If you’re not familiar with it Liquidsonics’ Reverberate 3 sounds like it’s just another convolution reverb. That’s technically true but would be missing the point. Julian Rodgers explains.

Reverberate 3 is different to the convolution reverbs you’ve used before because it’s flexible. Something normal convolution reverbs aren’t usually associated with.

Convolution has been around for a long time but the main criticism of it is that it can be lifeless. This is largely because modulation is absent. As modulation is such an important part of the sound of many of the classic digital reverbs, its absence is a really important reason why, although you can capture the sound of a classic reverb unit such as a Lexicon 480L, you’ll never actually match the sound of the real thing because the modulation which is such an important part of algorithms like the famous Random Hall is missing.

Liquidsonics have created some of their best known products motivated by a desire to combine the best of convolution and algorithmic reverbs. Seventh Heaven is an ideal example, based as it is on the Bricasti M7, a hardware reverb which uses modulation as a core part of its sound. So much so that it couldn’t be satisfactorily captured using an impulse response. Reverbs like the aforementioned 480L use a different method of modulation but the modulation is still present and it’s still important.

Why Is Modulation Important?

If the job of a reverb is to recreate the sound of an acoustic space then you might think that a lack of modulation isn’t an issue, after all the walls of rooms don’t move in and out, why should a reverb impose an effect similar to that? The reason is historical and due to talented reverb designers using modulation as a way to minimise the ringing which results from simulating the infinite number of reflections which result from a real acoustic sound happening in a real physical room using only a limited number of digital delay lines, and in the early days the number of delays was very limited.

Varying the length of the delays over time reduces the tendency for metallic ringing and resonant hot spots to occur. Unpleasant artefacts can happen when the pitch of the input signal coincides with the length of a particular delay. By making the reverb a “moving target” through modulation this is far less likely to happen. The modulation itself can cause unhelpful detuning pitch artefact when done badly, for an example try putting long sustained notes through the default patch of Avid’s D-Verb! However when done well modulation adds a very desirable movement to a reverb and in the case of convolution reverbs their absence, especially when simulating vintage digital reverbs, is noticeable.

Reverberate 3

Reveberate 3 is the latest incarnation of Liquidsonics’ convolution reverb. On first inspection you might think that, as convolution is just the process of multiplying the frequency spectrums of the input signal with an Impulse Response or “IR” (a special recording which captures the essence of the space you are re-creating) that all convolution reverbs would sound the same given the same IR. While this might be true if all that is happening is the convolving from an ordinary static IR (Reverberate 3 can use Fusion IRs too, more on that later), pretty much everyone wants to tweak settings at some point and the difference between the various convolution reverb plug-ins is principally about what facilities they offer for tweaking the reverb and how they present the controls on offer.

This is where Reverberate 3 really sets itself apart from the alternatives. In addition to level, wet/dry controls and EQ controls most offer some facility to shorten or lengthen the reverb and to add a pre-delay but Reverberate 3 offers a level of flexibility which I haven’t seen before on a convolution reverb. and the results are impressive, listen to the audio examples below…

It should be said at this point that there is some very detailed tweaking on offer here, but if you are the kind of person who wants to pull up a preset, adjust the reverb time and get on with mixing then Reverberate does this without extra faff. All you need to know is that rather than having a reverb time control you have a stretch control but as long as you don’t want to change your reverb length by more than 50% in either direction you’ll be fine. If however you want to access the sound of real spaces using the accuracy convolution is famous for and use IRs of classic vintage reverbs with almost as much freedom as you would have using an algorithmic reverb, then this is something you should check out. Also it has to be said that if you’re a reverb nerd who enjoys exploring the possibilities of experiments in reverb then this is just made for you!

There is far too much to Reverberate 3 to attempt to cover it all here so I’ll pick some of my headline points about Reverberate 3 and why you should check it out.

Use Impulses Of Hardware Which Uses Modulation

As already said modulation is one of the reasons why certain classic reverb sounds don’t translate well through convolution reverbs. Reverberate 3 has split modulation allowing a user definable boundary between the early and late elements of the reverb to be set and differing amounts of modulation to be applied to either. In addition to this modulation, chorus can be applied from the Effects tab and the combination of all three of these modulations helps alleviate the cyclic predictability of just using a single source of modulation.

This is the situation for conventional IRs. Reveberate 3 includes a selection of impulses but as an IR is just an audio file, you can use any of the IRs freely available online. However Reveberate 3 can also use Fusion IRs, an innovation which is unique to Liquidsonics and which I first came across when trying Seventh Heaven, their emulation of the Bricasti M7, a hardware reverb which was long thought to be impossible to capture using convolution because of its use of modulation. Fusion IRs are a package of many static impulse responses which when used together can be used to recreate the motion of modulation in the same way as a series of static photographs can be used to create a movie. Reverberate 3 includes downloads of Fusion IR presets from the Bricasti M7 and Lexicon 480 and 224. The Fusion-IR tab allows control over the modulation rate of the captures, early/late balance and late offset so you can advance or delay the late component relative to the early reflections.

Independent Control Of Early And Late Components

Even with just a static IR you can gain independent control over the early and late components. In the presets the split point between early and late is already set but for imported IRs or even your own captures you can set it manually. The waveform display zooms to fill the screen so you can zoom in the the start of an IR by trimming the Crop End control for a closer look.

Use Two Reverb Impulses To Create Blended Reverbs

There are two reverb engines in Reverberate 3. This means that you can combine different IRs together, for example run different impulses on the left and right channels but something which is really interesting is to combine the early reflections of one reverb with the tail of another. Because you can set the split point on a per-impulse basis this can be done very precisely do you can have the early reflections of a Hall with the tail of a Plate or any other combination.

EQ & Effects

In the EQ and effects tab you have access to 5 bands of EQ, stereo delay, with modulation, and a chorus for even more modulation!

Synthesis Models

Although there is more than enough rope to metaphorically hang yourself in the convolution engines of Reverberate 3, if you want to experiment further, if you go into the settings you can display the usually hidden early reflections synthesis and late reverb synthesis sections where you can experiment with Diffused Delays, which use individual reflections versus Enhanced Bursts, which are very dense collections of reflections in bursts, or with the late reverb synthesis section which simulates a very dense reverb tail which can be combined with an IR of early reflections, used to lengthen the reverb of an existing recording enhancing the sound of the room that recording was made in or in  any other way you see fit. There is a lot in there, proof if more were needed that if you put in the time, you’re unlikely to exhaust the possibilities in this remarkable reverb.

Conclusion

Until I tried it I didn’t “get” Reverberate 3. It’s not difficult to use but it’s not as blindingly obvious as something like Seventh Heaven and even Cinematic Rooms isn’t too intimidating. Reverberate 3 gives you more unrestricted access to the guts of your reverb and that won’t be important to some but those people who want to dial in a reverb and get on with it owe it to themselves to check this out as it gives access to the same experience of a Bricasti as you get with Seventh Heaven for a variety of other classic reverbs. If this had a white LARC-alike Graphical UI and just offered the bundled 480L Fusion IRs Liquidsonics could still sell it for twice the price of Reverberate 3 which is only $99. I’ll type that once more, this plugin is $99!