# Reverbs for film/tv orchestral mock-up and works



## dman007 (Jun 8, 2020)

What reverbs do you recommend and/or use for film / tv orchestral music ? 

Any thoughts on: 

UAD Ocean Way Studios 
UAD Lexicon 480L 
Valhalla Vintage Verb 
Perfect Room 
Pheonix Verb

Any others?

Looking to get room sound, that space and sense of distance 

Would like to know people's experiences with these.


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## quickbrownf0x (Jun 8, 2020)

- Liquidsonics; Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms. 
- Lexicon PCM Native
- Valhalla Room
- Eventide Blackhole


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## Beat Kaufmann (Jun 14, 2020)

2C Audio Breece 2.0 can produce nice distances although it is an algo reverb. Also the tails are very natural. 
Meanwhile this reverb effect has become my "every day tool".

Beat


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## bryla (Jun 14, 2020)

Have you checked Relab VSR 24?

I have the Random Hall and got an offer for the bundle. They sound really good. The Random Hall being an emulation of Lexicon and VSR build on TC.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 14, 2020)

quickbrownf0x said:


> - Liquidsonics; Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms.
> - Lexicon PCM Native
> - Valhalla Room
> - Eventide Blackhole


Great choices. +1 for Liquidsonics.

To add to this:

- Phoenixverb and R2. I got the first for $9.99 and then crossgraded to R2 for $30. Unbeatable for those prices. Great verbs.

- The Relab Development stuff is on par with Liquidsonics. I love VSR24 (TC Electronic 6000 clone) and Sonsig Rev A. The LX480 is also cool, in the “vintage” category.

- I also love Waves H-Reverb. Very tweakable, and the H-Delay still is a go-to

Don’t own Breeze but have heard it in combination with Precedence and I was very impressed, so Beat’s advice seems very solid. And he has way more professional experience than myself, being merely a hobbyist.


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## yiph2 (Jun 14, 2020)

What about Seventh Heaven?


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## doctoremmet (Jun 14, 2020)

yiph2 said:


> What about Seventh Heaven?


It was already mentioned. It is my most used reverb (non-pro Standard). It just sounds amazing. If I had to choose just one, it would be Seventh Heaven, no doubt.


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## yiph2 (Jun 14, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> It was already mentioned. It is my most used reverb (non-pro Standard). It just sounds amazing. If I had to choose just one, it would be Seventh Heaven, no doubt.


Whoops, I didn't see that...


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## dman007 (Jun 14, 2020)

Anyone using the Slate Digital VerbSuite?


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## doctoremmet (Jun 14, 2020)

dman007 said:


> Anyone using the Slate Digital VerbSuite?


Curious about this one but it always seems like it can only be part of a subscription. It does have Liquidsonics’ DNA for the Bricasti type verbs. Another question: anyone using the Softube TSAR-1? Somehow I am intrigued by that one


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## dman007 (Jun 14, 2020)

Been trying a few demos today. Very impressed with the Lexicon PCM Native Random Hall. Still got a few to try but that one really stood out to me.


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## Akarin (Jun 14, 2020)

I use a combination of two reverbs. One convolution for creating the early reflections and one algo for the tail. 

Usually, EW Spaces 2 and VSS3 although I'm experimenting with Cinematic Rooms for both at the moment. 

I describe my process here:


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## Dietz (Jun 14, 2020)

dman007 said:


> Looking to get room sound, that space and sense of distance


This is what MIR Pro has been made for.

-> https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Vienna_Software_Package/Vienna_MIR_PRO#!MIR_Story


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## Artemi (Jun 15, 2020)

my take on that


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## Daniel (Jun 15, 2020)

I am using REVerence Cubase Pro 10.5.12, put it as a sendsFx.


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## Marsen (Jun 29, 2020)

UAD 480-L : very good as also UAD 224
Phoenix: for 9.99 was a steal and is a good reverb, nice to have

7thHeaven / Halls of Fame /Spaces II:
I made a comparison between Liquidsonics Seventhheaven, the Best Service "Halls of Fame" Bricasti Convu and East West Spaces II (similar Rooms) and couldn´t find a winner (all three are really good).

Cinematic Rooms:
Today I tried a Demoversion of Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms (Standard Vers.) and compared it to the reverbs above (only stereo environment):
This is the best, I´ve heard so far!
Although a true surround reverb, it´s as good as in stereo.

If I would make a ranking, it would look like this:

1. Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms
2. UAD 480-L
3. UAD 224 (as an Algorythm reverb)
3. 7Heaven- Halls of Fame Bricasti-Spaces II (as Convu-Reverbs)
4. Phoenix


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## doctoremmet (Jun 29, 2020)

Marsen said:


> UAD 480-L : very good as also UAD 224
> Phoenix: for 9.99 was a steal and is a good reverb, nice to have
> 
> 7thHeaven / Halls of Fame /Spaces II:
> ...


Cool list. I have 1, 3 and 4 plus R2 and all the Relab stuff. For me Cinematic Rooms is number one as well, followed by Relab VSR24, and 7Heaven as #3, FWIW


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## Marsen (Jun 29, 2020)

I remember, starting with an Alesis Midiverb and felt like a pro, adding an Lexicon Lxp-1 to my rack

What times, we live in...


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## Sunny Schramm (Jun 29, 2020)

I have only the small version of seventh heaven - do you think the "scoring stage"-preset is good as a group-reverb where all orchestral instruments went through? Also the NI Raum Big Reverb "Orchestral" sounds nice to me. And Blackhole from Eventide is absolutely amazing for dreamy stuff 🥰


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## Sunny Schramm (Jun 29, 2020)

Marsen said:


> I remember, starting with an Alesis Midiverb and felt like a pro, adding an Lexicon Lxp-1 to my rack
> 
> What times, we live in...



haha...I got also two "Midiverb VI" for my emu e64 sampler back in the 90ies and was really happy 😃


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## KEM (Jun 29, 2020)

I use Valhalla Room, cheap and it sounds great. Everyone talks about Seventh Heaven so I plan on trying that one day.


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## Wunderhorn (Jun 29, 2020)

Since I like to EQ the reverb, to me the visual feedback of ChromaVerb (stock verb in Logic) is hard to beat. Here I can see directly what spectrum is being covered by an instrument and it helps having an immediate starting point on where to set the EQ.
I wish Valhalla etc. had this feature.
Space Designer for convolution isn't bad at all either.

So far I haven't felt the need to spend much money on other reverbs. Maybe a bit short-sighted? I just haven't had the chance to become aware of vast enough differences that would make me go out and get something else.


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## Akarin (Jun 29, 2020)

Wunderhorn said:


> Since I like to EQ the reverb, to me the visual feedback of ChromaVerb (stock verb in Logic) is hard to beat. Here I can see directly what spectrum is being covered by an instrument and it helps having an immediate starting point on where to set the EQ.
> I wish Valhalla etc. had this feature.
> Space Designer for convolution isn't bad at all either.
> 
> So far I haven't felt the need to spend much money on other reverbs. Maybe a bit short-sighted? I just haven't had the chance to become aware of vast enough differences that would make me go out and get something else.



Add an EQ with visual feedback like Pro-Q just after your reverb. Even the stock Logic one. You'll see what goes into Valhalla.


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## Wunderhorn (Jun 29, 2020)

Akarin said:


> Add an EQ with visual feedback like Pro-Q just after your reverb. Even the stock Logic one. You'll see what goes into Valhalla.



If I do this does it not affect the whole audio (source _audio with_ reverb)?
EQing the reverb should only affect the effect itself before it hits the audio. Right? Or am I making a wrong assumption on how this works?


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## Marsen (Jun 29, 2020)

I guess what Akarin meant, was just to use the analyser function of the EQ.


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## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jun 29, 2020)

dman007 said:


> What reverbs do you recommend and/or use for film / tv orchestral music ?
> 
> Any thoughts on:
> 
> ...


All the Exponential Audio verbs are terrific. Love Lexicon, Cinematic Rooms, Seventh Heaven, FabFilter Pro-R, TSAR-1, Blackhole.


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## Akarin (Jun 29, 2020)

Wunderhorn said:


> If I do this does it not affect the whole audio (source _audio with_ reverb)?
> EQing the reverb should only affect the effect itself before it hits the audio. Right? Or am I making a wrong assumption on how this works?



From your comment, I take it that you are using your reverb as an insert plugin and not as a send, right? You may want to look at using busses for your reverbs. I have a quick tutorial about that on my channel.


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## robgb (Jun 29, 2020)

Get the Dragonfly suite of reverbs and use the Early Reflections verb on your drier instruments. A nice convolution verb—MConvolutionEZ is free and its big sister MConvolutionMB is so customizable it's almost overwhelming. The free M7 IRs are terrific, Berliner Hall being one of my favorites.

Vahalla's free reverb is fantastic, and Melda's MCharmverb (free) is pretty nice. Honestly, you can be seduced by the big super expensive reverbs, but there are so many low cost verbs these days that are at least as good and sometimes surpass the expensive ones that there's really no point in wasting money.



Akarin said:


> You may want to look at using busses for your reverbs.



I second this advice. It's really the best way to work.


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## garaughty (Jun 29, 2020)

My go to reverb for the past 2 years has been Eventide's Blackhole Reverb and I haven't found anything to make me think about changing. If I had to pick just one reverb , this would be it !


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## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jun 29, 2020)

Akarin said:


> From your comment, I take it that you are using your reverb as an insert plugin and not as a send, right? You may want to look at using busses for your reverbs. I have a quick tutorial about that on my channel.


My template is so large I have to use reverbs on busses and rarely use them on an insert of an instrument but thanks for the link.


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## Petrucci (Jun 29, 2020)

Could someone advise is 7th Heaven Standard comparable to Pro or is it too subpar? Also what might be better for stereo orchestral reverb - 7th Heaven Standard or Cinematic Rooms Standard? I've been using Spaces 2 for "space" + UAD480 for "tails" mostly and wonder if Liquidsonics could get me something more vivid...


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## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jun 29, 2020)

Petrucci said:


> Could someone advise is 7th Heaven Standard comparable to Pro or is it too subpar? Also what might be better for stereo orchestral reverb - 7th Heaven Standard or Cinematic Rooms Standard? I've been using Spaces 2 for "space" + UAD480 for "tails" mostly and wonder if Liquidsonics could get me something more vivid...


I really like Seventh Heaven standard and Cinematic Rooms, but they sound different. If I had to pick only one ☝️ I guess I’d select the latter.


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## Wunderhorn (Jun 29, 2020)

Akarin said:


> From your comment, I take it that you are using your reverb as an insert plugin and not as a send, right? You may want to look at using busses for your reverbs. I have a quick tutorial about that on my channel.



It is actually not on the instrument track itself but an aux. Still, if the instrument track sends it to this aux it is still audio that gets processed then by the plugins on this aux or bus, so what is the difference, how does an EQ that is placed after the reverb affect only the reverb and not the whole audio with the reverb?
If your video can help shed some light on this I'd appreciate a link.


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## Cathbad (Jun 29, 2020)

For orchestral music, I use Waves IR1 and Halls of Fame. 

I like the Symphony Hall Birmingham impulse for the IR1 and the Lexicon 224 concert hall on Halls of Fame.

Occasionally I'll try out another hall or a scoring stage from IR1 for curiosity, but the Lexicon 224 setting is a pretty welded-on choice for me.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 29, 2020)

7th Heaven sta


Petrucci said:


> Could someone advise is 7th Heaven Standard comparable to Pro or is it too subpar? Also what might be better for stereo orchestral reverb - 7th Heaven Standard or Cinematic Rooms Standard? I've been using Spaces 2 for "space" + UAD480 for "tails" mostly and wonder if Liquidsonics could get me something more vivid...


Standard is fine! You miss a couple of presets that are only in the Bricasti firmware 2 update and some tweakability, compared to Pro. But the GORGEOUS sound remains. I use Sandor’s Hall all the time.

Watch the @corypelizzari review on YT. Even he advised that for most Standard is more than enough and offers ridiculously good value.


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## José Herring (Jun 29, 2020)

Marsen said:


> I remember, starting with an Alesis Midiverb and felt like a pro, adding an Lexicon Lxp-1 to my rack
> 
> What times, we live in...


LXP-1 still one of the best reverbs ever made. And for $500 it was a steal.

There are three verbs from the 90's that still haven't been beat by plugins: LXP-1, Lexicon 300, and the Yamaha SPX90. I still have yet to hear anything better when used correctly. 

People rave about Bricasti but for some reason to me it always sounded a little hollow. Maybe I just got use to too much lush.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 30, 2020)

josejherring said:


> LXP-1 still one of the best reverbs ever made. And for $500 it was a steal.
> 
> There are three verbs from the 90's that still haven't been beat by plugins: LXP-1, Lexicon 300, and the Yamaha SPX90. I still have yet to hear anything better when used correctly.
> 
> People rave about Bricasti but for some reason to me it always sounded a little hollow. Maybe I just got use to too much lush.


I started with the Quadraverb  cool times


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## Andrew_m (Jun 30, 2020)

Have used vss3 for a while now, I love the way it sounds, so clean and the tails play really nicely with the raw sounds - just recently bough altiverb, I can't claim to have too much experience in the plug-in yet, but in terms of sheer scale and feature-set, I would be surprised to see something get that close - valhalla also makes some amazing plugins, thought I'm certain that's been mentioned already !


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## Akarin (Jun 30, 2020)

Wunderhorn said:


> It is actually not on the instrument track itself but an aux. Still, if the instrument track sends it to this aux it is still audio that gets processed then by the plugins on this aux or bus, so what is the difference, how does an EQ that is placed after the reverb affect only the reverb and not the whole audio with the reverb?
> If your video can help shed some light on this I'd appreciate a link.



Your aux bus will only output the signal processed by the reverb and then sum it with your dry signal to your mix bus. In order to avoid frequency buildups, you EQ the reverb bus. Here's a link:


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## Yury Tikhomirov (Jun 30, 2020)

Petrucci said:


> Could someone advise is 7th Heaven Standard comparable to Pro or is it too subpar? Also what might be better for stereo orchestral reverb - 7th Heaven Standard or Cinematic Rooms Standard? I've been using Spaces 2 for "space" + UAD480 for "tails" mostly and wonder if Liquidsonics could get me something more vivid...


I personally think that moving from UAD480 and Spaces// to 7th Heaven would be downgrade since it is IR based, while with Spaces // you have IR for each orchestral section and very beautiful and vibrant long tails in 480L. I suppose that many here haven’t really tried UAD 480L reverb which is super lush and kind of on expensive end (because of UAD platform cost).


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## Petrucci (Jun 30, 2020)

Yury Tikhomirov said:


> I personally think that moving from UAD480 and Spaces// to 7th Heaven would be downgrade since it is IR based, while with Spaces // you have IR for each orchestral section and very beautiful and vibrant long tails in 480L. I suppose that many here haven’t really tried UAD 480L reverb which is super lush and kind of on expensive end (because of UAD platform cost).



Yes, UAD 480l is amazing, I've been comparing it to UAD 224l and found the former more suited for orchestral stuff though 224 is awesome too. Just been wandering if Liquidsonics stuff could bring anything new to the table.. I feel I'll have to demo Cinematic Rooms probably. And maybe have a glimpse at 7th Heaven just to make sure I'm not missing anything. The thing with Spaces 2 is sometimes it is hard to find where to stop messing with the send to it, I found myself constantly changing it, even in 2-4db ranges, I wish it could all be an easy set and forget thing)).


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## dman007 (Jun 30, 2020)

A benefit of the UAD 480L is offloading some processing. 

Interesting though, out of the standard editions, which would you pick for orchestral sample productions between Seventh Heaven and Cinematic Rooms ? 

Is there a standout one and why?


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## Marsen (Jun 30, 2020)

Maybe to early (just bought it) to say, but I would prefer Cinematic Rooms.
It sounds more musical, more alive?
This is my personal opinion after some comparison all stereo and standard versions.


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## Vin (Jun 30, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> I started with the Quadraverb  cool times



Quadraverb, Midiverb and Behringer's V-Verb are all great - really great characterful boxes. Many legendary artists used those extensively (My Bloody Valentine, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin etc.).


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## doctoremmet (Jun 30, 2020)

Vin said:


> Quadraverb, Midiverb and Behringer's V-Verb are all great - really great characterful boxes.


Yes. I recently read that Tom Middleton largely attributes the great sound of his seminal ambient album Global Communication (76:14) to the reverb out of the Quadraverb they used in ‘97


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## doctoremmet (Jun 30, 2020)

dman007 said:


> Seventh Heaven


Sandor’s Hall. Love it for orchestral.


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## dman007 (Jun 30, 2020)

I've tried the UAD 480L, Seventh Heaven Std and the Cinematic Rooms Std. I like them all but can only buy one. Torn between them :-(


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## Marsen (Jun 30, 2020)

dman007 said:


> I've tried the UAD 480L, Seventh Heaven Std and the Cinematic Rooms Std. I like them all but can only buy one. Torn between them :-(



I feel your dilemma


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## Henu (Jun 30, 2020)

The more I have used reverb plugins in my life, the more certain is that there are technically two types of them- good and bad. We're making this way more complicated ourselves than it really is. 

Besides, you don't really need the 7th heaven if you get the Lex. Also, get Lex.


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## curry36 (Mar 30, 2021)

I am demoing Relab LX480 right now because a friend told me that this is a top notch reverb. It's definitely good, the tail is nearly perfect, but the control over the attack of early and late reflections seem to be a bit limited. Or it's just the sound of a 480, dunno - there is too much emphasis on the transient of both ER and LR. I realised this when trying to recreate the Lexicon Large Hall preset. I was getting the exact same Lexicon tone with an even more beautiful tail, but in context it sounded a bit undefined, whereas the Lexicon Large Hall was just perfect, lush, sounding like a real hall/stage. No chance to get that Mojo with the Relab 480. Or is it just me? 
Right now I am totally impressed how great Lexicon sounds compared to many other newer reverbs (Pro-R for example). Need to demo Cinematic Rooms next, based on what people say, I feel like this is one of the few reverbs that could compete with Lexicon.

I guess the Relab 480 would still make a great tail-only reverb, a good plate or anything that doesn't emulate an orchestral stage. But for right now I'm gonna pass on that one.


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## Tronam (Nov 24, 2022)

I found the UAD 224's "Lg Hall B" preset to be surprisingly good for orchestral music, at least as a second stage tail reverb. I wouldn't consider it very realistic in isolation, but it had a spaciousness without being muddy or drawing too much attention to itself. I don't have UAD hardware anymore and don't yet find their subscription worth it for me, but I'd be really curious to know what people thought of the 480L as a potential alternative for this use case.


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