# Aether v B2 v Phoenix v R2?



## Soundhound (Dec 4, 2014)

I'm just getting my feet wet learning to mix a lot of orchestral/hybrid stuff I've been writing. I'm mostly interested in getting a good sound for the more purely orchestral material at this point, learning how to make that sound good - open, clear, rich, detailed, etc...

But that's another thread. In this thread I'm wondering which of these reverbs to get. I tried the B2 demo a while ago and really liked the transparent yet somehow rich sound (what is that?! really like it). They're having a sale right now so I thought I'd pick it up and when I looked at it, Aether seemed like it might be a better choice for me since it's perhaps not as customizable but plenty for my needs and has lots of presets which are helpful to a beginner like myself. 

Only other thought I had was the Exponential verbs that people also speak highly of here, and those are on sale as well. 

My guess is that Aether will do the trick for me, anyone think one of the others would be a better choice? Thanks!


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## milesito (Dec 4, 2014)

I have B2 and just replaced it with Phoenix. I love the sound of B2, but it just destroys my iMac 4 core i7 in terms of processing requirement. I can get the same level of quality of sound from Phoenix at less of a CPU cost. It is already worth the investment. 

I don't know about R2 or Aether however...


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## studioj (Dec 4, 2014)

I've tried all of those and prefer B2 by a large margin. But it is pretty CPU intensive so not great as an all round reverb that you might use on many channels. I'd probably rec lexicon or the exponential stuff for that.


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## Hannes_F (Dec 4, 2014)

I have all of them except Phoenix (because for my purposes I could get mostly the same results from R2 by switching off the chorus). B2 sounds great and impressive, however it is difficult if not impossible to control the early reflections differently from the reverb tail. You can choose a different room model but that is complicated. Depending on which libraries you use you might run into problems there. Plus, it is a resource hog. 

Therefore for me R2 would be the natural choice or Phoenix if you always want it real clean.


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## Soundhound (Dec 4, 2014)

Thanks guys. I'm thinking that I'd be using this reverb on a send, but the more I learn the more different ways I'll be using it I'm sure. This brings up another option I hand't considered. I;ve got the UA Apollo Twin and will be getting the thunderbolt satellite quad or octo for more dsp power. Anyone use any of the UA verbs that I might like if I'm liking B2/Aether/Phoenix etc?


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## Living Fossil (Dec 4, 2014)

Phoenix has become my favorite reverb, it's extremely transparent and very nice to tweak. (i don't tried B2 'though).
And it's really light on CPU.


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## Dr.Quest (Dec 4, 2014)

Looks like Phoenix has a 30% off sale till the 13th. Might time to pick it up.


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## Markus Kohlprath (Dec 4, 2014)

Hannes_F @ Fri Dec 05 said:


> I have all of them except Phoenix (because for my purposes I could get mostly the same results from R2 by switching off the chorus). B2 sounds great and impressive, however it is difficult if not impossible to control the early reflections differently from the reverb tail. You can choose a different room model but that is complicated. Depending on which libraries you use you might run into problems there. Plus, it is a resource hog.
> 
> Therefore for me R2 would be the natural choice or Phoenix if you always want it real clean.



I might be wrong but i think "Range" in the geometry field is the amount of the early reflections. I usualy turn that down a bit if I use b2 just as tail on top of e.g. Mir.


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## blougui (Dec 8, 2014)

Despite the chorus on tail, is R2 algo much different than Phoenix's? And how those 2 compare to Valhalla Room and Vintage ?
Thanx !


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## Hannes_F (Dec 9, 2014)

Markus Kohlprath @ Fri Dec 05 said:


> I might be wrong but i think "Range" in the geometry field is the amount of the early reflections.



Markus, thanks for hinting to 'Range'. As I understand it this parameter says how the early reflections are spread out over time. Also it effects how the later reflections are spread out.

Now this happens as I understood it: With the room size parameter you affect the point in time when the _latest _early reflection comes in. Range makes the reflection bundle narrow or wide (speaking in time domain, not speaking in space). As a consequence, once you have set your room size, the first early reflections will start earlier with a lower value of range, and later with a higher value of range.

Since the ERs are less densely packed when range is set to high values it may be that they come less into the way when you combine B2 with MIR. However they are still there.

If anybody should know where early reflection and tail can be volume controlled I'd be thankful to know because B2 is a great reverb.


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## vicontrolu (Dec 9, 2014)

Hey Hannes,

The volume control is done by the Balance slider on the UI


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## vicontrolu (Dec 9, 2014)

And i am assuming you use engine 1 for ERs and engine 2 or tails, of course


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## PJMorgan (Dec 9, 2014)

Hannes_F @ 9th December 2014 said:


> If anybody should know where early reflection and tail can be volume controlled I'd be thankful to know because B2 is a great reverb.



I don't have B2 but use Breeze which has some similar controls. While not necessarily a volume control, according to the manual the Contour Control with moderate negative values should offer some further attenuation of the Early reflections.



2C Audio Breeze Manual said:


> Countour
> 
> • Moderate negative values (-75% to -25%)
> o Produce natural build-to-peak response in the reverb envelope
> ...



I've been on a similar quest to the OP this past few days, trialling Phoenixverb & B2. I really love Breeze but find it hard sometimes to get a nice blend with instruments. Phoenixverb does indeed seem to just work well blending & getting instruments to sit in a room rather than sitting on top of the instruments like some other reverbs tend to do, & this seems to be regardless of any preset used.

All i can say about B2 is that it sounds pretty amazing, when using it with some of the tweaked hall presets along with Lass Lite it sounds so smooth & detailed, you can really hear where all that extra CPU consumption is being used, but it is a very hungry beast.

So I'm not sure what to do because I can get B2 or Phoenixverb right now for roughly the same price (30% off Phoenixverb until Friday & B2 Winter sale including upgrade discount)

Or I keep tweaking Breeze until I get closer to that Phoenixverb sheen.......decisions, decisions.....


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