the real thing. The search goes on.

[electro]

The last time i had contact with AA support was about a year ago. Alexander fortunately helped me out with something about my AAR install. Some years before that they said they were planning something for the future, so hopefully we will see them again.

How did they explain the prolonged silence? Why has nobody else been able to get a hold of anyone?

[mcligge2]

The last time i had contact with AA support was about a year ago. Alexander fortunately helped me out with something about my AAR install. Some years before that they said they were planning something for the future, so hopefully we will see them again.

That is very interesting—that Alexander is still offering support and staying in contact with his customers. I emailed him to ask whether there will be any updates to the reverb, but I didn’t receive a response. Many others have tried as well.

How did you contact him, and how did the conversation go?

It would be amazing to speak to Alexander about this. There could be opportunities to revamp the plugin, perhaps through reFX, who I’ve heard might hold the rights to the code—or possibly through another company acquiring it. I believe there are still customers willing to pay for updates (myself included). Just look at all the conversations that are still happening on KVR about it.

There really is no true replacement:

• The relatively simple way you can control the reverb, with unique parameters like Spread (for example, the Tai Chi GUI is far more complicated, with multiple tabs and too many parameters).

• The tightness of the sound, with instant response and a fast attack.

• The amazing detune effect (perfect for trance music).

• The very wide stereo image.

• The silky, airy, “wet” overall character.

Nothing quite compares.

Tai Chi comes close, and so does ADPTR Utopia. It’s unbelievable that this reverb is 20 years old and still sounds better than many modern options, including the very popular Valhalla reverbs.

[Aloysius]

I went to their special support site and will see what happens with my ticket.

[electro]

Could be a hoax and maybe nobody has made any contact with AA at all in 13 years. Them responding to only a single individual is very weird.

It's been established that support has occasionally answered in a timely fashion and that the website is still up and offering AAR for sale. But, as we all know, development/updates (particularly for Silicon CPUs and a resizable GUI) has all but died for the last 13 years. Hope is nice, but I think they were done working on the reverb a long time ago.

This is why I originally posted, looking for something that comes close to the sound of the original. I recently tried making impulse files from various AAR settings. Interesting results, but still not close to the real thing. The search goes on.

[Tubeman]

Have you tried the latest one? Just came out a few weeks ago. I think it's a significant improvement on their previous offerings.

I assume you mean FutureVerb. That's one of the units i own. No, not that one, it's almost impossible to rid that unit of what I can only describe as 'aliased noise' in all the tails. The silky tails of the AAR is one of its most outstanding characteristics. Those guys got so much right over 20 years ago.

This is interesting. Could you give examples of this 'aliased noise' in all the tails and then in comparison the silky tails of the AAR?

[sqigls]

I've tried a few times over the last 10 or more years to just update my email and get my serials sent to me. No dice. Now if this basic customer request is unachievable then I seriously doubt the integrity of ANYTHING ArtsAcoustic.
Whatever the story, the reverb is the only plugin that still works (under Rosetta). ArtsAcoustic has either licensed or sold at least their reverb algorithm(s) to Vengeance Sound.

PLENTY of devs have appeared on KVR (for example) and professed an unavoidable phenomenon of life that prevents them from engaging in further business or updates, and most people would understand. Some people suffer terrible tragedies, any reasonable human understands this. Some Devs just disappear, which is kinda f**ked, considering the customers and fans who have supported these devs. A few lines of text, typed into this forum or whatever... this is what happened (and/or) we are ceasing trading, sorry about that. Pretty f**king simple. "I can't deal with this shit anymore". ok, brief, but thanks for letting me know.

However, to keep trading, keep taking customers money, keep getting promoted on KVR and the likes (with 2 broken plugins i should add)... while not answering a single email, proove me wrong... this is not good business, to say the least.

[electro]

someone might have died

[sqigls]

i sometimes think they possibly suffered something like this.
but surely some genuine information would leak this way?