Hi all,

I've been off the grid here for quite a while but have a little question to put to the masses.

I'm changing up my studio at the moment and my ways of working. Ideally I could do with a new reverb VST and was wondering if there's anything these days that remotely comes close to the gritty stuff from the 80s/early 90s - Alesis Midiverb II and Ensoniq DP/4 for example?

A few years ago I tried the D16 Toraverb which I thought was okay without being amazing. Is there anything else worthwhile on the market these days? A lot of the software FX I've tried recently is so clinical and modern-sounding that it's not really for me. I know this might be a big ask.. the trend these days seems to be in emulating and cloning old synths rather than the FX that made them shine back in the day (although maybe I'm not looking hard enough ).

Any help much appreciated.

Cheers,
Binny

Valhalla Vintage Verb.

The answer is in the name.

There are a lot of vst fx that emulate lo-fi converters, tape machines and record players. I can’t remember what any of the are called now, i’ve not used a computer for making music for about 7 or 8 years now. I do remember getting pretty pleasing results using these before and/or after other fx. There was one that was a freeware that had an ‘Amiga’ preset that was just right. The developer also had a tape machine emulator, I think it was called ‘ferox’ that also sounded pretty good to me. I used to use that first, to sort of dirty up the source sound a little bit, then apply a reverb (or whatever) and then apply the Amiga preset afterwards. Sounded convincing enough in a mix. To me, anyway.

Hope this makes sense and helps. I wish I could remember the names of these plugins!

Binny how could you abandon us

Jeroen Breebaart, Ferox and Timemachine. Those are the plugins I was thinking of. At last! Both freeware and were pretty good. There are probably better ones out there nowadays, mind.

Thanks for the suggestion but I have tried it in the past and found it very smooth-sounding and to be honest... a bit vanilla. Maybe it's my ears.

Nice one thanks. I'll give them a go today and if they're free.. even better.
The more I can grit things up, the better - I don't really do subtle .

Awww. I'm actually moving my studio to another room, so will be redesigning it from scratch. There will be plenty of gear sold and bought over the next 12 months so I will probably be all over this board for a good while. Might even post a studio build thread.

Hey man, love your records! I'm also obsessed with old techno and I work exclusively ITB (mostly FX based in a Basic Channel / Deepchord kinda way) so I've spent a LOT of timing looking for this kinda stuff.

So, the truth is that there aren't any plugins directly emulating the DP/4 or the Alesis reverbs. Audiority Xenoverb has a 'flow' algorithm which is based on the allpass architecture of the Alesis verbs but I don't think it sounds quite as gritty (XenoVerb - Creative Multi Algorithm Reverb - Audiority | VST AU AAX). Other than that, ValhallaVintage does sound incredible, but it almost sounds too expensive in a way since it's mostly based on expensive Lexicon, AMS and EMT units. I'm not sure if you can can make it sound exactly like a DP/4 or Quadraverb but you can get it in a pretty good sort of general gritty direction. It takes some time to figure out though. The important parts are choosing the 80s mode, one of the more colourful algorithms (the 'dirty' and 'chaotic' ones are pretty dirty) cutting a good amount of lowend and highend, decreasing the stereo width and cranking the bass multiplier to around 2x-2,5x. Then, further processing can shape it really nicely, injecting some noise really helps since those old boxes were noisy as hell and then some saturation and tasteful bitcrushing (D16 Decimort and the new RX950 based on the S950 are pretty much the best at that). I would also check PSP 2445, it's based on the digital EMTs. It does a very good old digital plate reverb in an authentic way, not as thick and creamy as the Valhalla. If you add some saturation and EQ you should get pretty close to that 90s techno digital plate reverb sound. I prefer Valhalla because it's more flexible but the PSP does a really good job at that one thing.

As far as other FX go, the last 2-3 years have been really good in terms of vintage FX, altough most of them are based on analog FX, vintage digital ITB is still a bit lacking. First of all, check out everything from Audiority, the dude is on fire right now. As far as delays go, there were two great Space Echo emulations released in the last year or so, Audiothing Outer Space and Surreal Machines Modnetic. The new Bucket-500 from Fuse Audio does a really nice warm, gritty BBD delay, the best I've heard ITB so far. Audiority Deleight is based on the Korg DL8000R and does pretty good 90s rackmount multitap delay. If you don't care about realtime control, Acustica Audio Lemon has sampled like 20 different rackmount delays and it really nails THAT sound but due to the sample-based nature it's kinda unusable for dub-style live send FX. If you care to get into UAD, they have modelled the AMS reverb and the Korg SDD-3000. Cytomic The Drop does an incredible job at authentic analog filtering. XILS-LAB ChorX does a great gritty BBD chorus, it has a noise/hiss parameter that gets really dirty. For super gritty phasing Soundtoys Phasemistress is still king, actually all the Soundtoys stuff does cheap gritty vintage FX really well. Soundtoys PrimalTap is pretty much the best gritty vintage digital delay ITB out there. The Eventide H3000 plugins also do a very good job at warm vintage digital (especially the filters) and can get very crazy, probably the closest thing ITB to those old multi FX boxes if you program them right. Also check out the D16 FX, the phaser, chorus and flanger all sound great. Especially the flanger (Antresol) does a great job at emulating the Mistress pedal flange, which is on a lot of 90s records, I think. At last the ancient (in terms of plugins) MDE-X multi-fx from Korg are a bit of secret weapon for me. They're based on the Triton FX, I think and the modulation FX sound great. The delay and reverb are kinda ****ty, but in sort of an endearing, early 2000s multi-FX way.

I feel your pain Binny, I also make techno, and if I recall, we use similar gear.

I have a hybrid setup, and tracking external effects quite frankly takes a long time and is a buzkill. That said, when I use the midiverb, or the DP4, it just sounds right and it’s easier to mix.

When I use software verbs I use VVV, Black Hole, and Eventide UltraVerb (I think that’s what it’s xalled). They all sound good, but it’s not the same thing. I guess hiss, limited frequency ranges, converters, do add the elusive “mojo” or something.

U-he's got that free one, protoverb, it's become very popular...

Protoverb 1.0

Any effects plugin and Chipcrusher.

Soundtoys Little Plate 100%! Replaced Valhalla as my go-to. Cheap and dead simple. Though I have, with these recent dirty reverb threads,
been very tempted to run my OG 90’s Zoom 505 multifx as an outboard send! Would be glorious trash on some throwback techno (and not so much on electric guitar it was made for)...

Thankyou very much, and for all that info... that's a seriously detailed reply so can't thank you enough there. I'll be checking out all of that in a moment when I head up to the studio. Will report back with findings!

Yeah I think we do have similar kit. The main difference for me is how dense the reverbs sound in those particular outboard units. With the DP/4 especially they can effectively become the main/dominating sound in the tune without it sounding like crap or too washed out . I think some of Regis' productions show this off quite well. Some of the reverbs on the box sound pretty un-natural but to be honest I find that a big part of the appeal.

Thanks, I'll take a look at that tonight!

Thanks, I'll look into that too!

I'm aware of the SoundToys stuff but not actually tried that specific one.. or heard of it to be honest. I must have missed it but definitely sounds like something I'd use. Thanks!

Out of curiousity, what reverb patches do you like the DP4? I mostly use it for other stuff (flange, etc) with MidiVerb on reverb duty, but clearly I need to explore more.

Yeah my MidiVerb II also gets more use here for reverbs to be honest.
I tend to use my Microverb (1/3 rack thing) on drum channels too. Sounds great, very similar to the Midiverb. Recommended if you ever find one cheap. I've got the 3 in a rack (MicroVerb, MicroLimiter, MicroGate).

I've got a TC Electronic M300 which I use for cleaner stuff too (still sounds good though, think the algorithms are based on higher-end units).

To be honest the main one I've used on the DP/4 is the Gated Reverb but I also love one called Phased Hall or something? Maybe that's a preset instead of an algorithm... not sure. Sounds great though.

On side note, I find I have to be careful with the width of the reverbs on the DP/4 as they collapse to basically nothing in mono, so I tend to narrow them by maybe 30-40%.

I tend to flick through stuff on the front panel and edit when I find something close to what I'm after although I've recently been running it as a 4 mono in / 1x stereo out via the returns on my desk and creating my own 4x 1u presets. Really like the pitch shifters, chorus but I've not explored the delays too much. I find they do take up a lot of room in the mix so would probably be really good for something like dub techno where the elements are more sparse?

Eventide MangledVerb is dirty af.

Oh and how could I forget my favorite delay, Replika Xt can get filthy as well...

I think the key is less about what particular reverb plugin one uses, and more about how that reverb return is processed. You gotta dirty it up. Try things like a bit-crusher or decimator, anything lo-fi followed by a LPF. You can do distortion, saturation, or even a touch of fuzz. Tape plugins like Satin or Echoboy can add some nice random wobble and flutter. Then finding the right pitch modulation to play off of the modulation of the reverb itself. Its just a matter of messing about to get it right.

Also, old school reverb are mono. Or maybe reduce the stereo width a good bit to give it a less modern sound?

The DP/4 did do stereo reverb.

A lot of vintage 1980s effects units also make a bit of hiss and high end noise

One trick I learned back then (and still use in hardware) was to EQ the high end down a bit to cut out noise and then bring it back with an Aphex Aural Exciter so you went Reverb>>>EQ>>>Aphex Aural Exciter

The Aphex Aural Exciter is one of the most misunderstood pieces of gear in history, but this trick was used in all kinds of 1980s records and has and has a distinct sound.

There are many Aphex Aural Exciter plugs if you want to emulate ITB it should be easy to do

@3:48 EQD Transmisser Reverb


@8:08 EQD Ghost Echo Reverb


EQD Afterneath Reverb


EQD Dispatch Master Echo & Reverb