Do you really need to own seven reverbs? If the septet in question is this lot, then certainly! Here are, in our opinion, the best reverb plugins available today. LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Many consider the Bricasti M7 to represent the last word in digital reverb hardware, and LiquidSonics’ dazzling impulse response-based emulation of it has found equal acclaim in the software arena. Central to the authenticity of the plugin is the Fusion-IR technology at its heart, which deploys multiple modulated convolution streams captured from several variations on each sampled preset. There are two versions available: Seventh Heaven Professional and the even more affordable Seventh Heaven, the first containing every M7 firmware v1 and v2 preset, the second housing 30 of the best rooms, plates, chambers, halls and more. Crucially, as well as getting near as dammit to the real M7 with its sound, Seventh Heaven feels like an algorithmic reverb in use. Absolutely essential, as Julian attested to last year in his article 7 Reasons I Love LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven. Waves Abbey Road Plates One of many Abbey Road plugins released in recent years, Abbey Road Plates emulates the four EMT 140s that have occupied said hallowed facility since 1957, complete with Plate A, B and C’s hybrid solid-state drive amps, and Plate D’s all-valve amplification circuitry. The differences between the four models are more than marked enough to give each one its own particular character and specialism, and you get 11 damper positions with which to adjust the decay time (maxing out at 5.4s for Plate A), and up to 500ms of pre-delay. Other sound-shaping tools include Treble and Bass Cut controls, and Drive and Analog background noise levels, and the whole thing is every bit as easy to use as the real thing, but thankfully without the space or maintenance requirements. Four of the best plate reverbs on the planet in a single plugin, priced within even the thriftiest of budgets thanks to Waves’ keen pricing. What’s not to love? Check out our Review Of Waves Abbey Road Reverb Plates Plugin. FabFilter Pro-R The Dutch masters of contemporary plugin design have managed to establish more than one of their effects as industry standards over the last decade or so, and their innovative and sonically superlative algorithmic reverb certainly counts itself among them. Pro-R keeps things eminently straightforward with its pared-back control set, which centres on the rather brilliant Space knob. This mixes seamlessly through an under-the-hood panoply of modelled spaces, increasing in size from tiny (0.2s base decay time) to absolutely enormous (10s) as it’s cranked clockwise, with the Decay Rate parameter scaling that time by anywhere from 50-200%. Pre-delay and modulation are dialled in with the similarly reductive Distance and Character controls, and the unique Decay Rate EQ facilitates surgical scaling of decay time across the frequency spectrum, which is every bit as empowering as it sounds. Versatile and intuitive, FabFilter’s reverb is one you’ll turn to again and again. LiquidSonics Reverb Foundry Tai Chi The current flagship plugin under LiquidSonics’ recently-acquired Reverb Foundry brand is a stunning “character ensemble” reverb catering to channel counts up to 7.1.6, with the bottomless depth of adaptability and adjustment that only a fully algorithmic design can bring. Tai Chi offers five reflection modes (Room, Hall, Church, Garage and Stadium) with up to 90 seconds of decay time and a high degree of control given over reflectivity and reflection timing, diffusion, modulation and chorusing. But that’s by no means all, as you also get a compressor/ducker, filters and shelving EQ, a bitcrusher, and multiband decay scaling, the last enabling independent multiplication of reverb times from 0.2-5x in each of up three or four discrete frequency bands. Tai Chi excels at… well, everything! It’s equally adept at creative spatial conjuration as it is generating more conventional faux environments, and the richness and colouration of its modulated tails are nothing short of glorious. If you can live without the distortion, dynamics and multiband time scaling, there’s a Lite version, too, which halves the price and still includes the chorusing that plays such a major role in defining the sound of this remarkable reverb. ValhallaDSP Shimmer We could have picked any of Sean Costello’s numerous sublime reverb plugins for inclusion here, really, but in the interest of maximising the diversity of our list, we’ve ultimately plumped for perhaps the most specialised of the bunch. Shimmer is all about setting up vast and potentially endless ambiences, then manipulating/automating their size, diffusion, modulation and frequency profile in real time using the front-panel controls. Bright and Dark modes govern the overall character of the sound, and perhaps the headline feature is the ability to apply up to +/-12 semitones of pitchshifting to a depth-adjustable feedback circuit in various styles. Yes, clearly this one is of most relevance to ambient and electronic producers, but sound designers of all kinds will find plenty to love in Shimmer’s Eno-esque washes and glacial textures. A thing of true reverberant beauty. Eventide Blackhole Encapsulating the eponymous algorithm from Eventide’s legendary hardware modules in a self-contained reverb plugin, Blackhole is another overtly ‘special-FX’ reverb, geared up for the creation of wholly unreal spaces, from the tiniest of cavities to the most cyclopean of structures. The Gravity (decay time) and Feedback controls allow for everything up to ‘infinite’ reverberation, forward or reversed, while the modulation and filter sections bring movement and flavour, and the Freeze button catches and loops the buffer until disengaged. Every knob can also be assigned a range of automated motion for collective sweeping through using the MIDI-assignable Ribbon macro control, and a fixed alternative position for instant switching to via the Hotswitch button. A powerful inclusion in any sound designer’s toolbox, Blackhole delivers shifting spaces of cosmic scale that no other plugin can match. Check out our review of Blackhole here. Accentize Chameleon 2 Our final must-have reverb is aimed first and foremost at those working in post, but will also appeal to musicians looking for a way to maintain consistency across recordings made in different spaces. Chameleon 2 uses neural networks to capture and model the reverberant qualities of any input signal after just a few seconds of playback or import analysis, turning it into a ‘live’ reverb preset for matching ADR and foley to existing dialogue tracks, or making your studio sound like someone else’s. Once captured, a decent level of control is given over the specifics of the effect; and a sizeable library of presets is included, so you can use it as a general purposes ’verb, too, if you like. The fabricated impulse responses can even be exported for use with other convolution reverbs, and as well as its primary utilitarian production remit, there’s plenty of experimental potential to be exploited by throwing non-reverberant signals into the thing. Magic! Take a listen to it in action in our article The Plugin Every Dialogue Editor Should Try Are there any reverb plugins you’d add to (or remove from!) our list? Have your say in the comments. |
