Okay,
I just finished setting up a comparison project. I ran a single
acoustic guitar track and a single vocal track. I lined up one control vocal track and multiple copies of that same track for reverb plug comparison.
I ran:
-Ambience
-Glaceverb
-Spazio (this is the newer updated big brother of Anwidasoft's DX Reverb)
-SIR
-Waves Trueverb
-Waves Reneissance Verb
I solo'd the vocals and played around with some settings on each verb I thought would fit the vocal in the mix. I was surprised right off the bat with Glaceverb. It sounds pretty natural and warm. It's the first plug I've used that made me think that. Ambience sounds better than most I've used in the past, but still a little tinny to me. The Waves verb's don't sound that
bad, it's just that I feel like I'm paying more for a fancy interface and tweakability than I am for high quality audio and usability. The controls are too tedious IMO. With so many presets, I don't want to tweak that much to get what I want. SIR sounds pretty darn good and natural. It just seems close to what a room really would sound like. If you download all the impulses off of Noisevault, you've got a lot of expirementing to do. The interface is very plain, but very functional. In fact I was able to easily tweak the sounds with a couple of faders, etc and get the results I was looking for.
When I played the processed audio back in the mix, the Spazio verb actually sounded the best. I didn't think it sounded especially wonderful when I had vocals solo'd, but I think I just found a reverb regeneration and size that really fit and sounded good in the mix. The Spazio verb is not free, what I was using was a demo that cut out every 30 seconds. Not sure of the price and haven't played with DX Reverb Light.
These tests were very very basic and I will dig in much deeper, but it's a fun way to A/B these verbs. I need effects that get to the point with very little input from me. Overall I must say that Glaceverb and SIR stood out to me today. More to come..