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Hearing reverb differences?

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.).

Have you tried 7th Heaven in conjunction with Nebula (from Acustica Audio) with Henry Olonga's freebie, sampling the AD-DA path of the hardware Bricasti?

From Henry: "AD-DA of the M7 in analog mode. Available in 44.1k,96k and 192 kHz. I suggest you place these after your convolution reverb."
Link to the ADDA:https://www.nebulapresets.com/Bricasti_AD-DA_192_96_and_44khz.zip (https://www.nebulapresets.com/Bricasti_A ... _44khz.zip)

I think it can be used in the free version of nebula:

Good times and great info! Thank you for sharing it!
 
I know this isn't exactly what the OP was getting at, but I just demoed several highly thought of reverb plugins. As a final test, I compared them to some of the stock Cubase reverbs. And you guessed it... I ended up preferring Roomworks to these plugins. (I was going for a very smooth sound).

I'll be the first admit that I don't have golden ears... but, whatever. I saved myself some money.
 
Have you tried 7th Heaven in conjunction with Nebula (from Acustica Audio) with Henry Olonga's freebie, sampling the AD-DA path of the hardware Bricasti?

From Henry: "AD-DA of the M7 in analog mode. Available in 44.1k,96k and 192 kHz. I suggest you place these after your convolution reverb."
Link to the ADDA:https://www.nebulapresets.com/Bricasti_AD-DA_192_96_and_44khz.zip (https://www.nebulapresets.com/Bricasti_A ... _44khz.zip)

I think it can be used in the free version of nebula:

Good times and great info! Thank you for sharing it!
You're welcome! I haven't tried that. Interestingly, he hears exactly what I hear if you read his entire thread about it. I am going to have to try this but this seems a bit more complicated than just loading a simple reverb lol.
 
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...
I haven't tried that one but I do believe that I got Reverberate 3 with the complete bundle I bought. I will load it up tonight and let you know what I think of it.
 
...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 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:


I wanted to comment that I did in fact test this and it's true. My CPU usage goes high or low based on the preset I choose.

As an FYI, I have a very current AMD Threadripper 32 physical core 3970X processor. The Boston Hall sounds really great, but it's super CPU hungry. I will be doing more testing tonight with some other reverbs as well. I also have Breeze and Aether I will be testing.
 
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.

Search for thread title reverb and author chillbot.
He does an excellent shootout with all types of reverbs, even the briscasti.
 
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.

This was very interesting, especially the the orchestral part, i would love to hear more from Marc, sounds like the guys really knows shit. Yeah when it comes to Hall reverb i think its not so easy to point out the differences, take for instance, Christian Henson said the the VSS3 reverb sounded kinda metallic. First of all i could hear this difference and what does that even mean.

I have bought verbs in the past hoping for one to stand out but, when using large hall presets i can't for the life of me tell the difference. That is why i asked the question, because if i am not the only one with this issue are we all just buying verbs because of what other people say 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.
I actually have R4 and R2 and Phoenix all from Exponential, (i know i have a problem) however i don't really hear the difference with the hall presets. I should be clear though, when i fiddle about with presets i can definitely hear the difference, especially when adjusting pre-delay.
 
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

This is really helpful Artemi thank you. Great video.
 
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.
t channel.


Wow this is an insane amount of detail, thanks so much but now i want a hardware Bricasti :rofl:, i have most of what you mention besides the hardware but i would be really interested in seeing this comparison test. Are you currently working on it?
 
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.
This is great info, i may try the same, i am also running Reaper, could you tell me how you can normalize everything to the same LUFS?
 
Most important: use a _single_ note of percussive sound containing many frequencies (no kick, no cymbal) like a snare.

Hmmm, i am not so sure, i am working with orchestral samples and therefore most if not the samples have room reverb baked in. For example i use Berlin percussion which was recorded in Teldex so when i use a snare its difficult for me to know where the room verbs ends and my algo begins. Dry samples may the way to hearing real differences.
 
...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. unces if desired.



As a developer could you shine a light for those of us who struggle to hear hall verb differences? What should one listen out for as far a the sound quality, i find myself listening out for the tails because when the music stops this is the reverb naked.
 
...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.

I often hear people state you can feel the verb engulf the audio played through it. Is this a thing because when i use verb yes i hear the verb, sometime very washy sounding even when blending between dry and wet, also i hear a kind of smearing effect. Surely when using reverb you you want to enhance the audio not take away.
 
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