Modular Monthly

Make Noise Erbe-Verb

When we saw that Make Noise had collaborated with Tom Erbe (of Soundhack fame) we were excited, and their new Erbe-Verb takes reverb to a new level. Instead of working with presets or algorithms for common spaces like room, hall, cathedral or plate it breaks out every parameter, letting you enter interesting in-between spaces and modulate between them freely. The site states, “it is a unique, modeless, continuously variable reverb algorithm with complete voltage control.”

You can travel through spaces by turning knobs or adding modulation sources and you’ll find minute coffin-like spaces, shimmers, rooms, plates and halls up to endless drones and metallic oscillations. It’s great for any sound designer’s palette whether you’re looking for typical spacious reverb effects or not. It features things we’ve not seen on much hardware before like tempo-syncable pre-delay times to create perfect rhythmic shifts in reverb tails, there’s an envelope follower so you can use the amplitude shape of the reverb to control other parameters in your system and there’s also a gate (or button) controlled reverse switch allowing you to flip the reverb into reverse with a gate pattern from your other modules.

We’ve taken the Erbe-Verb through shapeable send FX, oscillator and drone generator, tempo sync-diffused echoes and more. It’s more than just a reverb – it lends itself to thinking about reverb as more than an end of the chain effect.