I like a lot of reverb on music, whether it's real instruments in real space, or virtual instruments in sample world. Some people think lots of reverb is for beginners only. I think... no.
If you follow the VI-Control Discord, you may have noticed that I've been obnoxiously caught up in reverb experiments over the last few months searching for just the right sound. I've tried pretty much every plugin out there which is available for demo (and where the developer's ridiculous installation process hasn't waylaid me (I won't point fingers here)), and crowd sourced help for those I couldn't (except Altiverb, which remains the last significant one which is mostly unexplored for me). I've also spent most of my life so far listening carefully to large spaces, recorded and in person. Too much tinkering has been happening recently, seeing how close I can push these plugins towards "reality." Finally, I feel that I've arrived at a useful conclusion.
Keep in mind, I don't have famous ears. I'm just somebody who is particularly interested in this part of making music and the physics behind it. I could be way off, if there's any objective way in which to measure this stuff, or at least way off from what your own ears tell you. Also keep in mind my goal, which is realism, whatever that means. Especially in terms of very long tails. Some plugins that I tried would probably never claim to be built for realism, so this isn't a dismissal of anything not named except in this specific context. Few that I tried, if any, were BAD. Some were just less appropriate for my needs.
The four "winners" were, in order of overall sound and experience from best to less best: Seventh Heaven Professional, Valhalla Room, Flux/IRCAM Verb, Relab LX480.
Starting with the LX480, it just sounds fantastic. It provides enough control to get close to what I was after, but it's still a model of something inherently a bit unreal (though this clearly doesn't *necessarily* matter based on my top pick) and so falls a little short. But man, does it sound nice, and I was surprised how flexible it was.
Of these four, Verb might have the potential for the most realistic sound. At any settings, it seems to treat whatever you feed it in a way that no other reverb I've tried does: it makes it sound like something that's actually further away from you, instead of something that's just filtered etc. That said, as you might expect from something involving IRCAM, it's quite powerful... maybe too powerful. To get the most out of its parameters, you need some fair understanding of acoustics, and even then, it seems like a bit of a crapshoot. This isn't remedied by the stripped-down Verb Session, which ends up not being tweakable enough. So while there seems to be immense potential in this one, it's the most difficult to get good results with.
Valhalla Room. I've used Valhalla Room almost exclusively for about four years now. It was always the one to beat when I've tried other stuff, and nothing ever did. It's not perfect, but it has a certain tangible life and excitement to it that I haven't been able to find elsewhere.
But... I sold it yesterday, and will be getting Seventh Heaven Professional later today, barring any major changes of heart. What this one slightly lacks compared to Valhalla Room, that sense of chaos/real air, it makes up for in a more appealing overall tone. The basic version of the plugin was not enough for me to dial in the sound I wanted, so I'm glad iLok wouldn't let me demo it a second time and forced me into the full version. The enthusiasm about it is justified. I get the feeling from it that I'm hearing sound reflect off of real stone, as in a cathedral. Beautiful tone.
One thing I will say about my move away from Valhalla Room: I think it may have to do with a change in the samples I use. When I first got Valhalla Room, I was still using relatively dry, un-positioned stuff. For that purpose, I suspect it may still work better than Seventh Heaven. However, having moved on to using pretty much only in-situ VIs, I'm looking for something else to be added to the sound, which Seventh Heaven provides more effectively.
Anyway, pointless post which is meant to just consolidate my thoughts on this I guess. Maybe now I can find my way back to actually doing some music. I hope you're all well!
If you follow the VI-Control Discord, you may have noticed that I've been obnoxiously caught up in reverb experiments over the last few months searching for just the right sound. I've tried pretty much every plugin out there which is available for demo (and where the developer's ridiculous installation process hasn't waylaid me (I won't point fingers here)), and crowd sourced help for those I couldn't (except Altiverb, which remains the last significant one which is mostly unexplored for me). I've also spent most of my life so far listening carefully to large spaces, recorded and in person. Too much tinkering has been happening recently, seeing how close I can push these plugins towards "reality." Finally, I feel that I've arrived at a useful conclusion.
Keep in mind, I don't have famous ears. I'm just somebody who is particularly interested in this part of making music and the physics behind it. I could be way off, if there's any objective way in which to measure this stuff, or at least way off from what your own ears tell you. Also keep in mind my goal, which is realism, whatever that means. Especially in terms of very long tails. Some plugins that I tried would probably never claim to be built for realism, so this isn't a dismissal of anything not named except in this specific context. Few that I tried, if any, were BAD. Some were just less appropriate for my needs.
The four "winners" were, in order of overall sound and experience from best to less best: Seventh Heaven Professional, Valhalla Room, Flux/IRCAM Verb, Relab LX480.
Starting with the LX480, it just sounds fantastic. It provides enough control to get close to what I was after, but it's still a model of something inherently a bit unreal (though this clearly doesn't *necessarily* matter based on my top pick) and so falls a little short. But man, does it sound nice, and I was surprised how flexible it was.
Of these four, Verb might have the potential for the most realistic sound. At any settings, it seems to treat whatever you feed it in a way that no other reverb I've tried does: it makes it sound like something that's actually further away from you, instead of something that's just filtered etc. That said, as you might expect from something involving IRCAM, it's quite powerful... maybe too powerful. To get the most out of its parameters, you need some fair understanding of acoustics, and even then, it seems like a bit of a crapshoot. This isn't remedied by the stripped-down Verb Session, which ends up not being tweakable enough. So while there seems to be immense potential in this one, it's the most difficult to get good results with.
Valhalla Room. I've used Valhalla Room almost exclusively for about four years now. It was always the one to beat when I've tried other stuff, and nothing ever did. It's not perfect, but it has a certain tangible life and excitement to it that I haven't been able to find elsewhere.
But... I sold it yesterday, and will be getting Seventh Heaven Professional later today, barring any major changes of heart. What this one slightly lacks compared to Valhalla Room, that sense of chaos/real air, it makes up for in a more appealing overall tone. The basic version of the plugin was not enough for me to dial in the sound I wanted, so I'm glad iLok wouldn't let me demo it a second time and forced me into the full version. The enthusiasm about it is justified. I get the feeling from it that I'm hearing sound reflect off of real stone, as in a cathedral. Beautiful tone.
One thing I will say about my move away from Valhalla Room: I think it may have to do with a change in the samples I use. When I first got Valhalla Room, I was still using relatively dry, un-positioned stuff. For that purpose, I suspect it may still work better than Seventh Heaven. However, having moved on to using pretty much only in-situ VIs, I'm looking for something else to be added to the sound, which Seventh Heaven provides more effectively.
Anyway, pointless post which is meant to just consolidate my thoughts on this I guess. Maybe now I can find my way back to actually doing some music. I hope you're all well!
