Hi

I'm not the greatest engineer in the world (I'm a musician!) but I know how to apply reverb to my music and make it work.

I downloaded the M7 demo tracks, wet and dry versions of the solo cello, and applied a few of my plug-in reverbs to the dry samples, using similar spatial settings. Then I AB'd them against the M7 versions. The M7 is better yes... by about 5-10% at best. Don't laugh, but even Cubase's Roomworks Reverb achieved reasonably comparable results. In my humble opinion, only a true "gearslut" or someone running a ridiculously high-end studio should even consider an expensive hardware verb these days.

There are excellent plug-in verbs available for 1/20th of the price, and you'd have to be a psychoacoustics PhD to tell the difference!

If you've got the kind of money Bricast is asking for, invest it in a worthy charity, your mortgage, clothes for your kids, or even VSL! [:D] Just a humble personal opinion.

Heathcliff - why would someone who has spent £10,000+ on VSL want to put it through a free reverb, and not something higher quality?!

You're right. Realistically speaking, they wouldn't, unless the character of the free verb was to their liking. But it's true that most free verb plugins are not great. I wasn't really suggesting that you could shove VSL through any old free reverb. I'm saying that there are very good plugin reverbs that cost a fraction of units like Bricast, and they will probably rival it in terms of fidelity. Try the demos of IK Multimedia's Classic Studio Reverb, Or the Arts Acoustic reverb.

There are some very inexpensive convolution engines out there too. SIR is even free!

Like I said, I did an A/B test between Bricast and Roomverb in Cubase. They came out pretty close. You'd be surprised. I would post an mp3 of the results here, but I'm not sure the guy who created the original Bricast music file would approve.

Look, the fact is that if someone gave me Bricast as an early Christmas present, I'd grab it with a big silly grin all over my face. I'm sure it's a great unit. But there are viable software alternatives which produce amazing results at low cost. [:)]

PS. There's a reverb plugin called Variverb Pro that is available as a free demo. The demo limitiations are actually pretty generous - it doesn't save or recall new presets. Apart from that you can use it as much as you like. It's still quite buggy, but it sounds great and it's up there with the best of them. Certainly, it's the best "free" reverb out there now.

I'd like to post the mp3 A/B test for you to judge for yourself. But, as I said, it would not be fair (or perhaps even legal) without approval from the original file's owner.

Ultimately, you or I or anyone can't really judge for sure without hands-on experience of Bricast. Demo tracks are one thing, but how it works in the real world, and how it integrates into the workflow is the true test.

Is anyone from the Boston area up for creating some demo files? I would be glad to come by with an M7 and spend some time making this happen.

-Casey

cdowdell@bricasti.com

 Hi,

i am really curious to listen to vsl samples through what seems to be a great new reverb.

regards

Laurent

Hello

Sorry but I believe that the upper example is a bad one for testing a reverb.

With long sustained string sounds of a big size ensemble you can't really make out the roomquality of a reverb.

Even if I listen to the dry original I recognize some room components.

What we need is a complex mix: Staccatos* with the string orchestra and the wood winds, brass with blaring horns or fanafare trumpets, a big organ at the back of the concert hall, percussion instruments somewhere in the room and a piccolo as a soloist just in front of us for example.

Then let's see whether the bricasti solves this situation brilliantly or not.

Then let's see how the bricasti manages the different depths, the transparency.

Then let's see whether it can produce an "airy" and warm room. 

Then let's compare it with other reverbs. 

By the way: If you want to produce a finalmix "at one sitting" with several stage depths you need to have

more than one bricasti... or am I wrong?   

Beat 

_________________________________________ 

*you can "listen to the room" between the staccatos. 

@jammusique_7634 said:

On the Gearslutz forum the mixer of the recent Dark Knight soundtrack used 6 Bricasti's for the mix...

I too I'm shopping for reverbs but since good hardwear units like Briscali are out of my reach i had to look at plungins instead. It took me a while but i think i finally found something promising. It's a hybrid between IR and algo and the result sounds very natural to my ears.

You can do a sort of a/b comparison between Briscali and REFLECT using the same file if you go at the link Beat provided earlier. Download the ''string Boston hall b'' Here:

And then go on the following link and download the ''Boston hall'' file and tell me what you think?

http://www.virsyn.de/en/E_Products/E_REFLECT/e_reflect.html

Personally, i think it sounds very good for a EU 167 plugin. But I'll admit i have no engineering talent or experience so i really don't know what I'm doing. Which is why i would like your opinion on this.

I really liked the reverb from ArtsAcoustic as well but for different reasons.

I bit more obvious as a reverb but very useful I'm sure. VERY well dome little pluging if you ask me.

edited: I made a mistake. The price is in EU.

Note that it's not the same mp3 quality.

Reflect sounds nice. I've also been thinking about a PCM96 or Bricasti, but you could buy a new Mac Pro for that kind of money. Still, one day I might go for it.

Thanks Synthetic.

 I've read that v.1.4 has some new algorithm to help with stage positioning so that's a plus. 1.4 is also VST3 compatible so it can do surround. I don't need this but i thought I'd mention it.

 But what bugs me about this reverb is that it comes with a dongle and you need to pay a second time(20% off) if you want to install it on a second computer. It's not gonna prevent me from buying it but i don't like it.

 Anyone else did the a/b comparison with Briscati? 

Looks like somebody already made IRs of the Bricast. And it sounds pretty good to me.

edited: I've deleted the link i posted before. I'm not sure about this product at al after all.

I'm not too impressed by these IRs made by "Studiodevices."  They really don't compare to the real Bricasti, which sounds incredible.  Furthermore, it's a little sketchy and in very poor taste to copy the real Bricasti so unabashedly.  Not only do they completely rip off the case design, but they also call it "Bree Casedy?"...come on.