Fractal reverbs - what inspired them???

[Orvillain]

An idle question really, but I was just curious:

Does each one of these models have a real world pedal or bit of rack gear that inspired it, or is somehow its counterpart??

 

[Will Chen]

Pretty sure the "Cloud" stuff is Strymon Big Sky type stuff. Deep Space definitely has an Eventide Black Hole vibe but can't get as weird without adding additional effects.

EDIT: I should add I have the FM3, so missing some of those as well as the general pitch parameters within the reverb block.

 

[DrewJD82]

Ah, cum on a lonely bus, my favorite reverb!

 

[FractalAudio]

All the reverbs were designed by me. A handful (i.e., North Church) were inspired by the Bricasti M7. Otherwise they weren't inspired by anything in particular.

 

[fretworn]

All the reverbs were designed by me. A handful (i.e., North Church) were inspired by the Bricasti M7. Otherwise they weren't inspired by anything in particular.

Love the FAS reverbs!


I thought I read where you wrote/posted that you had done a deep dive in understanding reverb algorithms … And the one’s like the lexicon’s seems more clear (better) versus reality/convolution.

Was that correct or something else?

 

[la szum]

Love the Plates so much!!

 

[norminal]

Some of the most organic sounding verbs I’ve ever heard.

 

[Orvillain]

All the reverbs were designed by me. A handful (i.e., North Church) were inspired by the Bricasti M7. Otherwise they weren't inspired by anything in particular.

I'm loving them lately. Been using Cumulonimbus a lot recently!

 

[Orvillain]

EDIT: I should add I have the FM3, so missing some of those as well as the general pitch parameters within the reverb block.

Ahhh! Another reason why the FM3 wouldn't really work for me!

 

[FractalAudio]

Love the FAS reverbs!


I thought I read where you wrote/posted that you had done a deep dive in understanding reverb algorithms … And the one’s like the lexicon’s seems more clear (better) versus reality/convolution.

Was that correct or something else?

I read many papers on reverb algorithms and there is one by David Griesinger that talks about perceptual qualities of reverb. I then spent a lot of time working out how to apply that to our reverberator. Our reverberator design is based on a modified FDN. FDNs are easy to make sound good. The hard part is making them sound great. The hardest part is getting the attack right.

 

[Stone]

Love the reverbs in Fractal, much more that the Helix and those were very good

 

[fretworn]

Fun perusal …

David Griesingcr

http://www.davidgriesinger.com/prctpro.pdf

 

[2112]

IMO a great reverb is one you can load up, adjust the mix to taste (as well as the pre-delay if you're really fussy) and then pretty much forget it's there. So many units have reverbs that seem impressive at first listen but then end up sounding grating or cartoonish.

Excellent thread here about the history of Lexicon reverbs for anyone interested.

@FractalAudio if it's not an ancient chinese secret, how does the low freq decay/high freq decay/crossover work in the reverb block? Is there a low and high part of the decay or is it a low/mid/high setup like old Lexicon's where the reverb time sets the mid band decay and the low/high multipliers are calculated from that value?

 

[DrewJD82]

The South Church reverb is my first go-to 9x out of 10, but the Medium Plate has been getting a lot of use lately as well.

 

[Rock Chalk]

North Church panned left and South Church panned right for the win!

 

[metropolis_4]

The only ones I’m not thrilled with are the spring reverbs. They’re serviceable but meh. But digital spring reverb never sounds right for some reason.

It would be so nice to have a really good 6G15 done well.

Other than that they’re the best!

 

[laxu]

I like the North/South Church so much I tried to replicate them on my Strymon Nightsky. Not sure if I nailed them but I got something that I enjoy.

Reverb sound design is a fascinating thing. Reverb can do so interesting things but at the same time it's easy to overdo it and in live situations you might need to dial it to a minimum because of a live room or it being too much for a full band.

At the same time reverb ties everything together so it can be a bit jarring to change between drastically different reverbs because it can be almost like being transported to a different space.

My go-to Fractal reverbs are the Medium Room, London Plate (thanks to Leon Todd using it all the time) and occasionally the Recording Studio rooms.

 

[norminal]

London Plate

Definitely a good one!

 

[Orvillain]

@FractalAudio - Is there a way to get the classic Lexicon reversed/inverse reverb sound???

 

[2112]

@FractalAudio - Is there a way to get the classic Lexicon reversed/inverse reverb sound???

Megatap delay block will do reverse and gated style verbs.

If you've got a mk2 you can load reverb IR's into the fullres banks too.