Smoothest sounding reverb

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noisewreck

noisewreck

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In your experience, which box has the smothest sounding reverb? I am looking for one that works well with fast transient sounds, can be set for 2-3 seconds of tail w/o the tails starting to sound metallic.

I've listened to some IRs of Eventides and these also have that metallic tails. I can setup some smooth reverbs on my Kurz K2600 that have very little metallicity, but I need to put in some work.

So, I am looking for reverbs that can be put on some harsh sounds, fast transients and such, yet be exceptionally smooth. Any recommendations?
 
lxp-1 modified by Jim Williams at Audio Upgrades. Wonderful.
 
Everyone has their own opinion, but I am a fan of the Kurzweil Rumour. Nice reverbs, with some extra sounds to have fun with. Put it on your list of gear to check out.

Charlie
 
I like the Lexicon PCM80 reverbs. Pricey but worth every cent IMHO.....
Check out the link below - G and M Project - all the songs were mixed down using the PCM80......
 
cnix said:
Everyone has their own opinion, but I am a fan of the Kurzweil Rumour. Nice reverbs, with some extra sounds to have fun with. Put it on your list of gear to check out.

Charlie
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Hi Charlie, since my main board is Kurzweil K2600, and the Rumour is based on the KDFX unit in that board, I already have those covered... and yes, I agree the Kurzweil stuff sounds great. I am just looking for another flavor and something that will get me what I want w/o laboring over it as much.

... and why am I not surprised to see two Lexi recommendations already? :)
 
SonicAlbert said:
Lexicon PCM-91 or TC Electronic M3000 would fit that bill. The M3000 is very smooth.
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Gotta love that Lexicon sound...........The Rumour isn't bad either if your on a budget. But still, Lecicon, Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm........
 
This may sound crazy, but, if you're ok with a bit of grunge in your mix, send it through a guitar amp and use its spring reverb. Best sounding reverb I have yet to encounter. The amp was a crate.
 
I was going to suggest the Rmour too, but since you already have that covered with the K2600, then Lexicon would be the way to go. Maybe what you need to do is get into the EQ section of the reverb and roll off the highs.

There was a unique Yamaha unit about 10 years back that had good presets with warmer sounding reverbs. I think it that is now part of the SPX line.
Happy hunting, Rez
 
Lexicon LXP-15II, by far one of the best price/performance units ever made. The older LXP-1 is one I will always keep around as well for drums and that beautiful vocal plate.

Lexicon almost overdid it with the LXP series, especially the LXP-1 and LXP-15II. That is, it was in their best interest to keep their higher end stuff in professional studios and they always walked a fine line while trying to manage the pro and semi-pro markets. At the time, to their chagrin a lot of studios that could afford the higher end stuff were buying the LXP units as second devices when they might normally have sprung for another PCM-70 or even 224XL.

So keep an eye out for these, especially for the reverbs, which is where they shine. The other effects are good, but I generally prefer analog chorusing and flanging type effects anyway, so I don’t pay much attention to those in the LXPs.

The Alesis Quadraverb 2 (Q2) is another good box if you allocate most of the processing power to the verbs. They are first-rate… lush and dense with smooth tails. The Q2 will do several effects at once, but you don’t have to use it that way. A lot of these multi-effects boxes have great verbs if the system isn’t choked trying to do too many other effects at once.

:)
 
I had a few LXP-1's and 5's in my racks for a while. They are decent sounding reverbs, but they tend to lack a bit in the "depth" and "spacial" departments. They are good sounding units for the money though. Once you add the remote to them they are much more versatile as well. As far as the Alesis stuff, I have had too many Midi, micro and quadraverbs over the years for my taste. At least the Midi verb and Micorverbs seemed to be pretty durable, but the Q2's and Q20's had bunches of problems. In addition to that, "lush and dense with smooth tails" is exactly the opposite of how I would describe them. What I did like about them though was the gated verbs and the vocal doubler preset.

For not too much money, the TC Electronics M-1 does a decent job. The M3000 also does pretty well, but the more expensive M4000 (I beleive this is the model number, but I am referring to the 2 channel version based on the M6000) sounds great. There really seems to be a big jump in 3D imaging and a naturalness to the sound of this unit form the ones below it. Sadly though the price hops up there a lot as well. Used M5000's in many various configurations can be had pretty affordably these days (like $1500 for a 4 channel one that may even have digital I/O as well).

Yamaha actually makes some nice verbs in my opinion in the SPX line. I personally like the SPX 900, 990, 1000, and 2000. The presets are decent but just a little tweaking of a couple parameters and the yamaha starts to sound pretty nice. Used 900 and 990's cost about $300-$450 a unit and used 1000's go for around $500 or so now. The spx 2000 is around a grand new. The spx 1000 and 2000 have the rev-x algorithms which really sound pretty darned good.

As far as Eventide goes, of all the hardware units I have owned, I like my Eclipse the best. The Eclipse is an amazing and flexible unit for it's price, but not for someone that is not willing to spend quite a bit of time familiarizing yourself with it and going through the 2 inch thick manual in a binder they send. There are more than 300 presets to start with and most of those are very odd ones. Once you learn how to properly build an effect in the Eclipse though it opens a whole new world of smooth and spacy verbs that I have never found in a box like that. As for the metallic impulses, I would imagine that the impulses were created by someone who just transfered the stock presets and may not have picked smoother ones.
 
Sony made some good stuff with their DPS series processors. The R7 dedicated reverb is still commanding steep prices on Ebay. I use the V55 which is a multi-effect unit and the standalone reverb programs sound pretty nice. It also has the four channel reverbs which I am dying to try in a live setting.

The FreeVerb 2 VST plugin is suprisingly good for a freeware effect. When you set it for highest quality it sounds nice and smooth. At the lower quality settings it starts to sound a little like my cheesy Korg DRV-1000 which is about as not-smooth as they come. The DRV is almost like an entirely different class of effect altogether instead of reverb. I use it almost like you would a chorus effect to fatten up synths.
 
I know this one is designed for guitar, but the Alesis Midiverb II is a very sweet machine. I have seen Tommy Emmanuel in concert using it a few times, and it sounds absolutely amazing. Very versatile unit.
 
xstatic said:
But the Q2's and Q20's had bunches of problems. In addition to that, "lush and dense with smooth tails" is exactly the opposite of how I would describe them. What I did like about them though was the gated verbs and the vocal doubler preset.
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Yeah, the key thing as I mentioned above is don't use them as advertised... 4 or 8 effects at once.

Use the verbs by themselves and roll your own. There's almost nothing I can't do reverb wise with my Q2 and I've used about everything mentioned so far except the Kurz.

:)
 
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