MPX 500 or Reverb plug in

[ColdAsh]

In six months or so (i know im getting a bit ahead of myself here) im planning on getting an MXP 500. But i was wondering if there's any other option as far as plug ins go. First of all are there any reverb plug-ins or similar quality available for a similar price (im running logic gold 4.81, getting v5 soon on a fairly fast PC). If so how do the two compare in:
Sound quality
Editing (i.e. number of adjustable parameters)
Ease of use
Manufacturers presets
Anything else you think i should consider.
I know that high quality reverb plug ins use up a lot of power but i should be able to get away with bouncing my reverb tracks. Also if i was using an MPX I’d have to save the output as a separate track so i could use my MPX more than once per song. Which is likely to give less (or no) loss in signal quality. Im assuming the plug in because the routing of signal to the new track is done internally but since i can use SPDIF on my omni studio with the MPX 500 i shouldn’t expect there to be much difference. Would i be right in thinking this?
Thanks for any help you can give me because i dont want to spend my hard earned cash and find out i could have got something better.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

My opinion -- I still find h/w effects tend to sound better than plug-ins, so I would go with the MPX500...

Bruce

 

[CyanJaguar]

once you print a reverb to a file, you are stuck with it.

Also, printing a reverb will convert a mono file to stereo, increasing track count.

 

[ColdAsh]

once you print a reverb to a file, you are stuck with it.

Also, printing a reverb will convert a mono file to stereo, increasing track count.

But wouldnt i have to do the same thing with the MPX500 if i wanted to run it on multiple tracks? Can't i change my master to a mono track and bounce it to give me a mono 'printed' reverb file?
Also how much edititng can you do to the reverbs on the MPX 500 compared to any plug in for around the same price?

 

[Griffinator]

Screw that. Waves Trueverb is better than any rack unit I've ever heard. You can get it in their Power Pack bundle for $300 - and you get the C1+ Compressor/Gate, the L1 Ultramaxximizer, the Q10 paraEQ, and a few other neat toys.

www.waves.com

 

[Griffinator]

Oh yeah

and trueverb has some AMAZING presets. Presets that I actually care to use, instead of over-exaggerated pieces of noise that turn mixes into mush.

 

[CyanJaguar]

um,

grif,

which hardware reverbs have u used.

Trueverb pales in comparison to even the low end good stuff.

coldash,

you can send as many tracks as you want to the mpx500. Just put its input on a bus and send your tracks there.

It becomes tricky when you want to use a different effect on different tracks. In that case, you would have to save to file.

In logic, I dont even have to save my reverbs to a file. Once you choose bounce to wav, it adds the inputs in realtime. SWEET.

If I dont want to save to file, all I do is get more used reverbs. They are cheaper and sound better than trueverb or any other software. with $300, you can get three nice hardware. Most mixing engineers use no more than three verbs on a mix.

trueverb has as many parameters as lower priced hardware, it just does not sound as good so tweaking is a waste of precious time.

 

[Griffinator]

trueverb has as many parameters as lower priced hardware, it just does not sound as good

As many? How about way more? And the sound is stellar. When was the last time you messed with this plugin? Couldn't have been very recently, because I've never seen a "lower priced" rack unit (or a high-end, for that matter) with this much control....

 

[MISTERQCUE]

besides the fact that pug-in's usually need a great deal of pc
power to operate! Better to go with the stand-alone!

 

[Griffinator]

besides the fact that pug-in's usually need a great deal of pc
power to operate! Better to go with the stand-alone!

Well, there's a point I can't refute. If you don't have the horsepower under your hood, you can't drive the car.

I have a PIII 667 - I can't use more than two of these in a mix in Sonar. I'm planning to upgrade very soon to 2x1Ghz - problem solved.

Seriously, though - I've messed with all manner of reverb units and Trueverb stacks up to all of them.

 

[chessrock]

The sad, depressing truth about Reverb . . .

Alrigh, while we're on the subject, I have a complaint. The only problem with ANY reverb is that, well, just about all of it SOUNDS BAD. The $10 Zillion dollar stuff at Abbey Road studios? Pure, grade-A Crapolla.

Uh-oh. Why is Chessrock suffering from so much diahrea of the mouth, lately? Well don't worry, because he only speaks the truth. It does sound bad. Okay, maybe your expensive reverb doesn't sound like crap RIGHT NOW. But the problem with any reverb is that it becomes outdated. Like really fast. I could probably listen to a bunch of records from the last 50 years, and I could tell you what general era they were recorded in, just from listening to the reverbs used.

I'll bet in 1980, someone paid like $100,000 and came back to their studio saying something like: "Wow! Listen to this GATED reverb. Someone get Phil Collins on the phone! And to think: I got this for only 100 grand. What a steal!" Similarly, I'd bet when the Isley brothers recorded "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling," someone must have said: "That verb sounds killer! Turn it up. Come to think of it, why don't we just DROWN OUT THEIR VOICES with it, it sounds so good."

And I shudder to think of the wasted money that went in to the reverbs used on Klauss Mein of the Scorpions and (shriek!) on Whitney Houston. It's just beyond me.

So my advice: Don't worry about your reverb. In fact, put it away for a while. See what you can get for it on Ebay, and go get yourself a cheapo and save it for a special occasion. Okay, so maybe some audiophile out there is sitting right in front of his speakers criticizing the .008 milliseconds worth of the tail end on the verb you used on your guitar track, but he's got other issues to deal with besides your reverb.

This just in: Your expensive reverb sounds cheezy. And if it doesn't right now, don't bother patting yourself on the back. Wait a few years and it will.

Now I'm sure someone will post a follow-up saying something like: "You've probably never HEARD an MX8-3000 with 1.21 gigawatts solar-powerd with flex capacitor converted with an $8,000 48 bit/128k Apoge." And they're right. But a lot of the commercial CDs I listen to probably do utilize them, so in fact I have.

And that's probably why most of what I listen to on the radio sounds like a big, fat cheese puff of crap to me. Case in point: Sara McLaughlin is perhaps one of the best singers I can think of off the top of my head. 6 years ago, I found her productions to be breathtaking, and the reverbs luscious.

Fast-forward five years, and my only complaint is the cheezy verb they used too much of on a few of her tracks.

Case #2: Fiona Apple. I listen to her stuff now, and think: Yea! How on earth did such a young girl get such killer vocal tracks - breathy and intimate, yet in-your-face. I will like this stuff as much in 10 more years as I do now. And truly, I believe the secret is in how her producers were able to just let her strong voice to stand on it's own merits without washing it out with "the reverb of the moment."

Similarly, I think Elton John's most recent material is some of the most tastefull-produced material he's recorded in decades. I would bet that most of the verbs used on that are either natural (in which case, you and I CAN'T afford it, so give up. ) or used very sparingly.

So keep your expensive reverb. I won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. My 15' by 30' living room with 16' ceilings and hardwood floor will beat the pants off of it any day of the week. In the meantime, my Waves RVerb will do just as good of a job sounding cheezy and outdated 6 years from now as your $5,000 hardware unit.

And if you don't believe me, pull out some of the stuff you recorded 6 years ago and listen for yourself.

 

[Griffinator]

Re: The sad, depressing truth about Reverb . . .

Alrigh, while we're on the subject, I have a complaint. The only problem with ANY reverb is that, well, just about all of it SOUNDS BAD. The $10 Zillion dollar stuff at Abbey Road studios? Pure, grade-A Crapolla.

Uh-oh. Why is Chessrock suffering from so much diahrea of the mouth, lately? Well don't worry, because he only speaks the truth. It does sound bad. Okay, maybe your expensive reverb doesn't sound like crap RIGHT NOW. But the problem with any reverb is that it becomes outdated. Like really fast. I could probably listen to a bunch of records from the last 50 years, and I could tell you what general era they were recorded in, just from listening to the reverbs used.

I'll bet in 1980, someone paid like $100,000 and came back to their studio saying something like: "Wow! Listen to this GATED reverb. Someone get Phil Collins on the phone! And to think: I got this for only 100 grand. What a steal!" Similarly, I'd bet when the Isley brothers recorded "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling," someone must have said: "That verb sounds killer! Turn it up. Come to think of it, why don't we just DROWN OUT THEIR VOICES with it, it sounds so good."

And I shudder to think of the wasted money that went in to the reverbs used on Klauss Mein of the Scorpions and (shriek!) on Whitney Houston. It's just beyond me.

So my advice: Don't worry about your reverb. In fact, put it away for a while. See what you can get for it on Ebay, and go get yourself a cheapo and save it for a special occasion. Okay, so maybe some audiophile out there is sitting right in front of his speakers criticizing the .008 milliseconds worth of the tail end on the verb you used on your guitar track, but he's got other issues to deal with besides your reverb.

This just in: Your expensive reverb sounds cheezy. And if it doesn't right now, don't bother patting yourself on the back. Wait a few years and it will.

Now I'm sure someone will post a follow-up saying something like: "You've probably never HEARD an MX8-3000 with 1.21 gigawatts solar-powerd with flex capacitor converted with an $8,000 48 bit/128k Apoge." And they're right. But a lot of the commercial CDs I listen to probably do utilize them, so in fact I have.

And that's probably why most of what I listen to on the radio sounds like a big, fat cheese puff of crap to me. Case in point: Sara McLaughlin is perhaps one of the best singers I can think of off the top of my head. 6 years ago, I found her productions to be breathtaking, and the reverbs luscious.

Fast-forward five years, and my only complaint is the cheezy verb they used too much of on a few of her tracks.

Case #2: Fiona Apple. I listen to her stuff now, and think: Yea! How on earth did such a young girl get such killer vocal tracks - breathy and intimate, yet in-your-face. I will like this stuff as much in 10 more years as I do now. And truly, I believe the secret is in how her producers were able to just let her strong voice to stand on it's own merits without washing it out with "the reverb of the moment."

Similarly, I think Elton John's most recent material is some of the most tastefull-produced material he's recorded in decades. I would bet that most of the verbs used on that are either natural (in which case, you and I CAN'T afford it, so give up. ) or used very sparingly.

So keep your expensive reverb. I won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. My 15' by 30' living room with 16' ceilings and hardwood floor will beat the pants off of it any day of the week. In the meantime, my Waves RVerb will do just as good of a job sounding cheezy and outdated 6 years from now as your $5,000 hardware unit.

And if you don't believe me, pull out some of the stuff you recorded 6 years ago and listen for yourself.

Preach on, brother.

Renaissance verb is sweet, too...

 

[Trak]

chessrock,

you have a good point but man you've got a few issues...

 

[ColdAsh]

Chessrock,
It may well be that my reverb will sound out dated in the future. Hell so many things these days do (e.g. computers 96KHz will eventually) but that doesn’t mean i dont need the best reverb i can buy now. Sure gates reverb seen in the eighties may sound cheesy but i bet Phil Collins made a shit load of money! Im trying to get a demo and impress those big record company types (one in a million shot chance ) So i think that they'll be wanting something that sounds as good as possible, no something that will have reverb that’s gonna sound got in 5 or 10 years.

MISTERQCUE,
i know that processing power will be an issue but if i only have one MPX500 and can only run one trueverb in a mix then would i have the same problem and have to use bouncing in both cases?

CyanJaguar,
u said: In logic, I dont even have to save my reverbs to a file. Once you choose bounce to wav, it adds the inputs in real time. SWEET.
Are you talking about bouncing a wet track from a plug in or outboard processor?

If I dont want to save to file, all I do is get more used reverbs. They are cheaper and sound better than trueverb or any other software. with $300, you can get three nice hardware. Most mixing engineers use no more than three verbs on a mix.

Is there any advantage with this over recording the out put of a MPX500 on one track/group then recording the out put on the MPX500 on another track/group?

 

[CyanJaguar]

grifinator,

I used trueverb alot till I got my hardware. First off, it makes the vocal sound harsher instead of smoother. Second, its either too much or not enough. The reverb sounds tacked on instead of part of the sound. sorry.

coldash,

I was talking about the processor. You are right thought. with only one mpx500, you can save the reverb files of different groups.

 

[omeiko]

If youre going for a natural kind of reverb you really should try out the Sonic Foundry Acoustic Mirror or similar convolution reverb. The Acoustic Mirror sounds absolutely amazing and million times better than any room simulator (like trueverb) or lexicon (IF youre going for natural-sounding reverberation). You probaply know this but it's technology is based on impulse responses recorded in real rooms.

The only disadvance is that if you are going to use it in realtime you need a triple 3Ghz-monster-pentium. So you'll have to print the reverb and youre stuck with it but who cares. At least I'm very happy to be stuck with it because it sounds so good. After all that's the case with real room-tracks too. If the room sounds good (the Acoustic Mirror comes with many major concert-hall preset) you shouldt really worry.

 

[ColdAsh]

The only disadvance is that if you are going to use it in realtime you need a triple 3Ghz-monster-pentium. So you'll have to print the reverb and youre stuck with it but who cares. .

People always seem to think you're stuck with the printed files but you can always print a new reverb file from the original if you need to.

 

[mig27]

SF acoustic mirror? yes!

omeiko,

I totally agree with you. The best sounding reverb "inside" a DAW I've heard so far.

If you are looking for a natural, non obstrusive and especially "non digitally flat-sounding" reverb, I can warmly recommend the use of a real spring reverb. Record the reverb trail in series with an analog chorus pedal a couple of times on your hard disk, spread the signals all over the panorama and there you go: swoooosh ;-)
You can still control the reverb by judiciously using your mixer automation of cubase, logic, or whatever you use.

Just keep on experimenting, guys, do your own stuff.
No reason to whine if you can't afford the lexi 960 kind of gear.

Just my 2 (Euro)-Cents.


Michael

 

[CyanJaguar]

well,

if you're printing in a reverb to a file, that file gets resaved with the reverb in it. YOu have to go out to something like soundforge to print a plugin.

you can always delete a file if its hardware.

a way around permanence is to backup all your tracked files in logic so if you dont like it you can replace it.

 

[ColdAsh]

well,

if you're printing in a reverb to a file, that file gets resaved with the reverb in it. YOu have to go out to something like soundforge to print a plugin.

you can always delete a file if its hardware.

a way around permanence is to backup all your tracked files in logic so if you dont like it you can replace it.

What i figured u'd do is solo the track (or buss) that the reverb is on and bounce it down to a wave file, then use this new wave file as a new track which u could run dry.