FabFilter Pro-R

Mix perfectly. At the same time, it should not confuse you with over-technical controls, but must be easy to set up and a joy to work with. Enter FabFilter Pro-R.

When adding reverb to your mixes, regardless of instrument, you want it to sound great. Many plug-ins make it easy to customize reverb sounds by setting parameters, but the actual effect can vary in terms of how good it actually sounds, and how well it works in your mix. Once again, our friends at FabFilter have delivered the goods with the Pro-R, a reverb plug-in that not only has fantastic presets and really easy controls, but a unique EQ-based control surface that lets you adjust the character and frequency emphasis of your reverb.

Right away, you’ll notice that the primary controls for this thing are actually really straightforward. You’ve got pretty traditional controls; brightness, distance, and decay rate, plus a dry/wet mix knob. Less common are other controls like “character” which takes the reverb from a simple room sound to a highly modulated, almost chorus-like effect. And the “Space” control is essentially the most important knob, as it combines the room modeling (room size) with the decay rate to adjust the overall time of the reverb. This makes it easy to make a big hall reverb a little bit shorter, or to add just a little bit more decay to a small room sound. These little adjustments can do wonders for a mix. And while this plug-in has a ton of really cool presets, the great thing about it is that you can easily adjust the settings to tweak it how you want. There’s even a “mix lock” feature that keeps the dry/wet ratio consistent, regardless of what presets you select, making it easy to cycle through them without messing up your balance.

Arguably the most unique, and in many ways most useful features are the dual EQ bands that can control the frequencies of the reverb effect. With the help of FabFilter’s amazing frequency spectrum analyzer, you can EQ the decay rate of the plug-in, and also use the Post EQ to adjust frequencies for the overall reverb effect. This was the thing that we over here at www.recordingsoftware.com loved the most. Moving around EQ bands (which operate similarly to the FabFilter Pro-Q’s bands) makes it really easy to hear how the reverb reacts to the different elements in the mix. This will negate the need for an additional EQ on your reverb tracks, and can really make it easy for a reverb to either sit far back in a mix, or come to the forefront. It’s entirely up to you, and it’s easy to make the plug-in do whatever you need with these intuitive controls. You won’t even really have to think too much about it, just drag some bands around and see what happens. Seriously!

When you factor in all the different size rooms (all of which sound great and have different aesthetic qualities), the great tweak-ready presets, pre-delay which can be tempo-synced, and typical FabFilter features like stereo width, input and output level controls, and MIDI learn, the Pro-R is easily one of the most intuitive and precise reverb plug-ins around.

Features:

• Beautifully designed room models, ranging from small ambiences and rooms to large concert halls and huge cathedrals
• Over a dozen carefully designed room models
• Seamlessly vary between room models and settings, without hearing clicks or unwanted artifacts
• Carefully developed to easily fit in the mix, without causing undesirable coloration, density or phase problems
• Gorgeous Retina interface with large interactive reverb display featuring Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ curves
• Very easy to set up, with user-friendly, non-technical controls
• Lets you design reverbs of any style or character with Decay Rate and Post EQs
• Real-time spectrum analyzer also visualizes the decay time at different frequencies, giving you a helpful visual aid
• Multiple interface sizes: Medium, Large and Extra Large, plus Full Screen mode which offers a large analyzer display and Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ controller
• Stereo and mono plug-ins available
• Supports common Pro Tools hardware control surfaces
• MIDI Learn lets you assign parameter controls to a MIDI controller
• Undo/redo and A/B comparison make for easy revisions and comparisons
• Smart Parameter Interpolation
• Sample-accurate automation of all parameters
• Extensive help file with interactive help hints make using this plug-in easy and fun
• Available in VST, VST3, Audio Units, AAX Native and AudioSuite formats (all both 64-bit and 32-bit), as well as RTAS (32-bit only).

Controls:

• Innovative six-band Decay Rate EQ gives you full control over the decay rate at different frequencies
• Six-band Post EQ equalizes the final reverb sound
• Stepless Space control, which smartly and smoothly combines the room model and decay time of the reverb. You can choose from Decay Rate control, changing the overall decay time from 50% to 200% of the current Space setting.
• Distance control to adjust the proximity to the sound source in the selected space.
• The Character control changes the sound from a clean, transparent decay, to a lively reverb with pronounced reflections and echoes, all the way to an over-modulated chorus-like effect
• Perfectly tuned Brightness knob affects not only overall brightness, but also the decay of high frequencies.
• Mix knob with a Lock Mix option, which prevents preset loading from overriding the current mix setting
• Predelay control via the bottom bar, ranging from 0 to 500 ms, with optional host tempo sync
• Intelligent Stereo Width control, ranging from pure mono to true stereo and beyond

Requirements

Windows

• 64-bit: Windows 10, 8, 7 or Vista
• 32-bit: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista or XP
• VST 2/3 host or Pro Tools

Mac OS X

• OS X 10.6 or higher
• AU or VST 2/3 host or Pro Tools
• Intel processor