Lustrous Plates Surround 1.2 by LiquidSonics
Lustrous Plates Surround is a modern plate reverb emulation with ten distinctive plate models for use in stereo, surround and Atmos mixes up to 7.1.6. As they have with a couple of their other excellent reverbs lately, LiquidSonics have added very effective dynamics functions to both the stereo-only version and the surround version of Lustrous Plates, which I’ll describe here.
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Above is a view of Lustrous Plates Surround 1.2 with the new Dynamics tab between the EQ and Level tabs. Note in this case a stereo input is being processed to 7.1.2 channels. For a brief history of plate reverbs, see the original Lustrous Plates Surround review above.

Lustrous Additions
Lustrous Plates Surround (LPS) uses Fusion-IR | Synthesis, and Temporal Acoustic Spectral Mapping technology (!) to emulate the various plate types as described in the original review above. This is a unique combination of synthesis and convolution processing that is both efficient of processing power and very effective at creating realistic reverberation. This new release expands the previous surround version with the Dynamics controls, increasing the previous 30 adjustable parameters to 42, including 18 surround sound controls.

These controls are available in six panels in the lower part of the GUI, three for general adjustments (Reverberation, Equalisation and Dynamics), and three for surround effects (Level, Delay and Crossfeed). The five panels available in the previous LPS version are described in the review above, so I’ll just cover what the new Dynamics controls can do.

The Dynamics panel includes ducking, compression and gating controls, selected at the far lower right as seen below.

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. . . . . LPS with the dynamics mode selection window opened at lower right with four choices. Note this view shows full
. . . . . surround input levels as well as the output levels.

Ducking and the two compression modes have the same set of controls while gating has different parameters to adjust. Ducking and compression controls include the usual threshold (as low as -90 dBFS), ratio (1:1 up to 10:1), attack (0 to 250 msec), release (0-750 msec), and trim (make-up gain, +/- 20 dB) plus a knee adjustment that runs from 0 dB (hard – very sharp change in gain reduction) to 12 dB (soft – smooth change of gain reduction level).

There is a difference between ducking and compression in terms of control and results – when using ducking the gain reduction is controlled by the original input signal into LPS while gain reduction in the compression modes uses the signal at the input of the compressor module itself, either pre or post reverb processing. The two approaches have different purposes, with ducking used to reduce the density of a reverb while a musical passage or vocal phrase is playing to improve clarity. The reverb only comes up in level when the input sound subsides. I have found this works beautifully when you want heavy or long reverberation during pauses in music or vocals, but find the reverb is otherwise masking the original sound.

Compression, on the other hand, is used to thicken the reverb sound itself, to make it sound more dense, more quickly, than the original reverb signal. So compression can be used to change the character, the colour of the reverberation sound.

Note that these dynamic functions act only on the reverb signal, not on the input or dry signal – even the Compress Input acts on only the input to the reverb processor, not the overall input, so it doesn’t affect the dry signal. All very good stuff.

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. . . . . The top image shows the controls available for ducking and compression while the lower section shows the gate controls.

The reverb Gate mode is very flexible and can yield that Phil Collins drum sound (which should really be called the Hugh Padgham drum sound) as well as some other fascinating effects. It includes Threshold, Hysteresis, Hold, Close, Open and Range controls. Basically when the reverb signal drops below the Threshold setting it’s level is reduced by the amount specified with the Range control. This gain reduction does not need to happen instantly: the Hold setting delays when the gain reduction starts (0 to 1.5 seconds) and, furthermore, the Close setting can extend how long it takes to reach the level reduction set by the Range control, up to 1.5 seconds. The Open setting likewise can slow how quickly the gate opens (0 to 750 msec) when the signal again rises above the Threshold-plus-Hysteresis settings. Hysteresis and Hold are used together to eliminate gate “chatter” which could cause the gate to open and close rapidly for a signal that hovers close to the Threshold setting. Note Range can be set from 0 to 90 dB – using zero results in nothing happening at all!

Used aggressively the gate can create some strong “swoosh” effects, but can also be used subtly to taper off the reverb in a controlled and unique way. A very fine addition to LPS (and to LP).

Presets and Settings
There is of course a Preset window (76 factory presets and as many of your own as you wish to add), an A/B feature allowing to quickly switch between two presets, and an Interactive Assistance available using (?) Icon. The Settings menu (gear icon) enables control locking, adjusting latency in four steps from zero to 8,192 samples, adjusting GUI size from about 300 x 600 to 775 x 1600 pixels, and selecting some advanced settings such as signal processing mode.

Tech Data
Lustrous Plates Surround is available in 64 bit VST 2.4, VST 3, AU and AAX formats for Windows (Windows 7 or above) and Mac OS X 10.9 or above. Lustrous Plates Surround uses the iLok/Pace activation system and operates with iLok 2 or 3 USB dongles, iLok Machine activation or iLok Cloud. Since the iLok system is often updated, be sure to check iLok.com and download the newest version (iLok License Manager v5.4 and up) before trying to use Lustrous Plates Surround. And be sure to be online when you first open it in a DAW because you will get an activation screen that needs to connect to iLok. Enter your activation code and then go to your iLok account to select the activation mode you want. Both Cloud and Machine activation are free, but Cloud requires being actively online whenever you first start using an instance of Lustrous Plates Surround in a project.

In my test system (PC Audio Labs Rok Box PC with Windows 7, 64 Bit, 4-Core Intel i7-4770K, 3.5 GHz, and 16 GB RAM) Lustrous Plates Surround used from approximately 0.4% to about 2% total CPU resources depending on number of audio channels processed and the latency setting: full 7.1.6 mode and zero latency produces the highest CPU load as expected, and stereo at 8,192 samples of latency the lowest. The program when installed and running uses about 300 MB of RAM and there are no associated large folders of impulse response functions needed because of the Fusion-IR | Synthesis technology.

Conclusions
A very powerful, beautiful sounding, and extremely flexible plate reverb emulation gets even better. Lustrous Plates Surround is far beyond a real plate reverb with its surround capability and now with the very effective dynamics controls. As noted before, the multichannel capability depends on your DAW. LPS can use a mono or stereo input and still provide stereo, quad, or more reverb output channels if the host DAW can handle multiple audio channels on a track (great for reverb up-mix duties). Most DAWs today are geared for surround work, so unless you are using Studio One or one of the few other DAWs that doesn’t recognize surround sound, you can do it all with LPS. And if you are sticking to stereo, the new Lustrous Plates 1.2 stereo version includes the dynamics functions, but as noted in the previous review and on the LiquidSonics website, the surround version offers some additional controls even when operated on a stereo track (Crossfeed and Bloom). See the link at the end of this review.

Pros
Excellent “3D” sound quality as expected from LiquidSonics, with sonic environments from stereo to full 7.1.6 surround.

Very fine emulations of plate reverbs with variations and control beyond any hardware unit and beyond any other software emulation I’ve heard.

New dynamics controls are effective for clarifying the source sound in a dense reverb setting, thickening the reverb itself, and for special effects like the Hugh Padgham drum sound.

Very clean GUI with everything you need clearly available.

A good selection of factory presets (76 of them, 48 stereo and 28 surround configurations), and of course the ability to create and save your own.

Extensive real-time control of all (over 55 parameters) available using MIDI automation.

Upgrade from version 1.1 is free, discounts are available from earlier versions, and there is a free 14 day trial period.

Cons
Not a cheap reverb, but high quality never is!

Not really a con, but if you’re looking for more types of reverbs than plates, LPS is not the one to use, but is still worth checking out. You can take a look at the other LiquidSonics offerings on their website – they have reverberation covered extensively.

https://www.liquidsonics.com/softwar...ates-surround/

https://www.liquidsonics.com/2019/08...-so-important/

https://www.liquidsonics.com/2021/11...o-productions/