Step by step

2. ChromaVerb – a brief tour

1 Here’s a simple drum beat to demo the new ChromaVerb plugin. ChromaVerb is an algorithmic reverb, though with modern features not found on your granny’s old Lexicon. Give it a listen. The default Room patch sounds great straight off the shelf – check out the incredible visuals!

2 There’s a Damping EQ curve built into the display. Just like with the popular FabFilter Pro-R reverb, we can use this to tame the reverb tails in particular frequency areas. We’ll drag down on the leftmost node to hear it (get rid of the light show by clicking the button in the lower-right).

3 Like most algorithmic ’verbs, ChromaVerb lets us adjust Predelay time. We find this in the lower left. However, ChromaVerb also gives us the option of adjusting the Predelay time by musical divisions instead of milliseconds. We’ve adjusted it to 1/64th triplets.

4 We can do the same with reverb Decay time. Here, we’ve activated the Beat Division option and set the Decay to ring out for 1.5 bars. When mixing, we often rely on the wet-to-dry signal ratio to gauge how closely the listener perceives the signal. ChromaVerb has a Distance knob. A 16% setting moves our drums nearer.