Context is solo classical guitar. Original plan was to record in a cathedral, but that plan hs been nixed due to my erratic work schedule. I've been fighting with Ableton for the past few weeks simply because it came with my interface and it had a nice stock reverb. There is a cathedral in my town that is cavernous, but with hardly any glass or marble surfaces, its mostly wood and plaster. So the reverb decay is very smooth and even with no zingy overtones. I'm trying to simulate that reverb. I've been able to come close, but not quite, with Ableton's stock reverb, and with Ambience VST. Nothing I tried in reaverb came close, and since I am a rank newbie, it's likely I don't understand how to tweak the settings. Any thoughts on tweaking reaverb, or using any other available plugins to get closer to the sound I described?
Try long predelay times above 80ms. And reverb time around 3-5 sec. Try to play with the high frequencies (3-6db shelf up or down @ ~ 12kHz or lower). Check you find a list of reverb plugins I liked for free. And look for impulse responses from cathedrals/churches:
I like some of the free Bricasti reverb impulses. Try setting up a reverb send with an EQ before the reverb, maybe some delay, the reverb itself, and another EQ on the end. And post what you did and a recording if you can! Always glad to hear stuff that works for somebody.
I prefer convolution reverbs for this (and most) kind of application. I use Christian Knufinke's wonderful SIR2 reverb and it includes an impulse response from a real Church. I'm sure other reverbs would have similar responses. If you find a free impulse, you can use it with Reaper's ReaVerb, although I really don't like it personally.
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Can one ever, have too many reverbs? It would be fun to start a thread entitled, "How many different reverbs do you own?" or, "How many different plug ins are on your current work machine?"
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Valhalla Room and VintageVerb aren't just "fx" reverbs, they are good for more realistic and subtle ambiences too, IMHO. After I got those I haven't used bricasti impulses (let alone any other reverb impulses) once. Perhaps if I'd be doing sound design, I could use some real space impulses for authencitiy but for music and instruments I prefer VR and VVV. But of course many impulses and convolution verbs are free so those bricasti impulses are great starting point. And my personal tastes are just that, personal. They might not work for you. I just thought I'd share them :)
For convolution, I'm not sure if Reverberate was mentioned. You can really craft the reverb tail as I recall, doing things like adding modulation to improve IR's which often seem to sound sterile or "lifeless" to me on their own. I have pretty much ditched that whole approach (of sifting through millions of IR's, etc) after getting Valhalla Room. It's pretty easy to learn to tweak and there are a lot of good presets for starting points.