SSL's FlexVerb On Crazy Sale Price (But Please Demo It First)
Is this something you find yourself needing to do often with reverbs?
I adjust M/S ratio pretty much all the time. It works well to keep instruments sounding articulate, yet keep a strong sense of size - just pull the mid channel back some. Conversely, if a bit more glue is needed, sometimes just bump the mid channel up a bit is all that's needed.
Those are the meat and potatoes and there's all sorts of fun games that can be played by using two busses, one for mid and one for side, and using different algos and lengths and EQ or whatnot for the mid versus the sides. Or even 4 busses: ER mid, ER side, Tail mid, Tail side. Depends on how OCD you are about reverb I suppose. But usually the meat and potato version is good enough to make a useful improvement with very little fuss, imo.
I think you'll end up really liking this one with MSED. It is a very good sounding algo imo.
Also, Melda just released a spectral mid/side processor that is a different animal than traditional M/S, and my initial listen for this particular application was favorable and it does sound a bit different than MSED, so it may be worth a listen too.
robgb
Inspiration is for amateurs
Thanks. I'm a big Melda fan. In fact, I was just playing with MReverbMB, which I bought a while ago on a half-price sale and it honestly is an amazing bang for the buck.
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Pavlov's dogs. That bell rings that we can save 90% and we LEAP at it. I bet somebody could sell a half-eaten bagel on this site if we were told how good the legatos were.Why do people blindly buy plugins that offer a demo without utilizing the demo first? Is the whole buy-to-try mentality from the sample library industry so deeply ingrained into peoples' psyches here?
Justin L. Franks
Senior Member
And it's free until the 18th. $53 afterwards.
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Oh that's right, I was supposed to test that and post results. I did find a way to stop the center-thing, mostly. I'll fuss with it tonight and at least get that solution posted. If for some reason I'm kidding myself, I'll be happy to shoot you the 17 bucks since I'm the GAS monster who posted the thing before noticing the tail. Feel kinda bad about that.
Justin L. Franks
Senior Member
The cornmeal on the bottom prevents the legatos from sticking.
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Wow, my memory is going bad, lol... I DID notice the mono-tail thing late one night and found a way to fix it. Thankfully I did a screen shot which I just found. I will play with it more when I get home from work, but here's the setup I came up with that let's the tails fade properly, using a Hall reverb. If you have a chance, maybe play around with it and see if it works for you. I'll test more tonight and see if I can post presets for anyone who has purchased it:
It doesn't decay to mono when you look on a vectorscope, its just narrower than most reverbs is all because the mid/side ratio skews to mid. Use m/s processing as next plugin, and set width to taste by pulling mid channel back.
LOL, I guess I'm the odd man out...discounts will coax me to evaluate and scrutinize them is all. But in this case I bought it after doing those things because the whole "mono" issue is really a non issue. And your initial assessment was right imo, its a great sounding algo. I'm kind of surprised at how many aren't using m/s processing on reverb as standard procedure.
Last edited:
robgb
Inspiration is for amateurs
Thing is, how bad can a reverb from a reputable company be? I have yet to encounter one that does this, so $17 seemed like a no-brainer. A shame, because otherwise it sounds great. I'm glad to have solutions, but can imagine how I'd feel if I had paid full price. Be nice if they'd add some kind of width control for that price.
By contrast, MReverbMB has more controls than I know what to do with, including the ability to turn reverb algorithms into IRs.
By contrast, MReverbMB has more controls than I know what to do with, including the ability to turn reverb algorithms into IRs.
And you'd think that "FlexVerb" would have width control given how its marketed. But for an algo that sounds as good as this one does at this price, I can overlook the omission. I'm usually going to use a m/s processor after pretty much any reverb anyway. I think Tai Chai is the only algo I have that has a decent width control. Exponential Audio's aren't continuous, so usually don't use them.
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Here are two presets attached in a ZIP file. One is the preset of the image I posted and the other is nearly identicasl except I clicked the Link button on the left and dropped the fader down a bit more towards Reverb Tails, and to me it's smoother and more natural. The width does seem to hold through to the end of the tail.
I also included a Cubase EQ preset I use on the Reverb FX channel after the effect to remove mud and sizzle. This is optiuonal, I just like how it make reverb sound. It's the standard thing of Highpass filter at 500KHz and Lowpass filter at 9KHz, both -24db, in case you have a different DAW.
I figured if I'm going to cost you 17 bucks, the least I can do is try to provide something useful!
TheWhat
Active Member
Hey I don't mean to be annoying (hehe) but is there a way to generically save those presets? They show up as ".vstpreset" and I use Mac AU and they won't open. If not you think it's the link balance leaning towards reverb tail and eq'ing then? After all this pocketprotector technical stuff about mono tails I might end up using this reverb more than I ever have! I was always worried that people thought my melodies suck - now I gots to worry about reverb tails?
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
I don't see another way, but these are simple, you can easily make them from screenshots. The EQ in the effect is turned off, so you only have to mimic the faders and change the reverb types on the left. First one is the one I posted earlier:
This one is the preset that says "longer" but it isn't a time change, I simply dropped the fader a bit lower into Reverb Tails. I think I like this one better:
Tnen on the FX channel I put this EQ which I feel cleans up the reverb sound nicely, but that's your call:
Some folks put the EQ before the reverb and that works too. I just have this weird idea that I want the whole kit and kaboodle going into the "room", then it's up to me to shape the lows and highs for the listener. Thus I put the EQ after. In reality, probably doesn't make a difference:
This one is the preset that says "longer" but it isn't a time change, I simply dropped the fader a bit lower into Reverb Tails. I think I like this one better:
Tnen on the FX channel I put this EQ which I feel cleans up the reverb sound nicely, but that's your call:
Some folks put the EQ before the reverb and that works too. I just have this weird idea that I want the whole kit and kaboodle going into the "room", then it's up to me to shape the lows and highs for the listener. Thus I put the EQ after. In reality, probably doesn't make a difference:
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Here's a piece with the second SSL Preset above, rather heavy reverb level on purpose. I had this piano .MID file from somewhere. and I assigned a dry plain Noire preset and did a Send to the SSL FlexVerb, so you could really hear the sound of this thing (levels above in last screenshot). The FlexVerb DOES have the EQ right after it:
View attachment SSL FlexVerb Test.mp3
View attachment SSL FlexVerb Test.mp3
Last edited:
OP
OP
PaulieDC
Too much gear, not enough composing. Oy vey.
Kind of on a roll here testing, so now that we have a sample piece to hear the SSL, here's the same dry piano going through Berlin Studio, the Mid Stage Wide Preset, with NO EQ on the FX channel... you will hear the Teldex stage sound in full. Thought a comparison of an algorithmic to a convolution would be good right about now, and since I started this looney thread, I'll take it OT for a while (get it?? 
). Berlin Studio is my new fave, here it is:
View attachment Berlin Studio Mid Stage Wide Test.mp3
The preset I used, with the main output fader down a little, one section was overloading the effect (yes, i should have lowered the Send level, I know):
). Berlin Studio is my new fave, here it is:View attachment Berlin Studio Mid Stage Wide Test.mp3
The preset I used, with the main output fader down a little, one section was overloading the effect (yes, i should have lowered the Send level, I know):
Last edited:
