I'm talking about the moment things clicked
to where I could start designing sounds that meet my needs, not just using presets. While Valhalla plugins have simple interfaces, there's a lot of power under the hood, and settings that work great for one algorithm may sound terrible with another. I am occasionally frustrated by Valhalla's lack of visual feedback for things like decay or density vs. frequency - but that means I just need to use my ears. I find something to like in every algorithmic reverb but the main thing I take away from them is how to better program the Valhalla stable. I own or have demo-d pretty much every non-dongled, non-CPU destroying algorithmic reverb out there, so notable exceptions to my testing are Exponential Audio and 2C Audio.
I'm sure some of these are obvious but here we go:
Valhalla Room
- Understanding the Depth slider, how using lower settings to favor the Early reflections can trim up even very long decay times.
- Depth is more pronounced than most other 'verbs I've used with similar controls.
- Also, understanding how Early and Late "Size" affect not only Decay time but also Attack - plus frequency focus & resonance.
- Using the interplay of Attack, Size, and Predelay with the given algorithm to match a song's feel/tempo.
- Adjusting Bass Mult to maintain consistent low-frequency when changing Decay (also applies to VRoom).
- Seeing that Nonlinear algorithm in '80s Color could be pretty much its own plugin!
- Noticing the relation between Color, algorithm, High Damping/EQ frequencies.
- Discovering that VVV pairs with SpaceModulator, UberMod, and SoundToys delays in magically synergistic ways.
Starting in Mono Reverb mode with pitch shifting off, using low Size and Diffusion with medium Feedback to see the basic character of Shimmer as a delay, then biggening it up from there.
Common to all - inserting a clean EQ/filter with auto-gain compensation before Valhalla stuff on FX returns, occasionally putting a color EQ/saturator/compressor after.
