Exploring Creative Sound Design with Supermassive Reverb Plugin by Valhalla

Tutorial | Mar 18, 2021

In this video I demonstrated how to use the Supermassive reverb plugin by Valhalla to create unique sound designs. I showed how to use the noise module and the pitch shifting capabilities of the plugin to create strange, disharmonic sounds. I also demonstrated how to add distortion and filters to shape the sounds, as well as how to use multiple instances of the plugin for even more sound design possibilities. Finally, I showed how to bounce the sounds out and use them in a sampler or in a track.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What is Supermassive? #

Supermassive is a free reverb plugin by Valhalla. It is not only a nice reverb for all purposes, but also a great sound designing tool.

What can be done with Supermassive? #

With Supermassive, you can create weird saw-like sounds, evil and nasty sounds, as well as disharmonic sounds. You can also use the plugin to create samples and sound effects, as well as transitions and impact sounds.

Are there any special features of Supermassive? #

One of the special features of Supermassive is its ability to go as low as zero milliseconds delay, which is basically just a comp filter or resonator. It also has a variety of reverb algorithms and modulation options, allowing for a wide range of sound design possibilities.

How can Supermassive be used to create sounds? #

Supermassive can be used to create sounds by using noise to excite the plugin's feedback buffer, as well as by changing the delay time, adding filters, distortion, and bit 8, as well as using multiple instances of the plugin.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] Hey, welcome back to another video.
[00:02.400] They want to talk about not Bitvic Studio exclusive, but more like about Supermassive.
[00:08.960] And you probably already know Supermassive, it's a free reverb plugin by Valhalla.
[00:16.800] It's not only a nice reverb for all purposes, it's also a nice sound designing tool.
[00:23.920] And I want to show you some examples, what you can do with the reverb, Supermassive.
[00:32.120] And we have the switch over to my Bitvic view.
[00:38.000] And to completely use only the sound of Valhalla, the only use noise to excite basically the
[00:46.960] feedback, the feedback buffer of the plugin.
[00:54.040] And we can also choose a lot of different reverb algorithms inside the plugin, so we have
[01:03.560] a lot of options.
[01:05.240] So I'm using your noise module and then AD and the log.
[01:13.520] And we just use a nice short burst of noise for this experiment.
[01:21.520] So when I have now here, I immediately put active and see we just have a nice burst.
[01:30.000] And all we need to do now is use Supermassive and change some settings.
[01:40.480] So this is basically the init setting, which is a reverb.
[01:43.760] But when we pull everything a bit down, it makes up the delay time down.
[01:52.440] And this is also a nice special thing about Valhalla.
[01:56.680] You can go low as zero milliseconds delay, which is basically just a comp filter or resonator.
[02:08.200] And you turn the Bitvic up of course.
[02:12.840] And you can change the pitch of the sound by changing the delay time.
[02:19.840] Okay, maybe add a peak limit at the end just to save your ears.
[02:35.040] And the pitch of the sound is decided by the delay time here.
[02:39.600] And we can change this by using a key track inside Bitvic, and change the delay time.
[02:46.120] That's by a certain amount of patient here.
[02:53.880] But every time I press a different key on my keyboard, the pitch changes.
[03:13.800] Of course you can map this specifically to the right key, to the right frequency.
[03:19.520] But to keep this tutorial simple, I just give you the option here and to say, can use
[03:23.960] the key track and change the delay time.
[03:26.000] You have to change the init delay time to C3 and then you add your modulation in the
[03:33.280] exact right amount so you have all the octaves on the right keys.
[03:39.560] But like I said, for the simplicity, I just leave it at that here.
[03:43.320] And yeah, just design some nice sounds.
[03:48.160] So this gives us now this kind of weird saw kind of sound, but what you can do now is
[03:57.040] add here a filter after this, maybe a band pass, and maybe modulate this also in ADSR.
[04:09.880] Like this.
[04:30.240] So now we can switch the noise module to stereo, but we have different frequencies on the
[04:37.880] left on the right speaker, maybe change it to bobsetting, not too much, but still resonating.
[05:05.320] And also change up to mod sitting density.
[05:23.240] Maybe you can add distortion here, nice, down, let's try it.
[05:40.040] Maybe you can also add your bit 8, let's try it.
[06:07.880] And then we can add another supermassive just to create some kind of space, maybe get some
[06:31.920] evil nasty sounds in the low end, maybe add another supermassive, or like the reverb
[06:40.520] tail at the end, bring this down a bit.
[07:06.960] Maybe you can move the filter up behind the bit 8, so it gots...
[07:20.880] I think it's better before.
[07:29.280] Yes, more nasty, I bring the feedback a bit down, and also change up to the noise.
[07:55.720] So you can create pretty nice nasty and also super disharmonic sounds with this method,
[08:07.400] and you can bounce all this out, create a nice sample library of it, and use it in your
[08:17.240] soundtracks, or I don't know, dubstep tunes, drum bass tunes.
[08:46.800] I think it's quite nice to just use the supermassive for that.
[09:16.800] Yeah, something like this, so we can bounce this out here to a new track, and boom, we have
[09:26.160] a new sound.
[09:27.960] Maybe change some settings here, and end of all, like this.
[09:48.920] That's probably the 75, it's the right face, offset.
[10:10.640] Maybe change some modes, this one too, and now we have a different sound.
[10:25.960] And see, the Andromeda algorithm is a bit disharmonic.
[10:50.920] Let's get out of there for the nuts so much.
[11:12.680] Let's get out of here, let's get out of here, let's get out of here, let's get out of here for the nuts.
[11:39.400] And there we have a new sound, so we can bounce this out.
[11:52.080] And we have now two nice sounds, and we can use a sampler here, and put this also in the
[12:10.440] sampler, if you want to, right click, detect woodkey, and it should be playable now.
[12:29.000] Here we can also add here a filter to this, add an ADS-R, we can open up the filter.
[12:48.800] It would be a nice step for some neurofung or drum bass tune, I don't know, so this is
[13:06.200] something you can do, just delete this here, maybe try something different, maybe instead
[13:14.360] of the filter and distortion and the bit 8, this and this, maybe go for a different sound,
[13:25.280] maybe we move here also to key track.
[13:30.880] And it took kind of the same, if you go for Germany, go for 0.2 R3, or feedback, which gets
[13:54.600] a longer resonating sound.
[14:08.840] And you can see if you have to warp at 0, it's more like harmonic sound, and when you go
[14:15.200] at this, it's more disharmonic, we can use here also again modulation, or maybe you'll
[14:25.160] go with the automation here and just leave it harmonic at the start and go disharmonic
[14:31.840] at the end.
[14:41.520] Maybe we can...
[14:50.200] Ah, it's because of automation, 0.2 R3.
[15:05.240] Feedback is 99.5, or maybe also modulators or automators.
[15:32.080] Also again, here's a second instance of all halal for the re-bark.
[15:56.880] So we have now a much, much longer sound here, and this should be also super nice in the
[16:07.080] sampler, track this out, find the root key, it doesn't matter, and we can play this on
[16:28.200] the keyboard, maybe find here also a nice looping point at the end, okay like this.
[16:54.240] Aren't we going to stop?
[17:15.280] I hope you also made just some reverb on it.
[17:30.600] I hope you also made just some reverb on it.
[17:56.080] I can also create some nice pets with this method.
[18:09.040] All you have to do is, yeah, use multiple instances of Valhalla, add some filtering, add
[18:14.120] some distortion, you know, maybe some volume shaping, I don't know.
[18:20.280] And multiple instances of Valhalla try out all the algorithms in the plugin itself, play
[18:26.240] around with feedback and pitch shifting, and so on.
[18:31.400] And then bounce everything out, you get nice little samples you can use in the sampler
[18:36.040] or in your tracks as some transition elements or, you know, impact sounds or, I don't
[18:43.240] know.
[18:44.240] There's a lot of possibilities actually just by playing around with the Valhalla plugin.
[18:49.760] So I want to make a video on this and show you what you can do with it and, yeah, what
[18:55.800] kind of results you can find with this.
[19:00.640] So yeah, thanks for watching guys, see you in the next one.