Yeah, very much agree. To me, the thing that separates out the best from the good is how much wet reverb signal can you add and have it still seem like 'part of the sound'. At some point it crosses over into being an effect bolted on to a sound, rather than it being integrated as one. The thing that amazed me about Lexicon is how much reverb you can add and it remain a cohesive sound.

A lot of the electronic sound sources of the 80's were pretty awful sounding (cough Fairlight cough DX7) but they could sound magical after some expensive outboard: AMS Delay and Lexicon reverb.

I pieced together the linage from various articles. Some of this you'll likely already know, but maybe not all:

The PCM bundle are ported algorithms from the PCM96. The primary algorithm designer was Michael Carnes for the PCM96 and most other Lex products of that era. He left Lexicon and formed Exponential Audio in 2012. Sold the company to Izotope in 2018. The Izotope "Equinox" plugin contains the two Exponential Audio algorithms and are generally highly regarded.

You've got the Dr David Griesinger era of Lexicon that encompasses the 224, 480L and 960L ('70's thru '90's). There's the Carnes blank slate Lexicon algorithms of the 2000's that are still biased towards the signature Lexicon sound but could take advantage of more powerful DSP chips. After that there's the Carnes post-Lexicon Exponential Audio algorithms where he had a free hand to do whatever he liked without being beholden to recreating the Lexicon sound.

You'll notice no new Lexicon algorithms since the PCM96, because they have no algorithm guru to push the state of the art further. But maybe they don't really need to improve on what they have.

It's been fashionable to sneer at the Lex verbs in recent years. But in double blind listening tests they still come among the top, so they're my go-to unless I want AMS RMX nonlin2 or something very specific.

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2025

- Liquid Sonics Cinematic Rooms
- Fabfilter Pro-R2
- Eventide Blackhole Immersive

 

Audioease Altiverb

 

It’s been over 10 years... I sifted through 59 posts... and this guy never once said thank you for giving him his new favorite verb.

At least it's free
Cheap and classy

 

INSPIRATA

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Last edited by a moderator: Nov 16, 2025

My untreated bedroom..... mostly when my gal comes over

 

Just installed LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven... yes I'm a bit late on that one.
So far so good, will need more time with it but to my ears.. sounds nicer than Cinematic Rooms, which i already stated is my fav.

 

Vienna suites 2 reverb is pretty good! Logic's chroma, Valhalla, and Eventides stuff. There is so many, the new Izotope ones are also good imo.
Very easy settings and knobs,

But my one of my favorite is fusion field 4 by Quick Quack. But i dont think they update it any longer so it wont work in later updates.

 

Valhalla, followed by Altiverb. Then, Liquidsonic's reverbs.

 

Did you notice the volume fluctuations or a tremelo effect on the tails of the reverb as others have reported?

 

FutureVerb is S tier for sure

 

S Tier with no pre-delay and no mono or M/S options? I'm not sure about that...

 

I could live without mono/M/S, it really should have pre-delay though. Even so, it makes wonderful sounds.

 

Use Echo > Rev mode, switch echo to "Modern", there's your pre-delay.

 

Of course it has pre-delay, but you-re using the delay of the unity to set it up. Michael Brauer does this very often: he uses an external delay plugin for extra vibe on the pre-delay.

Not only. Any of the the modes can be used as pre-delay, as long as you set the feedback to zero. Michael Brauer likes the tape delay, so hes using an tape delay plugin without feedback to set the time for the reverb. And quite honestly? That amount of echo models is the beauty of FutureVerb. Feel free to experiment the echo modes as a pre-delay with something more than the time set. You will be shocked if you didn't tried it yet ;)

 

Of course I've tried all of the modes, with and without feedback. Where's the fun in not twisting all the knobs you see? The pitch-shifting modes are great fun for all manner of synth sounds for instance.

What I meant that for a "traditional" pre-delay used in a lot of reverbs (I'd wager "most" but I'm not actually certain) a clean delay is used before feeding into the reverb circuit. That's why "modern".

 

No, as of now, I dont have a tremolo effect on the tails at all.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2025 at 5:27 AM

Have you used the plugin? It does have mono output, ways to manipulate pre-delay and any decent daw should offer M/S routing options.

 

Difficult choice when speaking about best reverb :p here is my browser of reverbs and delays

 

Favorite reverbs of mine are either classic rooms, classic spaces, or classic algorithms - not to be confused with algorithmic reverbs.

My first Bus go to is always Eventide's T-Verb:
Second Bus go to is UA's RMX16:


Next up, for individual tracks or drum stems are classic spaces (Capitol, Ocean Way and Music City)




And when needed (not that often, but not rarely either), a good sprinkling of the sumptuous: