The "Reverb" thread
 

I thought it would be interesting to listen to some of everyone's reverbs/settings.

Here are 3 of mine:

Classik Studio with the Dark Piano Hall preset:


Room-Mate Reverb - my own knob fiddling. I just got this one and I'm experimenting:


And a freebie that I have used for a while:

Safe Reverb:

I like them all I think Room Mate is pretty cool it's pretty heavy but still not overdone IMO

Currently I don't have any solo guitar tracks to post and I don't have comparison with the same session with different pre sets either

I almost always use my M7 hardware reverb, and always in parallel on its own Aux track. So the Reverb is set 100% wet and the amount of effect is controlled by either lowering the volume fader the M7 Aux track itself usually -12 to -18 and the having the send on the audio track at unity (0)
OR leaving the Reverb track at unity and lower the send level on the multiple tracks sending to the reverb track. (make sense ?)



My most used preset on the M7 is Sunset Chamber, with 60 ms pre delay added
The next most used pre set is London Plate with 32 ms pre delay

Here is the Sunset Chamber on vocal and lead acoustic guitar the Reverb track is set to unity (0 )
The send on the Ld Acoustic Guitar is set to -12.3
The send on the Vocal.................. is set to -16



This is the London Plate, BUT there is also 3 instances of Tape Echo plug in involved. One in parallel on it's own Aux track and two directly on audio tracks


For the M7 Reverb
The send on The Acoustic rhythm is -8.6
The send on the Acoustic Lead.... is -5.7
The send on the Vocal .............. is -5.7

There is a Tape Echo directly on the Acoustic lead @227 ms
And one directly one the vocal bypassed most of the time @450 ms for the occasional voice echo

And then there is also a send (@ unity) from the Vocal track to the parallel Tape Echo track set @214 ms, with its fader set at -7.3 So the vocal has both reverb and a slight delay in combination, making this is some of the heaviest FX I have used on a vocal , but I thought the prosody of this song deserved it.

Hi Barry, I'll post a couple for you. In general, I think it is pretty hard to make any decent demo of reverb on solo guitar. For my taste, at least, I don't want to notice the reverb. It's kind of like cooking a meal for someone - if they say "wow, that's really great salt you added!", then you probably overdid it. And just like tasting raw salt, listening to raw solo'd reverb doesn't always tell you how it will sound in the mix. Anyway here's my examples, I just added several different reverbs to a short clip from my recent preamp shootout. The 1st 5 are fairly light, tho since I'm trying to show the reverb, they're probably a bit heavier than I'd normally do. The final 2, I cranked the reverb up by about 6 db, so it's totally obvious and overkill. The 2 that I most often actually use are the UAD EMT 250 and the Bricasti, usually the Vocal Plate preset. I'm checking out a trial of the LiquidSonics plugin, which seems very nice.

Here's the cuts in order.

1 UAD EMT250
2 LiquidSonics Cinematic Rooms, Amethyst Hall preset
3 Briscasti M7, Vocal Plate preset
4 Logic's Space Designer, Piano Hall impulse
5 UAD Capitol Chambers, "The One"

6 Bricasti M7, Sunset Chambers, much heavier reverb mix
7 LiquidSonics Cinematic Rooms, Hall preset, much heavier reverb

It's so easy to go overboard with reverb. it really pays to listen to a reference track side-by-side with your mix. It can save one quite a bit of regret.

I like thick and cavernous reverb in some settings. I was just listening to some Hedges earlier in the week and cannot imagine some of those songs without it. I think a lot of it depends on a player's technique though.

First off: thanks Doug Young, those samples were interesting.

I use the included reverb stuff in Logic rather lightly and my some of my electric guitar amps have spring reverb which I suppose "counts." Despite appreciating The ECM sound on records, I never seem to like it when I try reverb on my stuff which may just be my skills in mixing. In Doug's samples you can hear quite a bit of different EQ color differences.

Maybe it's just that I'm used to hearing my acoustic guitar "dry" and that sounds "true" to me. I'll actually use reverb and delay fairly often (and even heavily) on piano, an instrument I don't really play outside faking it on recordings.

I'll need to dig around to find an acoustic guitar recording of mine with "point it out" reverb.

This is so... "niche." You guys realize, I hope, that if the realm of reverb possibilities runs from A to Z, all the clips posted here are in the range of L to M. Most normal people wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

Then again, this is me talking. You can give me a glass of really expensive wine and I'll say, "yep, tastes like grapes."

Hi Barry, I'll play..

Since playing mostly classical lately, reverb has been a new challenge - I tend to use less in the main.

This track is with my current go to reverb which is Waves IR-L and then a preset for Virtual Acoustics module - Small church.

The reverb is on a separate channel dialled back 10db and also with it's own EQ with resonant brick wall filter at 600 and 10k.

Of course. Since Barry started this, I assumed his interest was in fairly natural solo instrumental acoustic fingerstyle guitar. A niche within a niche within a niche within.... Most people can't tell a Martin from a Taylor let alone different reverb settings.

Absolutely agree that the goal of unobtrusively enhancing a guitar with a touch of reverb is just the tip of the iceberg. Even within instrumental guitar, some of the Candyrat players have been using a more "effects" approach. It'd be interesting if someone has some demos and info about that kind of more audible special effects approach applied to acoustic guitar. We did have a discussion about Stephen Wake's reverb demo a while back, where he uses discrete and audible delay, but even that was ultimately fairly subtle.

Maybe you can post some examples of A-L and N-Z?

Beautiful tune TBman! Very haunting and mood setting.

I think the longer between notes with solo guitar...the more reverb you can add. Yes, Liked the Room Mate the best.

This is turning out to be a most informative Post! While I love reverb, especially on voice, I also know the dangers of adding to much reverb to a dense solo acoustic guitar.

Such an enchanting tune Doug. Really hits me!

My 2 cents:

I thought the UAD250 was leaps and bounds ahead of everything else...including your other favorite, the Bricasti M7.

I felt like all the other reverb settings-companies....masked certain frequencies or overtones. Altered the pure tones of your guitar. With the UAD250 it felt pure and free of influence and achieved your goal of being there without being overwhelming. I have listened to these samples twice now...and I probably need to listen to them a few more times...but what ever setting you had on the UAD250 hit me as the most natural and revealed the overtones, harmonics of your guitar the best.

Very interesting test Doug - the UAD EMT250 sounds great but I also really like the LiquidSonics sound a lot.

I use the EMT 250 a lot, it nearly always sounds good. Pretty simple, not a lot of options on it. 2.5 seconds delay, 40ms pre-delay:

Attachment 54591

I do generally roll off a little low end before the reverb send. This looks like a lot, but there's not a lot of guitar below around 80 Hz, so it's just a mild rolloff below 200Hz or so.

Attachment 54592

The Liquid Sonics sounds very nice to me, and there are a lot of options and controls to explore. It's also meant for surround, which would be fun to hear. I don't really need another reverb, but I may go ahead and get this one when the trial runs out.

I have Seventh Heaven (basic) which I think is an M7 clone - it’s very good.

Waves IR-l allows me to access and use several clones like M7 etc and also sounds decent.