Eventide Audio has announced the release of Temperance Lite, a free plug-in that introduces what they describe as "the world's first musical reverb". Unlike traditional algorithmic and convolution reverbs, Temperance Lite lets you control reverb resonances using the familiar 12-note chromatic scale, giving you control over which notes bloom or wither within your chosen space.
I've been dreaming of a musical reverb for 40 years. In 1985, I met Isaak Vigdorchik, who believed that Cremona violins' plates were sanded to ring out at the 12 notes of the musical scale. Isaak said, 'Anthony, the notes are in the wood.' Years earlier I had developed the SP2016's reverb algorithms and, with reverb still on my mind, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if the notes were in the room?' But that would require modeling a room in exquisite detail and the processing power required might never be attainable.
I was right about the modeling and now the processing power is at hand. Eventide's passionate and brilliant developers have made my dream come true. Now, for the first time, any space, real or imagined, can be crafted with the artist's musical intent.
Eventide's Resident Fossil, Tony Agnello.
Eventide says Temperance Lite responds musically in ways previously impossible, allowing artists to create spaces that enhance their musical intent rather than working against it.
Temperance Lite is based on modal reverb technology that has existed conceptually for decades but was previously impossible to realize in real time due to its computational demands. Eventide says that thanks to advances in processing power and clever engineering by the team at Eventide, this decades-old dream has finally become reality:
Imagine a room filled with thousands of tuning forks, each one a different size and tuned to a specific frequency across the entire audio range. The largest fork handles the deep 20 Hz rumbles, while the tiniest one rings at 20 kHz. What if you were able to control the loudness and decay rate of each tuning fork? That's essentially how Temperance Lite works. This is an entirely new approach to reverb, one that gives users control over how every resonance in their space behaves.
Key Features
- Temper Knob controls how much tempering is applied to the reverb emphasizing or de-emphasizing selected notes.
- Three World-Class Spaces:
- Bright Room – Based on the SP2016 reverb, this classic space has the rare ability to make vocals, instruments, and drums sit perfectly in a mix.
- Large Studio – Dr. Ralph Kessler, a pioneer in the study of acoustic spaces, has generously supported our mission of taking reverb to the next level by 'donating' one of his most valued reverbs, recreated here.
- Synthetic Space – Unnaturally evolving reverb textures crafted in-house, from 'scratch', to show off what the new Modal reverb tech can do. With the modal approach imagined spaces can be made real.
- NoteScape Visualizer displays the emphasized and de-emphasized notes sustaining and decaying, visually mapping the musicality of the reverb.
Pricing & Availability
Temperance Lite is available now as a free download from eventideaudio.com through December 31, 2025.
Temperance Lite is compatible with 64-bit AAX, AU, and VST3 on macOS 10.14+ and Windows 10+. A minimum of SSE 4.2 processor is needed to run Temperance Lite on Windows.
