1 week Ago By Alex Holmes
is often pivotal in crafting a professional and three-dimensional sounding mix. From the original spring, plate and chamber reverb techniques to hardware algorithms and captured impulse responses, there are many different techniques to add depth to your audio. As a general rule, most either fall into the algorithmic or convolution categories.
For the former, the quality of the programmed algorithms is an essential marker for how the effect sounds, and for the latter, it’s the variety of the captured impulse responses. Whether you’re looking to place a drum kit in a realistic room or shoot your to the Moon in a vast and unusual space, we’ve selected a wide range of reverbs for you to check out. FabFilter – Pro-R 2 is the sequel to ’s original, much-loved reverb.
The plugin features the same well-designed GUI with understandable controls such as Distance, Brightness and Space, and it has a unique Decay Rate that lets you intuitively tweak the decay time for different parts of the spectrum. This version ups the ante and adds Vintage and Plate algorithms alongside the original’s smooth and natural Modern style. There’s also a Thickness control to saturate and compress the reverb tail, built-in Ducking and Auto-Gate features, a Freeze button, support for surround and Immersive Audio, extra output settings for each Decay Rate and Post EQ band, and an improved preset browser.
Plus, an innovative Impulse Response import function that can turn IRs into algorithmic presets. Get this plugin at . Valhalla – Supermassive makes a range of affordable, high-quality reverb plugins, including the revered VintageVerb, which you’ll find in many a producer’s toolkit.
For this round-up though, we’ve chosen the exceptional Supermassive, which also happens to be free. It’s just been updated to version three and now includes a huge 20 different reverb modes to choose from, which all have varying settings for attack, decay, density and repeating delays. These can be tempo-synced or left free-running, with various controls for Delay time, Warp, Density, modulation, low and high cut EQ, Mix and Width.
Although Supermassive can do shorter and more traditional reverb sounds, it excels at gigantic spaces with long, swelling waves echoing out into infinity. It’s an absolute wonder for sound design and creating atmospheric beds from anything you throw at it. Get this plugin at .
ModeAudio – Airspace On the surface, ’s looks like a fairly simple combination of convolution and delay, but it has a vast and creative impulse response collection that turns it into a sound design powerhouse. You get two Convolution engines, with a stereo delay in the middle. Although the Convolution sections are labelled Colour and Space, you can load any of the 450+ IRs into each.
These include a range of authentic recordings taken from a cathedral, a nuclear reactor, a submarine, and a chocolate factory, plus digital, spring and plate reverb hardware, found , analogue drum machines, an upright , experimental SFX, and textural . You can stretch the IR size all the way up to 500%, which is awesome for crafting long, ethereal drones. There are useful controls for shaping the IR’s envelope, alongside an EQ section, and there’s also a stereo delay for added depth, with filters, time and pan modulation, and a recursive pitch-shifting effect.
Learn more at Soundtoys – SuperPlate It took five years from the release of Little Plate for to finally bring us its big brother, , but it was worth the wait. SuperPlate gives you the option of five different emulations, meticulously captured from hardware units like the , Goldfoil EMT240, and Stocktronics RX 4000. Each brings a different plate flavour to the table, which can be further tweaked with three preamp options, modulation controls and a simple, built-in EQ.
The feature that really stands out, though, is the Auto-Decay function. Where other reverbs often have ducking effects that work by pulling down the volume, SuperPlate instead reduces the decay time. This works wonders on faster passages, as you still get a thick reverb sound, but the tails are much tighter, which results in a more prominent signal.
If you like the sound of plates, then this one is a no-brainer. Especially if you already own the Soundtoys bundle, as the upgrade cost is fairly cheap. Get this plugin at .
iZotope – Aurora Aurora is ’s intelligent reverb that helps create cleaner-sounding mixes. There are six reverb types to choose from, all powered by ’s legendary algorithms. These include Hall, Room, Chamber, Plate, Ambience and Cathedral, with additional controls for Pre-delay, Decay, Width, and Tone.
What sets Aurora apart is its unmasking feature. This will dynamically react to the incoming audio and carve out space in the reverb signal to make sure your instruments, drums or vocals remain focused and clear. The GUI shows the frequency spectrum of the ducked audio so you can see which areas are being attenuated.
You can also control the attack, release and sensitivity to fine-tune exactly how the ducking is applied. Having all these tools in a single plug-in can greatly speed up workflow, and it’s a quick and easy way to get less muddy-sounding mixes. Get this plugin at .
Strymon – BigSky Plugin If you’re familiar with the world of effects , then you’ll no doubt have heard of the BigSky reverb by . The pedal has been around for 10 years, but due to its popularity, Strymon has finally decided to make the excellent algorithms available in . There are 12 Reverb Machines in total, including traditional sounding Room, Hall, and Plate settings alongside the more unique and beautiful sounding Bloom, Cloud and Shimmer.
Some of these use a range of pitch shifting, and reverse techniques, making this a very creative and flexible reverb plugin. As you select each algorithm, you get access to its specific controls for further tweaking, which gives the plugin an advantage over the menu diving required on the pedal version. It’s also worth noting that Strymon has added an Infinite Sustain and a Freeze function to the plugin version, which can be used for creating larger textures.
Get this plugin at . sonible – smart:reverb is one of the companies at the forefront of innovative, -based plugin design. Its is a source-adaptive effect that can listen to your audio and create a custom preset to perfectly complement the source.
You simply select an instrument from a drop-down menu and then click a record button to listen to a short portion of the track. The tailored preset can then be edited to your liking. The controls are a little different to a traditional algorithmic reverb, with time-based graphs for controlling the Decay, Spread and Density, and an X/Y pad that lets you morph between Intimate, Rich, Natural and Artificial parameters.
There are also controls for Width, a ducker (called Clarity), a basic EQ, and Freeze and Infinite buttons. It may not be the best-sounding reverb in this list, but it has an excellent knack for getting sounds to sit well in the mix with minimal editing. Get this plugin at .
Cableguys – ReverbShaper Our next entry is the ReverbShaper, which loads into ’ excellent plugin and includes unique envelope-based editing features. It’s a convolution-based plugin that comes with 127 varied IRs, plus the ability to load your own. You have more traditional controls for the decay time, width and pre-delay, and a Size slider that resamples the impulse to make it longer or short, whilst also affecting its pitch.
The fun starts when you begin editing the volume of the reverb using the tempo-synced LFO tool, which has flexible drawing tools to create simple swells or complex, gated rhythms. There’s also a graph to edit the Send signal, so you could just highlight a single snare in a loop to send through to the reverb, thus saving time with fiddly automation. On top of this, you have an envelope follower and audio or MIDI triggering, plus low, mid and high bands to split the IRs and controls.
It’s probably the most creative tool on offer here, and also one of the cheapest. Get this plugin at . Phil Speiser – The Liquid 2 This list has seen some pretty cutting-edge tech, but The Liquid 2 is arguably the most futuristic of the bunch.
You can type in a text prompt for the type of sound you’re after, such as “bright 3-second plate reverb with a tight stereo delay”, and the built-in will transform it into a preset. You can also be a little more abstract, or even request the sound of your favourite artist. If you want to refine the sound further, you can open up the Advanced tab, which gives access to the inner workings of the reverb and delay.
This also includes built-in distortion and vintage settings, pitch shift, a Ducker effect, a Tail Designer, Gate controls and even a 3-band dynamic EQ section. There are also a bunch of presets included. It’s a fascinating and unique way of building a mix that could be useful for those starting out, or anyone who wants to quickly experiment with different ideas.
Check out this plugin at LiquidSonics – Seventh Heaven brings the coveted M7 hardware reverb to life in that captures the natural, lush, smooth and transparent sound of the original. It manages this through LiquidSonics proprietary Fusion-IR technology, which tracks the behaviour of a reverb through its early reflection through to the final tail stage. This results in a more evolving sound compared to a more traditional static IR snapshot.
Although it’s based around convolution, you then get the ability to tweak a range of parameters as though you are editing an algorithmic reverb. The full Professional version includes over 230 multi-sampled Fusion-IR presets, 32 selectable early reflection patterns, full surround support, an internal ducking effect, and a five-band oversampled master EQ. It has an exceptional sound that sits well in the mix, and the range of different captured algorithms makes it highly versatile.
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