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What's the best reverb plugin, and do I own one that's any good?

I don’t understand the people saying you only need one or two reverbs.

It’s like saying you should only have one or two guitars.

Or one or two piano VSTs

Or one or two sports cars if you’re a celebrity.

Crazy how some ppl think 😂
I have several reverbs but tend to only use one or two on a regular basis.
 
I am not an expert in reverbs, so for me it is important that they are quick to use, simple and effective. My favorites at the moment are:
  • 7th Heaven: for individual tracks or groups, to position elements in space.
  • Sonsig RevA: just a little on the bus to glue the mix.
  • Arturia Rev PLATE 140: for vocals.
  • Arturia Rev INTENSITY: very sparse use in the endings or as a special effect.
Now I'm also using the Arturia Rev LX-24, but it's not yet fixed in my template, as I'm still exploring its capabilities.
 
A few years ago in a thread on kvr, a member who was deeply into reverbs revealed to me how a lot of reverb VSTs had swirly character to them, if you listened closely. He almost ruined some of my favorite reverbs for me, but then I decided not to stress out too much about it and leave it up to my ear when I have my mixes nearly finished. If you want to get picky, turn the reverbs on full wet and listen closely.

Sidenote: sometimes I get irritated about how the transient of a sound ruins what I wanted to hear in the reverb. I'm not sure what reverbs best address this. I've tried Physion and other transient splitters with satisfaction at times.
 
Sidenote: sometimes I get irritated about how the transient of a sound ruins what I wanted to hear in the reverb. I'm not sure what reverbs best address this. I've tried Physion and other transient splitters with satisfaction at times.
Neoverb has a feature for this called smoothing, (it's pretty subtle though, depending on what you might expect). There's also Crystaline, which has its own take on the same thing called 'warp'. I'm sure there are a few others, those are just the two I'm aware of....
 
A few years ago in a thread on kvr, a member who was deeply into reverbs revealed to me how a lot of reverb VSTs had swirly character to them, if you listened closely. He almost ruined some of my favorite reverbs for me, but then I decided not to stress out too much about it and leave it up to my ear when I have my mixes nearly finished. If you want to get picky, turn the reverbs on full wet and listen closely.

Sidenote: sometimes I get irritated about how the transient of a sound ruins what I wanted to hear in the reverb. I'm not sure what reverbs best address this. I've tried Physion and other transient splitters with satisfaction at times.
Add a transient shaper before the reverb. I use the one from Softube.

I don’t really hear swirlies. I hear “metal”. This is why i dislike a lot of reverbs. My brain also hears several reverbs change the original sound too much to be my standard reverb, like Seventh Heaven does. I ended up being very particular about the reverbs I tend to use most (eg CRP) because they don’t have what my brain hears as problems.
 
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I don’t understand the people saying you only need one or two reverbs.

It’s like saying you should only have one or two guitars.

Or one or two piano VSTs

Or one or two sports cars if you’re a celebrity.

Crazy how some ppl think 😂
Yep. I recently got something called "Reach" reverb by Sinuslabs for around $25 - from memory its a new developer out of Reaktor community. When I see a reasonably priced reverb with a demo offer I'll generally check it out despite having other good options. It particular Reach reverb fits synth channels for some reason. Also it has a lot of unique features. It lacks ducking (a bit of a shame), but has a pre and post drawn-filter-curve style EQ plus a low-mid-hi on the reverb itself, and chorus, flange, degrade, distort...And a feedback that has very interesting properties if raised to max. I find myself using it for subtle things that would never "accidentally" occur dialing another reverb's controls. I happened to try it again last night. The thing is completely unique - you can color the sound of a small area of frequency and do this over the top of other reverbs or fx. I think I have more than 20 reverbs of various types that I turn to for different reasons, for where they SEEM TO ME to excel (I'll never fully grasp the intricacies of what's happening with controls or under the hood, although I try). No way can it be possible to make a one size fits all.
 
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I've owned tens of dozens of reverbs over the years (algo and convolution), and time and time again I still return to Valhalla's plugins as my workhorses.
 
For me:
- Berlin Studio
- 7th heaven
- EW Spaces 2
- Cinematic rooms
- Eventide Blackhole

Note that blackhole is different than the others.

What you have is fine, but I'd add Blackhole to the list.

Just be aware that Blackhole still has an old known bug that sums the freeze reverb to mono.

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I also sent them an email in January and although they responded, they said they would speak with the head developer and get back to me but never did.
 
As do I. Xenoverb and Grainspace are two particular favourites of mine. I also quite like Reach by the way.
I just bought Audiority's Xenoverb for $29. I did so because, in particular, of the variety (various particulars isn't a total contradiction - Now that I've stepped up from Chinese 99 cent store can openers, I can I be narrowly focused on how broad something is), with slap, spring, plate, rooms, halls, glass, flow, and shimmer and everything under one roof and with handy knobs - its ideal for when I have a guitar in hand and I need inspiration while doing boring practice routines (to be clear, needing boredom while doing exciting practice routines is possible as well, but for that I can use dullverb, by muffledscapes, when they release it.)
 
Stratus and Symphony that you already have are pretty good sounding but I agree, the UI and preset menu is off putting. I've been in a reverb testing spree and have tested and shot out about 15 plugins. And while sound is paramount I found that for me, a useful and fast to navigate ui is pretty important too.

Best tip I can give - use the demo functionality of whatever reverb interests you and take your time with it! Much faster to get an answer on if it's the right one for you compared to skimming the internet ;)

Cinematic Rooms Pro is awesome for realistic rooms and spaces and was awesome for this - but the standard lacks Features I would have wanted and pro is pretty expensive. Also it's not the best at longer tails for rock drums for example (one of my usual use cases).

Really nice reverbs for me were Valhalla vintage verb, Seventh heaven pro, Reverberate 3 (my favourite and what I'll get), slate verbsuite, SSL Flexverb (can be had cheap from time to time in a sale.... Something like 29$!).
 
Stratus and Symphony that you already have are pretty good sounding but I agree, the UI and preset menu is off putting. I've been in a reverb testing spree and have tested and shot out about 15 plugins. And while sound is paramount I found that for me, a useful and fast to navigate ui is pretty important too.

Best tip I can give - use the demo functionality of whatever reverb interests you and take your time with it! Much faster to get an answer on if it's the right one for you compared to skimming the internet ;)

Cinematic Rooms Pro is awesome for realistic rooms and spaces and was awesome for this - but the standard lacks Features I would have wanted and pro is pretty expensive. Also it's not the best at longer tails for rock drums for example (one of my usual use cases).

Really nice reverbs for me were Valhalla vintage verb, Seventh heaven pro, Reverberate 3 (my favourite and what I'll get), slate verbsuite, SSL Flexverb (can be had cheap from time to time in a sale.... Something like 29$!).
CRP doesn't have to be realistic - add chorusing, use EQ and gating and delay and ... etc. I'd say it ranges from realistic to semi-realistic. Would not be the first choice for noisy lowfi 80s reverb, which is where TaiChi can take over, for example. Without a doubt my favorite reverb ever to date. Desert island kind of reverb for me - if I could only have one reverb, CRP would be it.

Reverb is so very subjective. I personally don't enjoy any of those last ones you listed, though Seventh Heaven Pro is OK (CRP is so much better to me that I never bother to load 7HP). Reverberate 3 I got tired of wrestling with to get IRs to sound how I like reverbs to sound so that got deleted as well despite the money invested. At this point, I use primarily CRP, TaiChi, and sometimes HD Cart or Lustrous Plates (though lately I prefer the simplicity of Pure Plate). Maybe an SP2016 or Rev-LX 24.

The most cost-effective way to get Liquidsonics is to have the ones you want in mind and get them one at a time so you can get the loyalty code to use on the next one, and then purchase during the huge Black Friday sale (the only sale they have each year, so far).

If you're using Windows, I highly recommend the free Solaris reverb (and, of course, the free Supermassive from Valhalla on either OS).
 
I've mostly been using Raum lately. Still don't feel like I'm anywhere near mastering it, but I'm making some progress at least.


Everybody’s recommending stuff and discussing reverbs, which is great. But OP hasn’t been seen here for 3,5 months now.
Still a good general reverb thread though. I'm quite happy it's still going on. Way more interesting and useful than 500 pages of pre-release hype for yet another string library too!


If you're using Windows, I highly recommend the free Solaris reverb
Never heard of it but it looks (or rather sounds) interesting. Will give that one a go, thanks!

Here's the link if anyone else is interested:
 
Has any of you played around with Quantum Evolution from Savant? That's one I still want to check out.
 
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