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Hearing reverb differences?

jadedsean

Senior Member
Hi guys, I am wondering if there is any information out there to help one hear the differences between reverbs. I should state I am not talking about plate reverbs vs spring reverbs or even Convolution. Hearing these differences is obvious to me. However where I struggled is hall reverbs. I have a lot of great reverbs and as I am building my template I want to be able to utilise the best verb for my needs.

I understand this can come down to personal taste for people but what would be cool to know is, what to listen out for. For example, say I use Seventh Heaven and Cinematic Rooms, both sound good but my ears can’t really hear the discrepancies or for that matter the consistency’s in the sound. I have seen Christian Henson videos about verbs and this also makes the case that a lot of people can’t hear the differences, the blindfold test proves this, if jake or Christian can’t hear the difference what hope have I got. Any advice as always is appreciated.
 
Hi,

in another thread this vid was posted:


The differences are obvious even with the low YT quality. There are many aspects besides length, which are more descriptive than scientific: lush, silky, shiny, dense, unobtrusive... To my ears, one of those reverbs goes "fffff", another goes "phhhh", the next "shhhhhh", or "sssss", each evoking another emotion.
As he says, the "best" reverb depends on the source material.

In the blindfold test video, all sounded the same to me, but I listened to it on medium volume only, and YT quality is only 128k nowadays, which was probably not enough for that stuff.
 
Good question. I guess you can load up some sort of analyzer and look at the differences visually. Not sure really. I am not a recording engineer. Someone at GS might know better.
 
I don't know about telling the differences between different reverbs. If Jake a professional mixer can't tell that's all I need to know. I'm not wasting time on that. Isn't the important thing setting up the right reverb for the job with the right settings?

The thing that has helped me "hear" reverb (not really the types, the settings) is sound gym. They have a game on reverb. It gives you 3 reverbs you have to pick the one that sounds different. Sound easy? On the beginning levels yes. The reverb settings get closer it gets a lot harder and you really have to listen, and train your mind to focus in the right place. There was one where it has pretty much just early reflections and two of the reverbs were set up to position the sound slightly left. and the other center. Some are very similar but change the timber of the sound a little bit ie brighten, vs darken. I can definitely hear things now about the reverb settings that I couldn't before.

If there are other training things like that I'd love to hear about them.
 
i can tell the differnece between delays and compressors. some are really obvious. i heard on another thread the iZotope/Exponential R4 is a great revarb which is really easy to tell how much better it is compared to similar competing reverbs.
 
it's easier to hear the difference on the short-staccato sounds
and many reverb plugins have trial periods so you can record the music you planning to implement reverb on and try different reverbs for yourself
I found that by comparing few things you staring to hear what really suits you

here is video I recorded not long ago
it uses several reverb plugins on the orchestral sounds
 
It's definitely an interesting question, and I have a long answer. Get comfortable with some wine and let me walk you through my thoughts and experiences.

I have a hardware Bricasti M7 v2. I also have many/most of the popular software plugins. I have been playing around for a few days loading up several different great name brand reverbs and trying to mimic my hardware. I know I am probably going to possibly make things worse or confuse some people who are trying to decide whether a unit like this is worth it or not, but I will try anyway. I am nowhere ready to give a detailed finding but I will say this to all the requests I have received to go through this exercise.

There are 2 things that I cannot describe because I don't know what causes them with the Bricasti M7 hardware.

1. First off, the instrument presentation is larger. Against any reverb I throw on this machine, none of them can create the same size image of the instrument that it does all the while achieving the same room sound. The whole image and soundstage just sounds bigger and wider. The instrument seems to meld with the room in a magical way without pushing away the instruments natural qualities. It is instantly noticeable when doing an on/off scenario of each tested reverb I tried.

2. The ear fatigue is unbelievably better on the hardware unit. I am to stupid to tell you why. I just know for a fact, that when I play instruments in the hardware unit, my ears never tell me it hurts, or to stop. Every software I try eventually gives me that feeling. Some take much longer though. As soon as I get that feeling, I simply play the same instrument at the same volume in the Bricasti and it's absolutely smooth as butter to my ear. I know that the hardware unit goes through an AD/DA conversion so perhaps it has something to do with the convertors in the hardware unit. If you're wondering, I have an individual channel setup with the same instrument, exact settings for that instrument, with the only unique thing being a different single reverb on that channel.

I loaded up an analyzer and compared the sounds and they are almost 100% the same no matter what the results of my test/ears heard. I thought for sure I would see the peaks that are causing me fatigue. Nope, not there. And it's not in my head, the headache isn't an illusion or placebo. There's something else happening that I don't know the answer to so I can't provide that insight. Not to mention, once the instrument has been reduced in the soundstage you'd have to create a way to smooth it out a little and increase it's body size to compete. Maybe that's something you'd do just prior to sending it through a different reverb.

So what reverbs have I tested so far:

1. Seventh Heaven - I can see why so many people love this. The first thing that jumps out to me is it looks and feels very similar to my Bricasti so it's an immediate comfort with no learning curve to transfer. The basic room tone it has is right on queue. It cannot present the instrument in the same size as the real unit though. I am sure things could be done to help with this but just pointing out that doing a perfect 1:1 settings test, the Bricasti Hardware has a bigger presence and no ear fatigue. Interestingly, this also isn't consistent across the presets. My favorite of all presets is called Boston Hall A. What I described above happens. However, for my brass, I really enjoy the preset called Brass Hall. When I play a solo cornet from VSL through this setting and the hardware unit, I have to work hard to find the slightest difference. One of the only real differences I hear is the size of the soundstage. It's absolutely bigger on the hardware, but the room tone, etc. is very well done. My verdict on this plugin? It's absolutely awesome, makes me feel right at home and will help me save some money as I was debating buying 3 more hardware units. I am going to spend more time with this plugin and the rest below to finish all my testing first. This plugin is a home run. If you don't like it, you are probably not someone who prefers Bricasti Hardware either (perhaps Lexicon etc.).

2. Cinematic Rooms - This plugin has similar qualities to Seventh Heaven but offers surround capabilities. I can get very similar room sounds with it and it only took me about 5 minutes to get it to decently match my Bricasti in room tone. Again, the biggest different I felt was the instrument size and overall soundstage is not as big. This is one super cool plugin and allows true surround sound which was more cool than I though it would be. I think if you're trying to emulate a Bricasti sticking to Seventh Heaven is the easier path. If you want something that's not emulating the Bricasti this one becomes a consideration for you between these 2. It has a great sound and great tweaking ability. I feel it has more tweaking power than Seventh Heaven. I also love the purple interface :). If I was doing multi-channel this would be my one and only choice and I would be very happy with it.

3. 2C Audio B2 - Of all the plugins I have tried, this one gets the closest to presenting the instrument the same size as the Bricasti while also coming incredibly close to the same room sound without any muddy buildup. I didn't expect it to beat the Seventh Heaven plugin for this job but it does. I own all of the preset packs and I found one "Boston Hall". When I loaded that up, the only thing I changed was the tail length to match my Bricasti to 2.10 seconds and wow. I can barely tell any difference. This one is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It has the same non-muddy, smooth warm sound, huge instrument image but sweet baby jesus! This thing takes 15% of my CPU per instance! Dear god! I can run 15 instances of Cinematic Rooms and Seventh Heaven for the cost of ONE of these! I don't know what it's doing, but whatever it does with all that CPU works. I know I could fool easily 95 out of 100 of even the best ears with this one. They would be simply guessing and hoping they get it right with their 50/50 chances. I really failed purchasing this as a bundle (I just wanted precedence) and never gave it a try. Now that I have found this, I have to figure out if all the CPU hit is worth it or if I can just be happy with any of the other options I am testing, so let's keep going. This plugin? Incredible and highly recommended if you want world class reverb in a software version but you better bring a strong machine.

4. Lexicon MPX - I really don't know what to say here. I had zero intentions of trying this test because this came FREE with my Studio One purchase a while back. The dam thing costs like 29$ to buy. It's not even the upgraded father which is $99.00. It's the little redheaded step child version with zero tweakability. I absolutely am astounded at how awesome this thing sounds for the money. It uses almost no CPU and the sound is incredibly warm and smooth. It's not harsh and caused me no ear fatigue. It doesn't sound like my Bricasti in comparison to "room tone" however, it throws a huge instrument image and after dialing down the wetness to about 23% I was stunned at how comparable it became to my hardware unit from the perspective of beautiful sound and no fatigue. I seem to recall a while back we all did a huge test of like 10 reverbs and I believe this plugin almost came in first place. I totally understand why now. I can only imagine how great the 99$ version would have been where I could have changed the room size, tail etc. I could have gotten a very comparable sound that I could have been very happy to live with. I see why some of you love Lexicon Reverbs. I highly recommend anyone on a super budget to consider this reverb, it's truly stellar for the cost. **I see the full tweaking version is only 49.00 at Sweetwater right now.**


5. Vienna Suite & Vienna Suite Pro Reverbs (I have been using this for years) - None of these sound like my Bricasti but I have loved them and used them for many years because they sound different. It has allowed me to color the sound in endless ways because the colors are so different. These ones are dear to my heart and have been my most used reverbs. I am currently awaiting the updates that are going to be happening to MIR Pro and Miracle which I use frequently. I can't give you a comparison against the Bricasti because MIR Pro positions the instrument into a room and then I add tail with Miracle. I can just tell you it makes beautiful sounds but it does not sound like my Bricasti unit. It's great to have other options to you know :).

I hope this helps but so much of it is personal preference of sound as well. Some people like lots of reverb, some people like dry in your face mixes (conductor style sound). Some people really focus on having many dimensions and some try to just get one single room sound. There's really no right way in my mind so all of these tools are useful and frankly, the differences between some of these plugins and my hardware unit? Is it worth it? Hmm. I don't know. Software is easier to work with, requires no fancy setups and allows you to bounce offline. You also don't have to worry about getting feedback loops or accidentally setting it up on 2 bus channels because you didn't pay attention and within 5 seconds your speakers are blowing up because of your stupidity and not paying attention. I have the money to buy these hardware units and even so, I am going to stick to just the 1 unit as my final melding reverb and use the ones listed above to do 99% of all the lifting and work. I don't think enough people that I deal with can hear the difference between say Seventh Heaven, Cinematic rooms or 2C B2 compared to my hardware unit. I think if they can, you've probably not done a good enough job on setting them up.

M
 

I made such test not long ago (wish I didn't delete the files). What I did was;

-Match every parameter a close as possible with was very hard but educating. You can't do this 100% as some reverbs are limited in control but can get close.

-Choose 3 sources; drums, strum guitar and piano

-Some reverbs internal level may defer so be careful like say you adjusted all to have a 50% dry-wet balance, some may not match so listening and referencing each track is important.

-I normalized all of them to the same lufs (using an action in reaper) which made things so much easier to compare.

As I narrowed the list, the piano was the easiest. I figured delicate material (maybe we can include vocal) is much more picky when trying to develop a liking to a reverb. On the other hand drums for example, almost anything works.
 
I loaded up an analyzer and compared the sounds and they are almost 100% the same no matter what the results of my test/ears heard.

I totally believe you with that comment. Aside ad/da's what I suspect are dither, extremely mild saturation and imager tricks as these may not be noticed with an analyzer.

Relab's lexicon has such options when you get into the settings.
 
Most important: use a _single_ note of percussive sound containing many frequencies (no kick, no cymbal) like a snare.

And don't forget that the people (we all) are so used to the Lexicon sound (well, depending of the genre) that a Lexicon Hall almost always sounds right, because we're so accustomized to it.

But (normally) the most important thing is to get the reverb out of the way of the music.

4. Lexicon MPX
Hmm, I had (guess still have) the hardware, and it's reverb was nowhere as good as the better Lexicons and nowadays the EA plugins are more or less exactly the samé.
So, if you like the MPX for reverb you can use one from EA (depending on the preset you like).
 
I hope this helps but so much of it is personal preference of sound as well.

M

Extremely helpful. Thanks for the massive amounts of detail. Have you ever tried Reverberate 2? It also has the Bricasti stuff, and I can't tell if anyone has tested them both and heard any differences...
 
2C Audio B2 - Of all the plugins I have tried, this one gets the closest to presenting the instrument the same size as the Bricasti while also coming incredibly close to the same room sound without any muddy buildup. I didn't expect it to beat the Seventh Heaven plugin for this job but it does. I own all of the preset packs and I found one "Boston Hall". When I loaded that up, the only thing I changed was the tail length to match my Bricasti to 2.10 seconds and wow. I can barely tell any difference. This one is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It has the same non-muddy, smooth warm sound, huge instrument image but sweet baby jesus! This thing takes 15% of my CPU per instance! Dear god! I can run 15 instances of Cinematic Rooms and Seventh Heaven for the cost of ONE of these! I don't know what it's doing, but whatever it does with all that CPU works. I know I could fool easily 95 out of 100 of even the best ears with this one. They would be simply guessing and hoping they get it right with their 50/50 chances. I really failed purchasing this as a bundle (I just wanted precedence) and never gave it a try. Now that I have found this, I have to figure out if all the CPU hit is worth it or if I can just be happy with any of the other options I am testing, so let's keep going. This plugin? Incredible and highly recommended if you want world class reverb in a software version but you better bring a strong machine.

Interesting to read your thoughts on this reverb, and in comparison to such a lauded piece of hardware.
It's a reverb that seems to only rarely get mentioned. Not sure why. Maybe in part due to the complexity, wealth of options or price.

I'm no reverb specialist. I just use what sounds good. And while my main motivation for buying it was as a character and ambient/sound-design reverb, I just find that as a 'standard' reverb it just sounds great on everything I use it on. Since owning it, I sold both of the Valhalla plugs I'd previously used (No shade on VDSP, as their plugins are great). It's now the only 3rd-party 'verb I own. I still use my DAW stock 'verbs, but this is mainly because of B2's CPU hit, but also 'cause I sometimes prefer convolution and because Logic's Chromeverb is so quick to dial in.

Would love to see B2 get not just a facelift, but also perhaps an improved UIUX.

Which of the expansions do you recommend? I already have 'Imagination'

Cheers :)
 
Hey guys, thank you for all the great responses, I enjoyed reading them all, most insightful. Currently I am working so can’t answer until later but I just want to say I appreciate the advice given so far.
 
Would love to see B2 get not just a facelift, but also perhaps an improved UIUX.

...in the works. we will update all our plugs to use the new proceedural gui system we use in Breeeze 2.5, Precedence 1.5, and Vector. This allows extreme variation in gui prefs including, size, color, theme etc. and uses very low memory and disk space. We enhance this more and more with each new product.

CPU usage can also be expected to be lower compared to the same "work". :thumbsup:

Note however CPU is EXTREMELY varaible in B2 1.0 depending on settings. EXTREMELY. Something like 100x times more or less CPU depending on preset and settings. This won't change in a 2.0 version. We may even allow some settings that will use MORE CPU for computers than can handle it. The settings that effect CPU most in B2 1.0 are:

1) Quality: lo, mid, high, XTRM. each is about 4x as much CPU as the previous. XTRM uses a lot! i.e. 64x as much as lo! :eek:). But damn, it's worth it, and I notice some of "famous" scoring presets people love generally are using the XTRM mode. ;) I have some new math that can reduce this some.

2) Oversampling. 2x = 2x cpu, 4x = 4x CPU and likely perceptually more bc it starts to stress memory/cache on the computer. The latest CPU gens handle this much better though.

3) Dual vs single engine. Dual can use 2x as much obviously if both engines are the same.

4) Some special Damp filter models such as the "Air" filters add some CPU.

5) other minor things.

6) "Force Offline" and the Interpolation settings. These should not be used for real-time in general. They are similar in effect to using 64x OS!! Use it only for final bounces if desired.

It's a reverb that seems to only rarely get mentioned. Not sure why. Maybe in part due to the complexity, wealth of options or price.

It just hasn't been updated in a while so it's just not as new and shiny as some others. but it's still widely loved in scoring. This is pretty cool recent interview for example:

 
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...in the works. we will update all our plugs to use the new proceedural gui system we use in Breeeze 2.5, Precedence 1.5, and Vector. This allows extreme variation in gui prefs including, size, color, theme etc. and we enhance this more and more with each new product.

CPU usage can also be expected to be lower compared to the same "work". :thumbsup:

Note however CPU is EXTREMELY varaible in B2 1.0 depending on settings. EXTREMELY. Something like 100x times more or less CPU depending on preset and settings. This won't change in a 2.0 version. We may even allow some settings that will use MORE CPU for computers than can handle it. The settings that effect CPU most in B2 1.0 are:

1) Quality: lo, mid, high, XTRM. each is about 4x as much CPU as the previous. XTRM uses a lot! i.e. 64x as much as lo! :eek:). But damn, it's worth it, and I notice some of "famous" scoring presets people love generally are using the XTRM mode. ;) I have some new math that can reduce this some.

2) Oversampling. 2x = 2x cpu, 4x = 4x CPU and likely perceptually more bc it starts to stress memory/cache on the computer. The latest CPU gens handle this much better though.

3) Dual vs single engine. Dual can use 2x as much obviously if both engines are the same.

4) Some special Damp filter models such as the "Air" filters add some CPU.

5) other minor things.

6) "Force Offline" and the Interpolation settings. These should not be used for real-time in general. They are similar in effect to using 64x OS!! Use it only for final bounces if desired.


Thanks for the detailed reply :)

The GUI/UI improvements will definitely be welcome.

Currently, with an 2012 MBP I am pretty limited (Generally using Single Engine stuff as starting points), but I'll definitely do some more experimenting using the points you've given.

Do you have any ETA on the updates? :whistling: :whistling:
 
It's a reverb that seems to only rarely get mentioned. Not sure why.

Well, if I'd enter 2C's website with some money, I'd certainly not leave with 'only' another reverb ;). They really have some really interesting stuff like Kaleidoscope (I didn't even know that they do a convolution reverb too ;).
 
I am nearly helpless when it comes to reverb and delay plugins (modulation plugins too, come to think of it.)

There are certain processors (hardware and software) that stand up and scream their identity. Reverbs are not in that category for me. Mostly.

I can usually pick out convolution plugins, but they are getting better and better all the time!

I can almost always pick out plates and spring reverb - hardware or plugin, almost.

I can pick out chamber reverb, especially the real thing.

Part of the reason, I think, that spring, plate, and chamber reverb are identifiable is because that's all we had when I was learning.

Aside - I can also pick out early digital reverb, but that's another topic<G>.

I think (sometimes) that with respect to modern algorithmic digital reverb it is more about settings, that the underlying architecture. A general observation for which I am certain there are exceptions.

By way of example, I have several modern algorithmic reverb plugins, and by several I actually counted them recently, and I have 38 reverb plugins, of which I use about half regularly. I would group them into three categories:
  • - Emulations
    • think Lexi 224 or 480, EMT 140 or 250, Capital Chambers, and the like, and these all have a signature, some more obvious than others, but I'll bet most here could spot them, even if they might not be able to name them.
  • - Algorithmic Digital Reverb
    • which in my case includes plugins from 2C-Audio, Exponential Audio, Eventide. In this category I think (and I haven't done exhaustive testing) that you can make any of them sound pretty much like any other, assuming all the controls you need are exposed. I think they too have signatures, but they are far too subtle for me.
    • The bigger difference - for me - is the controls. If I am using Exponential R4 I will interact with it in one way and if I am using Breeze I will have an entirely different interaction. The results might be similar, but the path will be different. If that makes sense!
    • As with anything, there are exceptions. I love Valhalla VintageVerb, but I think he exagerates some of the characteristics of vintage reverbs. Which is the point really. Doesn't take anything away from the plugin, and it can still be used subtly, but it can also be used in a more exaggerated fashion.
  • - IR based reverb
    • I've been playing around with these since Voxengo released Pristine Space. (Disclaimer - in my "other" life I study acoustics, so impulse responses are just part of my life<G>) Reverberate 2 was the first one I found I could really use. And I am still learning. And because I'm still learning I still hear things that seem to stand out, and not always in a positive way. If that makes sense.
TL;DR - I think there are (not so easily) identifiable traits to some reverb plugins. I think plugins that emulate hardware (or physical spaces) are the easiest to spot. I think most algorithmic reverb plugins are so flexible these days that they are, or can be, much more difficult to pick out of a lineup. I am just not good enough with IR based reverb to make that call.

So why own more than one? The user interface, or the presets, or just the controls that are exposed, may take you down a different path. Ironically, you could tear your hair out trying to tweak plugin A, swap it out for plugin B, and find what you want in seconds. And tomorrow it could be the opposite.
 
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