soundslike72
Member
Levels - including those of reverb - reveal themselves more easily in mono, I find. Not at all crazy
.
How to hear the difference between reverbs?
- Thread starter Lord Daknight
- Start date
.Pianolando
Active Member
R4 is one of the highest quality digital reverbs ever produced, software or hardware. You can easily find stuff that sounds different but it is easily top of its class with very few competitors. Sometimes it’s on sale for 10$ because of who in the world can understand why izotope (who bought up exponential audio which made R4 and some other world class reverbs) does things?
David Kudell
Senior Member
Speaking of R4, just got an email from iZotope. It's officially dead, along with R2, PhoenixVerb, NIMBUS, and Excalibur.
They will continue supporting Stratus and Symphony only. Of course, these are the only 2 I don't own, and there was no option for free or reduced price upgrades.
Nice work iZotope, buying a great product and running it into the ground. Glad I'm a Liquidsonics user now.
They will continue supporting Stratus and Symphony only. Of course, these are the only 2 I don't own, and there was no option for free or reduced price upgrades.
Nice work iZotope, buying a great product and running it into the ground. Glad I'm a Liquidsonics user now.
Mistro
Active Member
Seems like IZotope is cleaning house. Just got an email that they're discontinuing Iris 2, BreakTweaker, and Trash 2 also.
xguitaristx
Never trust the living
After you spend a lot of time with a lot of different reverbs (pedals, racks, plugins, etc), you develop a pretty good ear, as well as personal tastes for the different sonic properties every reverb has.
OP
OP
Lord Daknight
We do a little sampling
Wait why would you need support? It'll still work as good as it always did right?
KerrySmith
Active Member
When you get a chance to test a lot of reverbs, your ear will also gravitate towards what it likes. I skimmed Anne-Katherin Dern’s recent reverb video, and as soon as she hit play on the Lexicon Hall, my ear went “Yes. That’s right.“ Probably from growing up in the 80s and using a 300 in most of the 90s. It made me really regret not buying the PCM verbs (but until they roll out M1/future paths…). Despite a great appreciation for Michael Carnes, I never could get into R2/R4 or Phoenixverb. LiquidSonics is nice, but I haven’t been totally enveloped in the same blanket of “yes” by any of their verbs. Same with Valhalla. The VSS3 comes very close, and is my go-to for solo instruments that need to have that sound. But my ear is not going to be drawn to the same things as other people.
RudyS
Active Member
Because systems do change, like OS and DAW. So when apple brings out a new OS and R4 is not working on that, you’re screwed. I believe M1 is already not supported for R4 and nimbus.
I got R4 and nimbus cheap a while ago, but I think they will stay unused.
vitocorleone123
Senior Member
Be glad you can’t hear a difference! Saves money.
Otherwise, it takes time and experimentation. It only took me about 5 years, many many hours, and hopefully less than $750 on reverbs to land on “the one” for my ears (unless wanting special effects). But, even then, sometimes one of my others will work better in context.
R4 is my former favorite (since discarded due to issues with Studio One last year). The UI is bleh looking, but is well thought out and effective. It’s a Lexicon- style reverb on the clean side.
You can also like one reverb from a company and dislike another. I don’t like all the Liquidsonics reverbs enough to buy them all. I love Valhalla Delay and Supermassive, but don’t really like any of the other Valhalla reverbs. Etc.
My ears seem very sensitive to any metallic sound, as well as low-mid mud. Yeah, you can EQ, but, like with synths, I want the best sound to my ears to start with rather than having to always polish it.
Otherwise, it takes time and experimentation. It only took me about 5 years, many many hours, and hopefully less than $750 on reverbs to land on “the one” for my ears (unless wanting special effects). But, even then, sometimes one of my others will work better in context.
R4 is my former favorite (since discarded due to issues with Studio One last year). The UI is bleh looking, but is well thought out and effective. It’s a Lexicon- style reverb on the clean side.
You can also like one reverb from a company and dislike another. I don’t like all the Liquidsonics reverbs enough to buy them all. I love Valhalla Delay and Supermassive, but don’t really like any of the other Valhalla reverbs. Etc.
My ears seem very sensitive to any metallic sound, as well as low-mid mud. Yeah, you can EQ, but, like with synths, I want the best sound to my ears to start with rather than having to always polish it.
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OP
OP
Lord Daknight
We do a little sampling
Oh good thing I don't use Apple then
Tag
Active Member
I have regular sequences in the year in which I test reverbs again and again and compare them with my to-go verbs from Valhalla (at the moment I began to really love ValhallaPlate; before that ValhallaRoom was my to-go reverb - both are just great, according to my taste).
Regarding the question: many people already wrote great testing scenarious! E.g. making a short reverb and A/B on and off how the reverb affects the audio. Or make it long and try to listen very closely to the tail sound and how it affects the frequencies. Also try to listen to possible "grains" you might be able to hear. Or maybe it sounds resonating metallic or so? And yeah, I also like to test it with short percussive sounds from low to high pitched timbre. The idea with the noise burst is also great, but not that musical in the end - so keep this in mind. Another idea I sometimes do: If you already have a reverb, try to set up the new one, you want to test, as close as possible to the reverb you are already used to.
Edit: I hid the rest of my initial post behind a spoiler, since it wasn't thread related after all. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Regarding the question: many people already wrote great testing scenarious! E.g. making a short reverb and A/B on and off how the reverb affects the audio. Or make it long and try to listen very closely to the tail sound and how it affects the frequencies. Also try to listen to possible "grains" you might be able to hear. Or maybe it sounds resonating metallic or so? And yeah, I also like to test it with short percussive sounds from low to high pitched timbre. The idea with the noise burst is also great, but not that musical in the end - so keep this in mind. Another idea I sometimes do: If you already have a reverb, try to set up the new one, you want to test, as close as possible to the reverb you are already used to.
More criteria which I always have about plugins in general, especially reverbs: copy protection and trial options, CPU usage, workflow / GUI and price. Let me elaborate a bit:
1. Copy protection
I personally just hate iLok. As soon as a plugin uses iLok, I avoid it. I am fair: I did test some plugins already, but in the end I often times was not confinced, though. It's a rather personal, maybe almost ideological thing, I know. I just do not want to support it (technical wise and worse would be, if I had to buy extra hardware and waste an extra USB slot for this stuff ... I know, most iLok things already work via the iLok account these days, but I still do not like it - e.g. why do they have to know which plugins I own, privacy wise? Sorry for the offtopic now!).
2. Trial option
The best trial option is:
3. CPU
Somehoe Valhalla manages it so make their reverbs quite CPU efficient. As well as Meldaproductions MTurboReverb or the free MCharmVerb does. This is an aspect I just love. But it's something more in my head, hehe. Still: if there are reverbs which eats 10% of my i9 9900K, I just remove it and try to forget about it. :D ... call it OCD-ish, what it partially is, to be honest.
4. Workflow
The reverb should have quick options to set it up as I want. No tiny GUIs knobs which move unexpected or so. That's why I began to like ValhallaPlate as well, btw: a veeery big knob for the main control: the decay time. It's just a clever GUI, imo. I really love the concept of Pro-R as well, by the way. Unfortunately I did not like the sound bakc then when I was able to test it, which I am not any more, since it only has a limited days to test it, ARGH!
5. Price
If the reverb fulfills all the above points in a positive way, it might even be regardless what price it has in the end. And then there is Valhalla with its cheap prices and fulfulling all the above points.
BUt still: a lower price can be tempting here as well, of course.
Sorry for the long post ... should my post had become a separate thread in the end?
1. Copy protection
I personally just hate iLok. As soon as a plugin uses iLok, I avoid it. I am fair: I did test some plugins already, but in the end I often times was not confinced, though. It's a rather personal, maybe almost ideological thing, I know. I just do not want to support it (technical wise and worse would be, if I had to buy extra hardware and waste an extra USB slot for this stuff ... I know, most iLok things already work via the iLok account these days, but I still do not like it - e.g. why do they have to know which plugins I own, privacy wise? Sorry for the offtopic now!).
2. Trial option
The best trial option is:
- I want to be able to download the plugin without any account.
- I want to be able to test it without a limitation of days.
- It may mute the sound or end its session after some time.
- It may disable saving presets.
- It may have a nagging screen, reminding me to buy it; totally legit!
3. CPU
Somehoe Valhalla manages it so make their reverbs quite CPU efficient. As well as Meldaproductions MTurboReverb or the free MCharmVerb does. This is an aspect I just love. But it's something more in my head, hehe. Still: if there are reverbs which eats 10% of my i9 9900K, I just remove it and try to forget about it. :D ... call it OCD-ish, what it partially is, to be honest.
4. Workflow
The reverb should have quick options to set it up as I want. No tiny GUIs knobs which move unexpected or so. That's why I began to like ValhallaPlate as well, btw: a veeery big knob for the main control: the decay time. It's just a clever GUI, imo. I really love the concept of Pro-R as well, by the way. Unfortunately I did not like the sound bakc then when I was able to test it, which I am not any more, since it only has a limited days to test it, ARGH!
5. Price
If the reverb fulfills all the above points in a positive way, it might even be regardless what price it has in the end. And then there is Valhalla with its cheap prices and fulfulling all the above points.
BUt still: a lower price can be tempting here as well, of course.Sorry for the long post ... should my post had become a separate thread in the end?
Edit: I hid the rest of my initial post behind a spoiler, since it wasn't thread related after all. Sorry for the inconvenience!
elucid
Member
I just bought MTurboReverb in the current 50% off sale and I'm hoping to get deep into what makes up different reverb sounds (it has an algorithm designer built into it) - both as an educational experience but also (I hope) to get some algortihms I really like!
You know, in all that spare time...
You know, in all that spare time...
Tag
Active Member
MTR is a great reverb, when it comes to flexibility. It was some time my to-go reverb, but it is quite complex after all. I also do not like working with the easy screen stuff. You have to be very eager to spend some time using MTR in general. I would say that MTR can do almost everything, theroretically ... but it is more some kind of almost-coding toolkit with many possibilities yet no fast workflow in the end. The latter one is something which brought me back to Valhalla, hehe.
molemac
Active Member
Just imagine being Trevor Horn back in the early eighties. You had basically 2 reverbs
And you made it sound like this:
Skills
best
ed
Say no more , not to mention the amazing live musicians and no vi plugins. Big up for my friend Tessa Niles on BVs.
ed buller
Senior Member
molemac
Active Member
Those were the days. Imagine having that amount of talent on one song these days. Anyone old enough to remember, these were the crème de La crème
Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones | Credits | AllMusic
Find album credit information for Slave to the Rhythm by Grace Jones on AllMusic
www.allmusic.com
Hendrixon
Senior New
UI/UX could be better but there is something to say for hardware when a reverb box still works just the same 37 years later with every new OS and DAW.
I'm just saying
A good question. I have Phoenix and R4 and I assume they'll keep working until they don't. This happened not long ago when I moved to OS Monterey...Phoenix kept working but R4 didn't. Then Izotope updated it. From their announcement, they won't be doing such updates in the future.
Their email to me included a discount on upgrading to their new versions (Stratus and the other one). It's a good chunk more than I paid in the first place, and like the poster above I kind of moved on when R4 stopped working with the Monterey switch. Tai chi lite is a similar reverb to R4 (to some degree, sounds good to me at any rate) and I also have the Logic verbs which I think are quite good (Chromaverb fared well in that Spitfire blind challenge iirc) and a Fuse Audio plate which I really like. Not to mention the free SuperMassive and a few others I've picked up.
I'm probably not going to take Izotope up on their offer, though I do like the interface better at a glance at their versions. I'm considering upgrading Komplete at the next upgrade sale to Ultimate, and knowing that at least one Izotope product is part of Komplete now (Ozone) maybe they'll throw the two verbs in there too :D
