Gimme Some Space: The Best Reverb Plugins for Beginners
A quick-start guide to 3rd-party Reverb Plug-ins for your DAW.
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Tired of using the stock reverbs in your DAW? We’re looking at some of the best reverb plugins for creating vintage and modern sounds.
As an effect, the use of reverb is absolutely crucial in music production, mixing, and sound design. Having an understanding of reverb can truly set you apart as a producer or mix engineer, no matter which genre you are working with.
Reverb has the power to give sounds an identity in so many ways. By using vintage-style reverbs, for example, we can get music to exude the character of an era, the same way the Lexicon reverbs did during the 1980s.
The Best Reverb Plugins for Beginners
There are almost endless applications for reverb. For instance, you can use reverb to emphasize an individual sound like a vocal sample stab or phrase to elevate a pre-chorus and add anticipation.
Moreover, you can carefully blend reverb into a dry drum loop to give it more character in a more transparent way that allows it to stand out of the mix.
If you’re new to using reverb, always start with the stock plug-ins within your DAW, as they will provide you with the basic tools to master the use of reverb on an insert or on a parallel send.
Reverb Plug-ins for Beginners:
Valhalla VintageVerb
The Valhalla VintageVerb is one of the most popular reverb plug-ins in music production circles for many reasons. For starters, it provides a wide range of classic reverb algorithms at a price everyone can afford.
Now in version 4.0.5, VintageVerb features 22 reverb modes with the familiar color control to choose between 1970s, 1980s, and modern sonic characteristics.
For a reverb in this price range, the VintageVerb has an impressive set of controls including EQ, modulation, diffusion, shape, and damping. However, the controls are simply laid out, so even beginners can develop a feel for creating reverbs.
With its simple GUI, great sound quality, and impressive range of different reverbs, the Valhalla VintageVerb is the perfect choice to upgrade from the stock reverbs in your DAW.
- More from ValhallaDSP
Soundtoys SuperPlate
No one does vintage sounds quite like Soundtoys, so the SuperPlate became an immediate hit with music producers and engineers. SuperPlate gives you a selection of five electromechanical plate reverbs and a choice of tube, solid state, and clean preamps.
As we’ve come to expect from Soundtoys, the interface design is immaculate, putting the most effective sound-shaping controls like pre-delay and modulation, as well as high and low-pass filters at your fingertips.
In addition, SuperPlate has a few advanced features that give it a more modern feel. These include modulation rate, parametric EQ, stereo width, and a useful auto-decay function to avoid overlapping and masking.
When you’re tired of the basic algorithms offered by most reverb plug-ins, SuperPlate offers something different with the controls to add grit and character to your heart’s desire.
- More from Soundtoys
Relab Sonsig Rev-A
Sonsig Rev-A combines pro audio design with simplicity, allowing you to dial in your own reverb settings fast and get great results every time. Choose between the vintage Quantec Room Simulator, the classic Lexicon 224, or the modern Rev-A algorithms.
Once you’ve selected the reverb mode, there are 10 reverb size settings, a modulation section with three algorithms, and an ensemble feature based on the lush chorus effect from the ARP Solina String Ensemble.
Furthermore, you have individual controls for brightness, hi decay, and diffusion as well as a pre-delay control with BPM sync. The GUI is well-designed, with clear metering and I/O gain controls to set your levels precisely.
Overall, the Sonsig Rev-A is an excellent choice for a relatively affordable reverb that puts you straight into the big league from a sonic point of view. It’s no wonder that it’s the preferred choice of so many top engineers and producers.
- More from Relab Development
FabFilter Pro-R 2
The Pro-R 2 is an advanced professional algorithmic reverb processor with a straightforward feature set that lets you dive into spatial sound design without requiring prior experience in audio engineering.
With the main controls above the interactive display, you and make adjustments and get a visual reading of how the sound is being affected. There are three reverb-style settings including modern, vintage, and plate.
In addition, both the pre-delay and auto-gate functions allow host sync. The spectrum analyzer provides a detailed overview, with real-time decay rate EQ, post-EQ graphs, as well as an optional piano roll to make harmonic adjustments.
Like most of the FabFilter plug-ins, the Pro-R 2 provides an extensive range of precise controls with a GUI that is simple enough for everyone to navigate, whether you’re a noobie or a seasoned pro.
- More from FabFilter
Eventide Blackhole
When you want to go beyond recreations of vintage reverbs, the Eventide Blackhole presents a platform for creating a range of otherworldly effects for use in pop, dance, and film music.
What makes the Blackhole plug-in different is its resonance control, which is linked to the EQ parameters, as well as the unique gravity control. This makes it possible to accentuate parts of the reverberated sound and introduce a direction-reversal effect.
What’s more, the Blackhole plug-in includes a range of exciting artist presets to get you started and there’s a multichannel version for immersive audio users.
If you’re trying to make the intros of your songs more impactful by drawing attention to your lead vocals or creating more exciting EDM-style drops, the Blackhole is an excellent choice.
- More from Eventide
More about the Best Reverb Plugins:
- All about Reverb
- Thomann’s Guide to Plugins
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