I've never been a big fan of spring reverb plug-ins in general, but lately I've been warming up to them and have started realising how great they can sound when used correctly.

I think the reason as to why I never liked them is just that the plug-ins, and various pedals in amp sims, I've tried has not been that good and I have never found one that sounds even close to a real Fender amp for example. However, I just finished a song where I tried using the REV-636 plug-in from Arturia and boy was I surprised!

My question now is: what great spring reverb plug-ins have I missed when I've been ignoring them this whole time? The only other one I used to have installed is Overloud SpringAge.

 

Softube - Spring Reverb VST

 

came to post that arturia spring. been playing guitar for 20+ years and i'm really picky about spring sounds, but that 636 always seems to hit the spot. not having to reamp out to a fender or tank every time i want to add a touch of authentic sounding spring to a sound while mixing has been a major improvement

posting to see what everyone else is using

 

The arturia is good indeed, i'm using the PSP Springbox also, light on the cpu and good sounding to me (mind that i'm not talking using them on guitars only but also for dub moods on drums, vocals etc).

A good free one if you using ableton is the Cat Spring from Sonic Bloom. Not a huge fan of the softube one. The alborosie dub station has a nice spring in it also. Still have to try the u-he Twangstorm...

 

my favorite spring reverbs - by softube and by overloud

 

GSi TimeVerb-X

This is my favorite, dont forget to smack it for some fun sounds!!

 

Arturia is really good. I don't usually care about analog emulations that much, but this one really feels like the spring reverbs I've used in the past, and it's very easy to get that unmistakable 70s Jamaican dub reverb sound.

Speaking of 70s dub, AudioThing has a plugin called Alborosie that's inspired by King Tubby's gear. It has a tape delay, a filter and a spring reverb. The reverb only has one knob so not too much headroom for crazy sound design, but it sounds really good.

u-he Twangstorm is a very capable spring reverb with tons of parameters, and it sounds amazing, but I find that it takes me longer to get something I'm happy with. But when I do, oh boy.

Eventide also has a spring reverb but I haven't played with it much. But it's Eventide, so I guess it can't be bad.

 

My favourite spring reverb plugin: Ableton Convolution Reverb and lots of free spring impulse responses that can be found on the net. The cool thing about the Ableton one (Hybrid Reverb): you can drive the spring into feedback (basically routing the affected signal back into the effect creating a feedback loop).

But any impulse response / convolution engine will do the job combined with well captured impulses of spring hardware. Sure, you won't get the fancy pseudo-hardware GUI with a generic convolution engine (IR reverb), but it's about the sound, right? Most of the fancy GUI spring plugins like the Arturia one or the Overloud one are internally based on convolution anyway.

Here you go: https://github.com/IsaakCode/freeaudio/blob/master/best_free_impulse_responses.md

If you can't go without plugin GUI, here are two freebies for a start. The Fuse Audio one doesn't work with all sources, but when it works it can really sound good. The BPB one has a nice "kick the tank" function:

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2021/11/26/bpb-dirty-spring-release/
https://fuseaudiolabs.com/#/pages/product?id=301009892

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2022

Altiverb.

 

I'm not a fan of Arturias synths in general, but their effects are actually really good! I hope we get to see a lot more in that department from them. The only thing I don't like is the ridiculous amount of image files and other stuff their plug-ins use. I don't get why the don't pack everything into resource files

Audiothing seems like one of the top developers when it comes to spring reverbs (if you were to trust Google at least), so maybe have to try Dub Station and Springs. U-he almost always makes great stuff so Twangström is probably a good bet!

 

I made the best experience with Twangström. But you have to tweak the sound a little bit.

 

I was guessing that REV-636 is based on impulses when I first tested it. The problem I've had with impulses, both for plate and spring reverbs, is that they always have sounded a bit flat and many have way to much metallic ringing. My favourite convolution based plate reverbs have been Nebula reverbs, but I rather use regular plug-ins if I can!

Will check those impulses out. Thanks!

 

The Arturia is not a-turd-ia, I like it too though I hardly ever use one.

 

When I need a spring reverb sound I usually go for the reverb only mode in one of the Roland space echo emulations and I´m always very picky regarding this effect sound. Nothing like my old 50 watts Fender Super Reverb.

The IR´s here are very good. https://pasttofuturereverbs.gumroad.com/l/FXPUk

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2022

for guitar I always use the Spirit Reverb by Aegean Music. I own few Fenders old amps that and I think it is close, at least for guitar and it creates some sort of dimension that I can get from the amp but the amp is pain in the ass to mic.

For mixing I use the BX10 adn BX15 in Altiverb. I think I fall in love with the sound of the UAD version of the AKG BX20 in a tutorial video by Puremix or something long ago, but I dont have UAD, so the Altiverb is the alternative. Rarely use them though because nothing a Plate Reverb cannot solve if the sound lacking character. I don't like the Arturia's because it is too dirty/colored for me.

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2022

They may sound like that if the process of capturing the impulse has been subpar. There are many free impulses on the web, some of them good, some of them not so good. The ones in the link should be decent at least, often quite good. Check the ones made by Studio Nord for a start.

BTW, if you want to test if the REV-636 is anything more than standard impulse responses with a few additional parameters (like high pass and low pass, which can be found in most generic convolution engines as well) try to shoot a loop of the exact same sound repeating through it (for example a snare that hits on each bar measure). Then listen whether the sound of the spring changes or remains the same everytime the signal runs through the reverb.

Looking at the GUI panels it seems that functionality wise REV-636 is not really superior to eg Ableton Hybrid Reverb with a collection of well captured impulses. In Ableton you can easily modulate parameters like tail length, pre-delay, the filters frequencies etcetera using LFOs or envelope followers and tune in feedback to make the impulses sound more alive.

 

hmmm looks interesting, sister site still has links

 

The tubeworks spring reverb on Altiverb, specially on the bright setting. Don't how usefull it may actually be for everyday use, but it does has some unique thing to it, very electric, for lack of a better term.

 

The only one I used is U-he Twangström. It's weird. Are all spring reverbs that weird?

 

T-Racks Sunset Sound has a nice one.