Processor ยท Audio effect
HeavyVerb
A high-quality reverb for the master bus, built from one to six wall-pair dimensions with their own distance, damping and filter, plus shimmer, swell, duck, gate and freeze and fifteen presets.
Opinion
Not yet auditioned in a host. It is meant to sit on the master bus or a return at a low Mix: the dry signal is never processed, so there is no latency and nothing to phase-align. The distance-based controls make it easy to say what you want (a long thin tunnel, a square room, a huge stone nave) rather than hunting for a decay time, and the special effects set it apart from Lightverb, which is deliberately minimal. The presets were chosen from the numbers, not by ear, so expect to adjust them.
Functionality
HeavyVerb is a feedback delay network. Each dimension is a pair of parallel walls: two delay lines whose length is the wall spacing divided by the speed of sound (34.3 m is 100 ms). Up to six dimensions run at once, so a room can have anything from two delay lines to twelve. A Householder matrix mixes them without changing the energy, a single Decay sets how long every line rings so the tail is smooth, and each dimension has its own Damping (how fast the highs die) and Filter (a low-pass or high-pass inside the loop that changes the character of every repeat). Early reflections are placed from the distances, so a dimension with far-apart walls gives late, separate echoes.
Parameters
Seven global shaping controls (Decay, Pre-delay, Mix, Width, Modulation, Diffusion, Early Level), Low Cut, High Cut and Output on the wet signal, and per dimension Distance (0.5-100 m), Damping and Filter. The full table is in the plugin README.
Effects
- Shimmer: the tail is pitch-shifted (default +12 semitones, from -12 to +24) and fed back into the reverb.
- Swell: the reverb fades in after each onset, over 0.1 to 2.5 seconds.
- Duck: the wet signal gets out of the way of the input, by up to 24 dB.
- Gate: the wet signal is cut a set time (0.05 to 1 s) after the input falls quiet.
- Freeze: the tail is held indefinitely and the reverb stops taking input.
Randomise
Randomise (button on the Dimensions panel) draws a new space as ordinary parameter values, like a
preset: dimensions 2-6, distances 1.5-60 m, damping, tilt filters, decay 0.4-14 s, pre-delay, modulation,
diffusion, early level, width and the wet cuts. Mix, Output, Effect, Effect Amount, Shimmer Shift and Freeze
are kept, so a press never gets louder, starts an effect or freezes the tail. The result is Custom, and the
draw is randomiseParameters(base, seed) in heavyverb_presets.hpp (the panel seeds it from
std::random_device, so it is a UI action, not a saved parameter).
Presets
| # | Preset | Dims | Distances (m) | Decay | Effect | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Master Glue | 2 | 3.2 / 4.6 | 0.6 s | - | short and quiet: binds a mix without an audible tail |
| 2 | Small Room | 3 | 3.5 / 4.2 / 2.6 | 0.5 s | - | a bedroom or booth: close walls, quick decay |
| 3 | Live Room | 3 | 6.5 / 8.8 / 4.2 | 0.9 s | - | a tracking room: lively, a little bright |
| 4 | Chamber | 3 | 8 / 10 / 5.5 | 1.4 s | - | stone echo chamber, bass kept out of the loop |
| 5 | Bright Plate | 4 | 1.6 / 2.1 / 2.9 / 3.7 | 2 s | - | dense and fast, no early reflections: the plate sound |
| 6 | Warm Hall | 4 | 14 / 19 / 11 / 26 | 2.2 s | Duck 30% | a dark hall that ducks under the vocal |
| 7 | Concert Hall | 3 | 22 / 33 / 15 | 2.8 s | - | a large hall with a clear pre-delay |
| 8 | Cathedral | 4 | 30 / 48 / 24 / 62 | 6.5 s | - | huge stone space: long, dark and slow to build |
| 9 | Tunnel | 3 | 85 / 4.2 / 4 | 4.5 s | - | one very long axis and two narrow ones: flutter and echoes |
| 10 | Canyon | 2 | 95 / 60 | 3.5 s | - | distant walls: sparse, widely spaced echoes that bloom |
| 11 | Shimmer Pad | 4 | 18 / 24 / 30 / 41 | 8 s | Shimmer +12 st, 55% | an octave up fed back through the hall |
| 12 | Abyss | 5 | 20 / 28 / 37 / 47 / 61 | 14 s | Shimmer -12 st, 60% | an octave down: a dark, rumbling swell |
| 13 | Bloom | 4 | 16 / 22 / 29 / 38 | 5 s | Swell 70% | each hit fades the reverb in: the tail swells after the note |
| 14 | Gated 80s | 3 | 5 / 6.5 / 4.2 | 3 s | Gate 45% | a big room cut off abruptly after the hit |
| 15 | Frozen Cloud | 6 | 19 / 27 / 36 / 47 / 59 / 73 | 45 s | Shimmer +7 st, 25% | a near-endless wash with a fifth on top: press Freeze to hold it |
Status
Core covered by about 520 checks: every control and every preset, reverb time against Decay at three sample rates, pitch accuracy, the effects, freeze, stability under random sweeps and overload at 44.1 to 192 kHz, block-size independence and bit-exact dry at Mix 0. Not yet listened to or validated in a host.