Playing Around With Reverb

[Bob Womack]

Reverb is an amazing thing. Equipped with a good one you can color with it to taste in order to suggest the environment the song was played in and to evoke mental pictures in the listener. It is unique in that it can be made to change the qualities of the instrument without people knowing it. As a result it is highly personal and subjective.

And that it one of the funniest things about it: how subjective it is. I was a very unhappy camper for a good portion of the late '80s with the bright, Yamaha Rev.7-inspired, crashy reverb. I loved it when the industry discovered smooth reverb again. My tastes.

For a couple of years in the '70s I practiced in a six-story stairwell in a dorm building that had an open well down the center of the stairs and had exterior windows that looked out from the top of a mountain. I've never been the same since.

Bob

[anton]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

The Lexicon Native stuff is really good, and there are others.

I'm going to have some money burning a hole in my pocket soon, and assuming I can resist buying more mics I was thinking I might get a good reverb plugin. Is this the Lexicon Native one you were talking about? http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MPXNatRev-e

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by anton

I'm going to have some money burning a hole in my pocket soon, and assuming I can resist buying more mics I was thinking I might get a good reverb plugin. Is this the Lexicon Native one you were talking about? http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MPXNatRev-e

I haven't tried that one. The set I have is this one, I think:

http://lexiconpro.com/en-US/products/pcm-total-bundle

But they've since come out with several less expensive packages and I'm not really clear on the differences. There's this one:

http://lexiconpro.com/en-US/products...plug-in-bundle

and this one:

http://lexiconpro.com/en-US/products...plug-in-bundle

and then the one you posted. No idea what the difference in quality might be

[Doug Young]

Since these came up, I added a couple of samples of the Lexicon Reverbs to this same track. There's a lot to choose from, 7 entire different plugins, so this is just two examples, a shorter, tighter "Chamber" reverb, and a longer "Random Hall" reverb. Same format, Gtr/Verb mix followed by the verb solo'd at the same level as it was in the mix.

Lexicon Native Bundle Chamber


"Random Hall"

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Since these came up, I added a couple of samples of the Lexicon Reverbs to this same track. There's a lot to choose from, 7 entire different plugins, so this is just two examples, a shorter, tighter "Chamber" reverb, and a longer "Random Hall" reverb. Same format, Gtr/Verb mix followed by the verb solo'd at the same level as it was in the mix.

Lexicon Native Bundle Chamber


"Random Hall"

Well First let me say I've never heard a DAW based reverb I could stomach (including some of the heavy weight convolution verbs) until the more recent round of Lexicon bundles. I do really, really love them and for great sonic landscapes and convienence they're impossible to beat. A thousand thumbs up and I use them frequently. Your samples here Doug illustrate that and I could be satisfied with this if I had to. A universe away from the awful days of early software verbs.

But....even through the haze of SoundCloud they don't have the chew and space, goo and glue that the Bricasti has. A great reverb is a great reverb and unless you love that sound I can see where any old DAW reverb might do.

In conclusion.....I must have a Bricasti reverb.

[bagpipe]

I had never heard of Bricasti reverb before this thread. Decided to look up the price just for comparison sake. Theres a Model 7 listed here for $3695:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M7

Is that the "standard model" which you guys are discussing?

Anyway, I thought it was worth comparing relative prices of units while we are also comparing their performance.

[Bob Womack]

Lexicon used to be the industry standard for hardware reverb units. When the pro studio market diminished they moved down into prosumer and consumer-level equipment. A group of their engineers saw the high-end hole that was created, left Lexicon, and created their own company, Bricasti, who are appealing to the high-end again. And yes, the M7 is the new standard.

Bob

[Doug Young]

BTW, check out this cool video tour of what a reverb from yester-year was like. I have the UAD 140 plugin, which also sounds really good, but it wasn't one that I demo'd here. I'd forgotten till I saw this, clearly my fascination with reverb goes way back - I built my own plate verb many years ago, took up half a spare room, and even sort of worked...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEmJpxCvp9M