At what pricepoint do you think HW Reverbs...

Yesterday, I spent half the day with a Bricasti. As I tweaked settings and compared it to other reverbs, I thought: "It sounds better, but does it sound $4000+ better than anything else?" Yes, it absolutely does.

As for the lowest price point at which hardware reverbs sound better than plugins, that's a more interesting question. Some here have suggested the PCM70 is the cheapest thing that is better than plugins. Casey, in the purple forum, praised $200 Lexicons. However, he also thinks that the HD Cart plugin sounds just like the 480.

Slightly off-topic story that might be a point in favor of pretty much any decent hardware reverb.

A few weeks ago I was tracking a vocal part for a one off demo and I wanted to put some vanity reverb on for the singer. But I needed it to be resource light for tracking so put on Presonus' built in RoomVerb thing with just a standard chamber effect. I spent about two minutes EQ'ing it and getting out some weird resonances and then just left it on there.

Here's the weird thing.

As the mix progressed, the reverb never bothered me so I just left it on there. When I delivered that mix the client was like "what reverb is that, it sounds fantastic!!"

So here's my theory, it sounded good because he was singing into it and working it as it went. That itself is an argument for a hardware reverb at least during tracking. RoomVerb is NOT a good reverb but it's not painful either, it's just as plain Jane algorithmic reverb as you can get. But it really did sound good and I think it's because the performance matched the 'verb.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting. Pretty much any hardware reverb would be better than RoomVerb, if you get a performance that matches the sound that could be the real thing.

I haven't really found them to be better in a mix, the times I've used vintage Lexicon stuff, or the Bricasti. Maybe I didn't go deep enough.

I ditched a PCM-70 for the flexibility of Altiverb a LONG time ago. Don't really see that box as on any kind of a pedestal vs plugins. Obviously some very talented folks disagree. 

The thing for me with plugins is, I change my mind a lot.

It's kind of cool to be able to swap in a different verb super late in a mix and get re-inspired.

Recently it's been Little Plate, for whatever reason. I'm sure an original EMT would be rad, but it would also be less flexible.

The IK Sunset Sound verb is sometimes great but sometimes meh. It's all very contextual for me. I am typically trying to put just a smidge of icing on a great tasting cake. 

The Strymon Big Sky is better in a studio context as sends than as guitar pedals. More settings of tone and low end controls are usable without sounding very silly with the ability to filter and eq them before and after and blend them them in beyond the mix knob.

bricasti or EMT. otherwise plugins are fine. I'm totally ITB now which i never thought would happen and I'm happy as hell. My bricasti is at my buddy's studio hooked up to his Neve.