Valhalla DSP has announced another update to the ValhallaSupermassive delay/reverb effect, bringing two new modes to the free audio plugin for Windows and Mac.
ValhallaSupermassive is designed to deliver massive delays and reverbs. Following version 1.1.0‘s two reverb modes, the 1.2.0 update comes with new Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes.
Most of the modes in ValhallaSupermassive are designed to sound as smooth as possible. Lots of echo density, with the Warp and Density knobs allowing for a seamless transition between lower density echos and high density reverbs. The Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes aren’t smooth. They are bumpy. They are rough. They create echo patterns that repeat in weird ways. The density is far less than other modes, and even at their densest you can hear strange repeating patterns.
Why make reverb modes that sound weird and rough? Because they are interesting. Put a synth sound with a sharp attack through the Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes, and listen to the sound bounce around the stereo image. Play guitar through them, and enjoy the textures. The Cirrus modes are all about hearing the gaps in the sound, not about filling those gaps in. Space full of spaces.
All that being said, if you turn Warp up to 60% or more and turn Density up to 100%, you can use the Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes as an 80s modulated reverb. There will be a fair amount of predelay baked into the sound, but this is useful for emulating the sound of something like the H3000 Swept Reverb. The underlying architecture of Cirrus Minor isn’t all that dissimilar from the Swept Reverb algorithm – they are both feedback delay networks that can have fairly “sparse” scattering matrices. Set the Delay to somewhere between 100 and 200 msec, and you can get a reverb sound that hearkens back to the days of big hair and bigger drum sounds!
ValhallaSupermassive is available to download in VST/VST3, AU and AAX plugin formats at no charge.
More information: Valhalla DSP
