thanks for the advice. I’ve always been using one or two reverbs on a track and adjust the send volume of each instrument to the reverbs, but I’ve had never thought of using the same reverbs with slightly different predelay, tonality and early reflection settings. Thanks !
An example of the 3D sound I am pursuing : 01.- The Girl From Ipanema - Getz / Gilberto - Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - YouTube
Cheers !
Think of it like placement in the same room - the reverb itself is the “same room”. The placement will change which walls the sound from each instrument hits in what timing, if you’re really close to one wall, for instance, that wall might be more or less reflective, more or less absorptive, etc. than other walls, and so the early reflections and the density buildup will be different than if you’re in the middle of the ensemble and your sound hits the side walls at roughly the same time.
So the overall tonality of the reverb (e.g. after the sound has bounced of all the walls a few times) will be the same for all instruments, but the early reflection timing, density, and colouration/absorption (= decay by band) will change for each instrument as a result of its position in the space. Again, this is a simplification (and it’s only focused on reverb), but I hope it helps you to translate or model what you’re hearing into useful actions and ideas for shaping your own sound in similar ways.
In some senses you’re the opposite situation of @janglesoul, who wanted to have less natural (or at least, more distinctive-to-the-ear) reverb, you want reverb that’s as natural and realistic as possible, but of a very specific nature suited to the recreation of real-world situations which give a corresponding overall effect to the sound.
I haven’t even gotten into the stereo aspect of this yet, either… but I’m not writing a book here!
…in the case of 60s Brazilian music also consider your instrumentation and tones. You’re going into to want to lean on the darker side of EQ, more the sound of dynamic mics and tape tones. Bright splashy digital reverbs are gonna take you right out of that vibe. Think plates, chambers and wood rooms, maybe the odd spring for those more psychedelic Latin productions.
Thank you @equipoise and others for sharing your knowledge and experience so generously. I’m happy to see the discussion that has followed my question. Regarding my own reverb needs/ambitions I’d be happy to experiment in any direction – with subtle natural rooms as well as reverb “as an instrument”.
Despite having some nice stuff (that I at some point convinced myself I needed) more often than not I’ll just add a bit of Soundtoys Lil Plate, Valhalla Vintage or Ableton’s stock reverb instead of connecting my Bam on an external aux. I don’t really find myself able to compare the subtle nuances I just add some “room” and get on with it. I suppose I’m in the possibly bad habit of mixing as I go.
I’m enjoying reading what people have to share!
I just ordered one of these. Seems super unique, and I thought you all might appreciate.
Wow. This thing sounds incredible. The depth and color of that reverb in the guitar examples is lovely.
update on my search - i snagged a very very good deal on a slightly used UAFX Golden.
(to @varispeeder’s comment, yeah this is always going to be through a DI (radial JDI stereo at end of board), though, y’know… amps are all different.)
as i expected, this thing sounds fantastic. just perfect. which makes this extra painful:
as a pedal? man… i hate it. absolutely 100% the worst UI experience i’ve ever had with a guitar pedal:
it takes like, > 10 seconds to boot up. maybe 20? totally unconscionable in the context of a guitar pedal, especially given that it can’t be powered from a battery. the saving grace is that the dry signal is unbuffered and doesn’t stop when power is cut.
both the toggle and stomp switches are just bouncy as hell. maybe this particular unit got dusty - i compressed-aired it from the top but haven’t opened it up and cleaned everything. but it is currently hard to just consistently toggle the effect on and off, or switch modes.
not totally sure of this, but it sounds like on boot it isn’t reading the knobs directly? and it doesn’t boot into the preset either. i don’t know what state it is actually in, but there are clear parameter jumps every time you goose one of the knobs after boot. what.
when you max out the mix knob, there is a hard digital cut of the dry signal. or something - actually i don’t know what/why this would be, but it’s definitely a discontinuous level jump and it sounds very bad. this cannot be avoided except by just never maxing that knob. what?? what the actual F.
i can almost imagine hanging onto this as a nicely portable hardware reverb send when you want this sound and don’t want a laptop. but that mix knob thing just kills it. what the hell guys.
so i will be trying to sell this i think. (and i never resell gear. ever.) maybe i can turn a $50 profit even. very sad.
it makes me love the DBA rooms more. it is of course a digital pedal but you would never know it, at all - the controls are simple but the algorithms are all wonderfully distinct and weird, every adjustment is immediate and musical. even switching modes of course makes a glitch but it is smoothed out with an envelope or something (and the mode switch is an actual chunky rotary switch that can’t be quickly cycled. which is a good thing here.)
anyways… the search continues, i think. i would like to try and audition some stuff on the higher end (empress, dark world) and “lower” end (rv-6, cathedral.)
dreadbox shimmer thing is also appealing. i love the idea of a freezable granular shimmer feeding a hall model (or whatever.) but doubt it’s right for this application.
thanks for all the tips.
Don’t discount Neunaber Immerse for your search. Lots of options, lots of variation, smart parameterization of knobs (read up on how it handles wet- dry balance) smart EQ breakpoints, and most importantly it sounds great. It can add a little ambiance to your instrument and get out of the way, or it can do pretty wild stuff. I mostly just use the Wet algorithm but sometimes the others are called for.
Also, since cello is a little like bass tonally, this thread might help.. (Tl;dr, I settled on Eventide and Neunaber and a couple years later am still happy.)
I love Immerse mk2, kind of regret selling it and thinking of buying another. The W3t algorithm alone is worth the asking price for me. It sounds kind of “colorless” in a funny way and not everybody likes it, but I think it’s beautiful and works for both shorter, longer and endless synthetic spaces.
(I think there was a “stereo wet” pedal which would probably do for me, but they seem pretty rare compared to Immerse mk2 which is still available new.)
I finally sold my Empress Reverb (shipping it today). It was a great reverb but totaly overkill for my needs.
I replaced it with a tiny Prussian Blue Reverb - it’s like the anti-blackhole: small, super subtle, like almost can’t tell it’s on 
- and sounds amazing.
Someone recently told me about the Quantec Room Simulator which I hadn’t heard come up in the discourse on reverb algorithms. From what I gather (from vague mentions here and there) its all about building up echo density in the early reflections, but I haven’t managed to find much specifics on number of allpass/comb filters, matrix etc…
I’ve used the QRS on a project, and it really is a wonderful device. I’m currently using a plugin that recreates it, the Savant Audio Quantum. This is my go-to reverb for anything than needs to sound like it’s in a more or less real space. It can add a lot while staying out of the way, without resorting to ducking tricks.
Related to that, I’ve always wanted to try out a Bricasti M7. It’s out of my reach financially and I’m not sure if I’d have enough use for something like that anyway, but many people seem to think that’s sort of the state of the art in reverbs that sound like real spaces (or at least was a couple of years ago when I read about it the last time).
I think Seventh Heaven covers most (if not all) of the M7’s IR’s.
The Slate reverb is a rebadged version of this also.
The AD/DA of the real deal no doubt plays a huge part in the sound - but these might get close.
@cbm Thanks for sharing this - keen to give it a try!