I Compared My Old Reverbs To My Plugins...
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- I compared my old reverbs to my plugins and was rather surprised.
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I had a few people ask me to do a video comparing modulation hardware against modulation plugins. I don't have much by way of hardware but I do have plenty of chorus pedals. So I just put out a video comparing chorus pedals to chorus plugins. I hope everyone enjoys it. ruclips.net/video/qBoP1H3ocLY/видео.html
I think the biggest problem is people confuse 'quality' for 'usability', a reverb might be the greatest sounding lushest full reverb you have ever heard when listened to in isolation, but in a mix it just drowns everything in a mush. Sometimes less is definitely more!
Yeah I agree and xou eq them anyways,
Yes, some reverbs are perfect for an isolated instrument in a solo piece, and others better for a mix with other elements.
They all sound good, but the Rev7 sounds "ready". And in a recording situation, this is gold.
I have the REV5 - it's Symphonic preset is gold.
Agree. Brings life to the drums in the mix and air and snap to the snare.
My theory is that with modern reverbs we spend and lot of time reducing their bandwidth with post eq to get them to sit, then add saturation maybe in post etc yet a reduced bit rate piece of hardware with its physical preamp is doing all that softening and shaping for you.
Exactly!
My exact same thought!
It's mostly the converters!
If i might" throw my hat into the ring" I had a similar experience.
I have an old boss GT5 .its not as good as my modern modellers but it does sit well in the mix,it sounds "old warm +glues the sound together"esp the delay+chorus.
I hear you.
Great video, to my ears the Wedge and Rev7 sounded really pro
Sibilant bloom is the bane of old 90's budget verbs. I learned to insert a de-esser on the send. Same with delays. In fact all sends benefit from de-essing IMO.
Great channel. I like the ways you show the hardware device thumbnails. Makes everything nice and clear.
The only bit of old gear I've ever bought twice was the Alesis Quadraverb, it still sounds wonderful! 😎
Love the quadraverb!!!
Before you interrupted in that section I was pre commenting that I thought shorter verbs would be a better suit for this track haha.
That spring reverb hardware unit is the real secret weapon! Even in mono, absolutely perfect
I don't know I really love the MidiVerb. It sounds like it would be amazing on Hiphop and RnB vocals. Thank you for this demo!
Ha ha! Crazy right? I remember the first time I hooked that thing up after years of not using and I was really surprised.
Roland srv 2000 is the best of the lot on snares
my Midiverb II, Rev 1 and SRV2000 sit side by side to my EMT252, Sony DRES777, Bricasti M7 and Quantec QRS. I love the „smaller ones“, they have so much character. Plugins just don’t give me that depth. Big part of the hardwares sound are their analog circuitry around their ADDA converters. Just measure THD on something like an ART 01A or Sony DRE2000 and you’ll start to understand. Its those imperfections that HELP to set the reverb tail apart from the source sound, so more depth, more realism, less perfection…
All these years later, and your ears are far more discerning than they once were, so you can hear what "could be" musically - maybe even from that Radio Shack thing!! Tweaked nicely in a mix, and even a tiled bathroom has a tone of mojo. Really nice work man!! Thanks for the share!!
I love how the spring kind of 'follows' the vocal, intensity-wise, and just sits around it
wow thanks this was a really interesting video. crazy how that yamaha reverb sounded awful soloed, but hyped the drums just right in the track.
....and I see a Quadraverb too, loved that back in the day....when I had that and the Midiverb I thought I had all the reverbs I'd ever need! 🤣
Great Video! Thanks for taking the time to make it.
I saw an Alesis Quadraverb 2 at my local Music Go Round. It was only $129 so I gave it a try. IT'S SO GOOD!! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I didn't know it also had Chorus, Delay, Pitch Shifting and Gated FX! I'm definitely going to snag more rack gear soon.
The Quadraverb rocked!!!
I have several of the old Quadraverb with 2.0 software. My main reverb for 20 years. Only the Bricasti beat it eventually
I bought the Alesis Q20 and it sounds goood! Very similar to Quad 2
Seems as soon a real gear is turned on, some kind of 3D is activated… love the music you produce
Thanks so much!
placebo
@@asor8037I don’t think it’s placebo. The spaces do feel more open. I’m sure you can EQ the plugins to be the same
@@Hugoknots A HW digital reverb is a digital algorhithm in it's own little computer. in other words, a plugin in a box. The myth that "since it is hardware it MUST sound better" does not apply here. Maybe you have bad plugins though. I mostly use the Lexicon PCM Native suite, which is 99,9% the same code, except one bug the developer fixed in the software version. In other words, the same. And even in this case, people still rant on around the internet that the hardware sounds better, but they are deluded.
@@asor8037 I'm with you. I never said anything about what your saying - "HW must sound better" etc etc. I'm only saying that in this instance the HW did sound more open than the plugins. If the HW was a plugin, I'd say 'that' plugin sounded better than the others. Another thing to be mindful of is the inputs, JFET or not, and how you drive them into the HW algorithm. This can add non-linear effects that would vary from what a plugin may emulate although you can model some of the non-linearity in the plugin too.
What a great blast from the past! I just subbed! Looking forward to watching more great content from you, Billy.👍
Thank you!
Love your videos and your expert advice. Always so topical. Thank you.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
The wedge does something I always look for in reverbs: it fits. It just sits in like a puzzle piece, its hard to explain. It's not building up weird low mids, its not washing out everything, it just works. I thought the midiverb was really cool on the drums in the full mix. The Rev7 is something I'd normally like, with the big 80s high end, but there is something seriously weird about the phase with that one. Vintage verb is what I currently use and I'm pretty happy. Also that spring reverb is so vibey and cool. I think in this musical context especially, it sounds like a big old western canyon.
Yes! I used that Wedge on a lot of records before I went totally In The Box. The Yamaha did have some weird stuff going on but I wasn't sure if it always sounded like that or because it's older than the hills., but it still has a cool sound for certain things.
Thanks, this was rally entertaining and just shows what you can achieve with limited gear if you learn it well. Look forward to checking out some more of your videos.
I learned most of what I know because I had a limited amount of gear. Too many choices can slow you down and actually deter creativity.
Fantastic comparison. Thank you for taking the time to do this! For fun I would've loved to have heard Dverb compared as the stock ProTools plug-in.
I think that spring reverb is just magic! I must have grown up listening to a lot of spring reverb. Hearing that yamaha rev 7 brought me back to 90's country! super nostalgic sound.
indeed it is .
The Rev 7 is special. Incredibly musical.
Sounded rather harsh and shrill alone but sat great in the mix.
10:15 to my old analogue sound guy/digital engineer/bass player/Gen X ears, that Rev 7 is spot on.. gives a little sparkle and action to those drums.
And that old spring reverb JUST DELIVERS genuine sound..
That spring verb sounds fantastic!
Great video! I can't believe how well Midiverb and Rev7 sit in the mix. On this comparison, they sound the best. EDIT: Spring reverb was amazing too. Check out the Gamechanger Light Pedal for a cool alternative. Love sending vocals/synths through that.
The big problem with reverb is, we have forgot to listen how good they sound and we where blinded by the new reverbs. The industry says us what is good and what is not longer good.
RUclips tells us now whats good and what not…
I mean... isn't this showing the process of how all of the famous verb units became famous over time? As in it's the quirks and oddities of those units that made them stand apart in a mix, not the fact they had perfect emulation and "clean" tails. When an engineer / producer discovered those quirks and oddities and made a hit track using them, it's only then that those units became desirable and famous. There's a reason plug in makers have painstakingly tried to recreate these units in exact detail, which is to get those specific quirks and oddities. Watching you "discover" the quirks and oddities about your old verb units is demonstrating that process and how something that shouldn't work turns out to be brilliant in the mix and becomes a "go to" gem. Great video :)
Thank you!
Your face expression while following the lyrics lol. The passion.
The passion is strong. Sometimes too strong ha ha! Hope you are well.
The EeeMmmTtt patch on the Alesis wedge is my favorite on vocals. It just sounds so good.
I really liked how warm both Alesis units sounded in your video.
I need to try that patch.
The Alesis Wedge was actually supposed to be the top of the line but because the form factor was desktop few were willing to accept it versus a rack mount. They blew them out because they did not sell well even though they were the best of the Alesis stuff. I like my wedge. If your Wedge cuts out from time to time open her up and pull the chip blow out the receptacle and then reset the chip.
Very cool video, thanks for posting. I love me some Lexicon plate, even the plugin.
The Rev7 is a great sounding verb but the sound of the spring unit blew my mind. As an engineer that cut his teeth in the early 80's I've had a hard time finding verb plugins that really excite me like the dedicated hardware did back in the day. Especially when it comes to plates. I was lucky enough to mix on a lot of good plates...boy do I ever miss them in my home studio.
Man, I've thought about building a plate reverb. Burt the spring reverb surprised me too, I hadn't listened to it in a long time.
I'm stoked to have stumbled across this channel. It's my number one at the moment.
New viewer here, great content… as someone else said, it was clear after about 60 seconds that you’re “in the biz” for real. Reminds me of many fun days spent shooting out gear with my teachers and mentors. In the mid 2000s I started buying hardware verbs for my studio because the reverb plugins available at the time sounded mediocre and were incredibly taxing on CPU. Times have changed but my Wedge, PCM70 and M300 still have this special magic, especially when mixing on a console and summing the returns analog. Thanks for the vid!
Thank you! I sure wish I had a PCM70!
You had everything perfectly balanced in level. This is key, to make sure everything is easily comparable and there is no 'louder is better' business, going on. I am a big hardware fan myself. Also have a Midiverb II which I love, as well as a Yamaha SPX990 and a Boss SE-70.
the Boss is insane
Personally i love convolution reverb. I have a library with IRs taken from the classics, Bricasti & Lexicon classics, EMT plates, Grampian spring etc. It sounds lovely, and with current plugins you can sculpt the length of the tail and such very precisely. Sometimes i put a very short ambience reverb from an algorithmic reverb beforehand just so that the tail isn’t exactly the same every time, which is the problem with convolution reverbs. (You can really hear it on sampled drums.) You can use that trick, i’m not a person who keeps my tricks a secret. I want everyone to make good sounding music.
Yes! I have Altiverb and use it a lot. I've even created some of my own IRs.
would you be awesome and share your IR's?
I would need to export them from Altiverb I suppose. Never thought about that.
Thanks to everyone for watching, liking, commenting and subscribing from this video. I'm not sure why this one finally got views but it's awesome. I love making videos!
I do a lot of different kinds of videos and I put them out when I can between projects I'm working on. I wish I could be more consistent but it's just me doing these when I can.
I've been thinking about the next videos I should make and figured I'd poll everyone here about that. So if you could, please reply to this comment about what videos you'd me to make.
Thanks!
We love you making videos :) This is probably an interesting topic for audio nerds. If you have any other hardware vs plugin comparisons that would be great. I am specifically thinking about chorus effects... *holds thumbs*
Stick a compressor on the send to the reverb, with an EQ in the side chain being fed from the vocal. Find the freqs causing the sibilance and get the compressor to duck when they hit. This will tame the issue with the rev7.
Videos are like songs - better to have a few great ones, that a huge number of mediocre ones. This one was pretty great. I'm happy to wait for yur next.
Videos are so so time consuming. I spend months getting them "perfect" and then just a bit down the road the errors start to raise their tiny heads and make me say Gah. I've even taken some down. Perfectionism is my biggest obstacle, although you might never know it from my videos.
I like the comparisons of plugs and rack gear. A lot of folks who are considering a bit of OTB adventuring find those useful. As said previously, whenever you get to it is fine, make sure you have enough time left over to enjoy. Cheers!
@@wjniemi Thanks! Yes, these kinds of videos are hard to make and I always find errors later and then get complaints. I just put out a new one today and it took a while because I was trying to get everything correct, but I'm sure someone will find something wrong ha ha! ruclips.net/video/qBoP1H3ocLY/видео.html
Your gear is really nice, and that first song is very beautiful, great vocals! I had a nice Ibanez DD 1000 unit years ago, loved it (It almost did reverb lol). Since I got REmatrix and most of the convolution packages from Overloud I never use any of my other verbs. REmatrix has both convolution and algorithm as well. I simply do not even seek better verbs, REmatrix is it for me.
Thanks! I loved those Ibanez units.
Thank you!
Old school Bro, Its the way too go Love to hear the difference of the plugin to a Lexicon Lark
My Midiverb 2 has done me proud for decades. Everybody who ever sneered at it ate humble pie. Now they are sought after for their "pleasing grain".
We had a Midiverb 2 in the rack of our production studio back in the 90s when I worked at a local FM station. Couldn't get enough of playing with it and always loved the sound. My voice never sounded better than when I had a touch of effect from the Midiverb patched in. To my ear the Rev7 and the Midiverb 2 blow away the plugins on all tests. Awesome that youve got yours. I just loved that piece of equipment.
Glad you changed your mind about the Rev7 on the snare, cause it sounded good to me immediately in the mix!
Just found your Channel.
Really liked this, yo.
My Dad's studio back in the 80s had a MIDIVERB II.
Still one of my favorite outboards today.
Wow, the sprint reverb on the vocals is so musical and sits in the mix really well. Surprising! The Rev7 on the drums is excellent. Also sits in the mix well. Sounds like the overheads come to life.
That Master Room unit sounds fantastic - especially with the Stereo treatment :) Get one more, build in a pre-delay unit and call it the day :P
Having used plugins for a long time, I tend to more and more like dedicated hardware, the character and 'uncertanties' in those are very hard to beat. So I'll keeo my MPX100, M300, Stuidio Quad V2, Monarch EEM-3000 and DP4 now. I was close to sell them all off a couple of years ago - I'm super happy I didn't!
/ and I'm glad I found your channel, good stuff here!
Nice video. I had all these except for the wedge. I almost bought one, but never did, as cheap lexicons started to come out, and I think I opted for those. I loved the REV7 on drums in the mix. Vocals through it? I'd definitely, eq or filter out the top. Maybe as low as 4 khz. Wayyyy to bright for vocals for my taste. But hey, taste is subjective right? S's sail through verbs with that much top end, and clutter the mix. That said, I'm with you on the drums. All that top end on the drum kit really brought something out on them. Made a sense of "clarity" even though it was obviously less clear. Psychoacoustic thing I guess. Very cool.Really Surprised. You're around my age, maybe a few years ahead of me, but I love your videos. Brings me back. And you're humble and grounded as far as I can tell. Subscribing now. Keep em coming! Thanks!
I have one of those Master Room spring reverbs...exact same unit! Never thought of mono/stereo reverb differences too much but when you copied it and offset the duplicate to make a stereo track, that was cool. I'm going to try this myself. It did sound good on the vocal.
I liked the Rev 7 on the snare...not sure if that's what you were referring to as the surprise.
Well... don't throw them away! I think they all have so much character, not easily done with any of the plugins. It makes me happy for some reason. So much 'real' space.
Thanks for the terrific comparisons. That's a lot of work. Appreciated.
Thanks!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember using a Midiverb III back in the day (the successor to the Midiverb II). Later, I bought an Alesis Microverb and then an Alesis Wedge for my own equipment inventory. Hearing the Wedge again on this video brought back a lot of memories of using it as the primary reverb on lead vocals back then.
Yes, I used the Wedge on a bunch of Lil Jon mixes in the late 90's - early 2000's before I went totally in the box. This was at my home studio called The Zone and I was so embarrassed by the fact that I was using an Alesis reverb that I made a big label that said "X42 Y45 Device" that I put over the Alesis logo so that anyone seeing it would think I had something special.
I'm a huge Alesis fan. My main recorder is a HD24 , 24 in 24 out. ZERO cut and paiste , pitch correction...or anything to make it not true....if the take sucks.....we do it again. Love the Microverb series too. Love the channel Billy. I'm binge watching them all.
Twas interesting. Thanks for the mix and great vibes.
Rev7 sound amazing!
Love the video. Noticed you have a QuadraVerb in the rack. Used to love that thing. Extremely versatile. Fairly high signal to noise ratio for studio, but man that thing was great for live shows.
Thanks! I used it as a guitar fx rig back when I played live a lot. Cool unit.
I agree on the brighter reverb on the snare, not so good in solo, but in the track it was a standout in a good way. Just listening to this while I was doin some stretching, nice chill way to nerd out about audio. also wasn't going to plug it, but u said unique and I think my music is unique if u are bored and what to check it... peace
Keeping secrets??? hah! great vid! rev7 on drums was sick!
That's awesome, I had an Alesis Micro(?)verb I used with my 4 track and it was great!
Really nice tune !! Great vocals !!
awesome vid! thank you for being so active to the community, we all truly appreciate everything that you share with us! all this is helpful
I appreciate you watching and sharing!
I own several multieffect racks, 2 REV500 Yamahas and a MPX500 Lexicon. I also have 2 Eventide H9 Max pedals. It's a very interesting exercise to compare high end plugins to older gear. There is a definite edge of feel from old stuff. But, as always, horses for courses.
Fascinating video, Billy. Thank you! Whilst none of the hardware verbs might be super high end (lexicon, bricasti...) I def preferred all of them over the plugins. To my mind I think there's something to be said about reverb being processed by a dedicated unit because of how these units will be able to keep the time coherence in the effect - especially reverb tails. A thought that keeps popping into mind is that DSP processing is essentially linear, so how is it possible to have multiple (parallel) effects going at the same time without introducing some sort of phase issues with the mix - and this is especially so regarding reverb? I dunno, I can't wrap my head around this idea. Anyway thanks again for a great video
Thanks! I too have wondered why the hardware units sound better. But I think you've got a good theory as to why.
Audio on computers generally is well buffered, so everything should be predictably coherent - ie no phase issues. It is not 'live' in the same way as analogue equipment. You can tell - at different soundcard buffer sizes you can have significant differences in CPU usage.
One of the great features of external effects is the subtleties of the analogue electronics and the ADC and DAC. This even includes how component noise can affect an audio signal as well as differences between opamps, transistor types and capacitors and good pcb layout.
Much of the great gear has 'character's - some gear is used for its transformers, buffers etc and not for the supposed effect itself. In purist terms you might think that is bad, but it's all about colour.
@@l3eatalphal3eatalpha Thanks for the reply. I do understand the benefits of hardware character and colour, and how that would affect the tone of the hardware reverbs. I also understand what you mean by buffering but I still wonder how that buffering is processed. I am not a technical DSP wiz and so I struggle to wrap my mind around how, even including the buffering, the audio samples are processed to be "released" with exactly the right timing. There is so much going on under the hood with multitudes of effects that, as good as the DSP engineering is, I still can't fathom how some sort of subtle phasing wouldn't happen especially with specifically time dependent effects such as reverb. My brain struggles to comprehend :)
@@owlmuso
Because on computers the effects aren't done 100% live, they are buffered so in fact the audio is prepared, phase correct, in advance. The buffer is the look ahead time that the processors have to assemble the audio. Small buffer=very little time=harder on the processor.
If you have a dsp outboard unit eg digital reverb there is nothing that you can do in these that cannot be done in a DAW - just need to reproduce the algorithms and have enough processing power.
The timing is so short it appears live, but if you have a buffer of 512 samples @ 48kHz that is a delay (ie latency) of 512/48000 = 10.7ms, so you barely notice. Except maybe whilst tracking.
Another element with latency is within plugins. Different plugins have their own latency. But this is registered with the plugin, so the DAW can time align them all perfectly. A simple effect may only need eg 32 samples latency (or 0, even, so it actually is live) whilst a complex task may need eg 2048 samples. A DAW will account for all of these in its signal paths (really data paths).
I hope that is any help at all. Just keep plugging away - it will all make sense some day and then you will be unable to remember why you didn't get it in the first place.
In the early days of Protools there was no latency compensation. You had to put short delays on each track and delay them to match the track with the most latency. pain in the ass. But they soon made it automatic.
Impresive😳 Still have my TC M2000 i loved for live use, in dualmode, and a TC M one, maybe i should hook it up to my DAW🤔🤔 i also like the effects in my MIDAS MR18
I liked the comparison and your ability to walk through the different verbs. They each had a different character which definitely stood out.
But the best part was the beautiful song. Truly a beautifully recorded and written track done by musicians with genuine talent and great voices. The reverb just added that layer of sparkle on those great performances.
Loved it. Song was an instant classic!
I miss hearing real songs like this. ❤😢
Thanks so much!!! I always try to find the best music for my videos and I'm lucky enough to have worked with some great artists.
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume I was 100% sincere. Praise is just as important as criticism as they say.
SOOOO glad I hung onto my tc electronics M350. Not the top of the line but veeery smooth and controllable.
I am particular to the Yamaha, perhaps it is the clarity, but I agree with you more suited to background vocals. We used an SPX90 for years and it was a treasure.
When I was a kid, I bought the kit version of the Radio Shack "reverb" I did all kinds of experiments with it. It used a Reticon SAD1024 CCD delay chip. I made phasers and flangers and got some really messed up sounds. I learned so much from that kit at helped me in my electronic music career for life. Anyway, time to hook up my cheap processors and pass some electrons through them.
It is worth getting the old gear circuit bent with a clock mod. A half rack alesis
or clone of unit is a good use. The very budget little boxes with sixteen settings
and sixteen variations. Adds new life to it. Ring mods on old Zoom rfx units are worth listening to without modification. The distortion on the old yamaha REx 50/sp90
is also very impressive and kinda unique.
They all sounded great i really like that spring reverb
The old spring reverb sounds much more lively to me. I still love the verbs in my old Roland SE 50
The Rev7 is a great bit of kit. Hard to find one in good condition because most people hammered them.
I still use my old Digitech Studio Quads for pretty much everything that doesn't need to sound super spacey. That's Valhalla Supermassive's job.
Supermassive is amazing!
I loved that wedge on the Drums
Wow..... Rev7 sits in the mix perfectly w/ vocals. I wasn't expecting that!
Exactly! I remembered liking it back in the day, but listening to it now.... what a vibe!
Rev7 is/was a beast.Nice work mate
Thanks!
A lot of this is horses for courses but I've been mixing in the box for years and using all sorts of reverbs and delays even ones that are trying to emulate old outboard gear. However for some reason when Im bothered and hook up some of my old outboard do you even just an old guitar Intellifex modulation unit this is just a clarity and depth to the reverb and in some cases an easy to access sonic character that seems to be close enough to what I'm after then with a little tweaking sits nicely in the mix. This video is great I love when people pull out all gear and do some shootouts and become surprised with the outcomes. To be honest with this style of song I think that spring reverb is absolutely perfect and to me finds a nice creamy list shop and brittle as opposed to the valhalla's top end and really lends to the genre and gives the vocal and the song a real down-to-earth retro feel. Love it.
First time here. I like your vibe dude. Nice song too.
I'm a hardware man :-).
BTW I like very much your mixes
I wish you the best, thanks for your videos
Thanks for watching and being here! Just put out a new video.
Love that spring reverb in stereo!
Spring reverb on fiddle can be great. I ran it live back in the day and it was pretty great as long as it didn't feedback!
Cool video man the textures analog bring
These are great examples of how fantastic some of those old racks can revive the "mojo" you may be looking for in your mix.
cheers!
Thank you!
Excellent video... well done. And a timely reminder that the world's best reverb won't make a generic new country song more interesting.
Thanks! And yes, at the wend of the day THE most important things are the song and performance.
"Generic new country". How many Ivor Novello awards do you have sitting on your mantelpiece?
Very interesting. And fantastic music too. I've been buying hardware reverbs myself after trying a Bricasti, comparing it to the Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven - its very different. The hardware reverb gives a sense of space, without really being noticable, the plugin seems glue itself on top of the audio, is very noticable - yet the space is less satisfying. This convinced me to first try an MPX1 - since it was so cheap...it was so much better than any reverb I had as a plugin, that I then went and bought a PCM90, which I'm looking forward to arriving any day.
I do happen to have the Alesis Midiverb you have, it was left in my studio - it works fine but its quite a noisy box and you cannot do anytihng with the presets, even so - still sounds kind of interesting in a way that plugins do not.
Your tests, have convinced me, I'm making some good investments. I preferred all of your hardware reverbs over the plugins.
The Altiverb, sounded kind of lifeless, the REV7 was great, the wedge and the Alesis midiverb - all had something going for it that I preferred. The spring reverb was beautiful on the vocal - amazing singer and song of course, but it evoked something. I am beginning a search now for the unit you have here.
Enjoyable vid, will subscribe for the music alone!
Thanks! You're so right. And you're going to love that PCM90.
I feel the same. I have a Rev-5 and a PCM-81, and it's 'in there' in a way I can't describe.
I have a lexicon mpx1 in my rack right now, haven't used in years I was just thinking about using it the other day when I was frustrated with all my plugin reverbs, they all sounded so dense, I think tommorrow I will make a spot in my patch bay, when I heard you testing these old units it all came flooding back that's the sound! I thought I was remembering wrong but no! That is the sound I am looking for, so transparent
Yes, use it. Let me know how it sounded.
I suspect we may be victims of nostalgia, here. With fresher ears I guess I CAN hear what we liked so much about those old algorithmic hardware reverbs that we ended up over-using them way past the saturation point. It's a sound that takes me back. But even back then, there was a reason the big studios were spending seven grand and up on Bricastis and Quantecs; they could do believable small spaces/short reverbs, with little to no warble or graininess. These days, native reverbs smoke just about any low end hardware from that period, with maybe some exceptions for classic boxes like Lexicon's.
I have an Alesis Microverb lV. It was what I could afford at the time. Back in the '90s. I loved it. I could get good sounds out of it. I had a DBX stereo 266xl compressor. That's what I started with. I got a microphone pre-amp later but found I could get a good sound with what I had. I was just recording our band. At first it was demos then it got to be more. I started recording other bands. I was more of a producer than a good engineer. I could just hear what potential some songs had. It was fun.
That yahama sounds pretty good, the problem is the song your using it’s too busy with guitars in stereo so it’s hard to hear the reverb
That spring reverb amazing
That XL-121 with delay and "fake stereo" has some serious mojo.
Every one of us "Old School" Engineers that I have ever known had a Midiverb back in the day.
Super useful, and decent sounding unit. Even if it was "cheap"
I've got 3 Midiverb ll's. All converted to 230V mains with internal toroid transformers. Excellent units!
I use 25 or 26 on vocals. 25 is varm and dark, while 26 is more bright.
I sometimes use a spring reverb but for some applications, like the one in this video, it seems to ring out for a bit too long without much way to control it.
To remedy this I record the fully wet reverb output to a DAW track, then put the reverb track through a gate plugin with a decay control. The gate is keyed (sidechained) to the source material, which in this case is the dry vocal.
And presto: a crude reverb decay control. Also you can shift the reverb track to the right by some milliseconds to create pre-delay.
I suppose you could use some hardware gates for this job too, but I like the convenience of doing it in the DAW.
Yeah that spring reverb was the feels right there on that vocal
I still love and prefer the outboard verbs. It's too much work to use them all the time but I still prefer!
So This was the first video of the day. Makes me wonder why youtube took so long to recommend your video. Instant sub. I can't tell you the last time i watched a video from start to finish. I miss the road and hanging around like minded folks. I learned in the day from just talking shop. Now all youtube feeds me is some goober with the secret sauce to killer kicks or some shit. Im gonna have to watch this again. Interesting the old verbs seam wider and sit in the mix better. Thanks again for posting this.
Thanks! I miss the road and talking shop too. You might like my videos about not using reverb on vocals and using 2 reverbs on vocals: ruclips.net/video/YfpLnvfw3GQ/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/SUohmVkYhOg/видео.html
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume Will go check it out now.. I need to watch things the get me thinking in the morn before i start my day. Looks like you got about 160 videos. This should keep me going for a bit.. I also had the CD and Dat player just like yours. The dat player died and never fixed it. I need to, and my son is now 23 and was 4ish when the cd burner ejected the CD. he some how slipped on a stool and pulled the tray out it and broke it. and his sippie cup lid was not on and went on my console.. It just dont seam like that cd burner would have been that old and out of service that long. I guess so.. shit we are getting old.. Dam it..
Oh man... I haven't thought about sippie cups in years. Now 2 of my boys want to be in a band with me. Time flies...
I Like your vids, subscribed after I watched a few that came up on my feed.
I like to cut a lot of the highs and lows, seems these units are kinda pre-mixed, no mushy lows.
Vintage spring reverb is surprisingly good and natural... Like it!
love my tc.electronics M2000. Once I made an as natural as possible room with it for a radio broadcast. It was stunning. When it's on, it sounds like the person was in your room. It wasn't an effect at all, it was the secret ingredient which “holds the room together”.
Very cool!
TC electronic stuff is great I have the unity card in my Yamaha O2R amazing sound.
I like how you will change direction no matter how much time you have put into something. It's hard to reset when you realise something isn't right especially when you've put so much time into it. In production you have to be able to let go of something that isn't working.
Great stuff. You’re an artist and an inspiration
Thank you!
Rev7 sounds like 80s themselves. Love it!
Fantastic video. Even the cheap units compared to all of the plugins are night and day...
Yes! And it's been decades since some of the hardware unitas was built. I just don't understand why they can't make plugins as good.
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume One is 1s and 0s and the other is 1s and 0s but with chips that sound amazing for some reason.
But even the cheap spring reverb unit sounds incredible and if you know how to build one you can do it for less than a price of a plugin.
@@NikosPage I've been thinking of making a spring or plate reverb. I just need the time.... But it might make a good video.
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume Please do and I'll make one with you :D
@@NikosPage Any suggestions on good instructions or videos about making one?
You are giving me verb flashbacks 😀I can almost smell those units running hot in my room
Ha ha! Not the kind of flashbacks I have. But I do miss the smell of an old school control room.