Exploring Reach - A Powerful Algorithmic Reverb Plugin
Tutorial | Jan 20, 2023
This video is about Reach, an algorithmic, extra-terrestrial reverb plugin created by a developer from Berlin. It has two skins, is on sale for 24 bucks, and has a GitHub page for open development. The plugin includes a reverb module with modulation, frequency splitters, and effects such as de-create, flanger, chorus, and distortion. The plug-in also has a gain knob that controls the volume of both the wet and dry signals, which may be changed in a future update. The video provides a demonstration of the features and sounds of the plug-in, with a brief overview of its uses.
You can watch the Video on Youtube
What can you do with the plugin? #
With the plugin Reach, you can add algorithmic reverb to your sound and create interesting sonic textures. You can use the quick access knobs to control the mix, pre-delay, feedback, modulation, frequency splitter, and effects such as de-create, flanger, chorus, and distortion. You can also control the gain of the wet signal and add pre and post-EQ to shape the sound further.
Whats the biggest benefit of the plugin? #
The biggest benefit of the plugin is that it is an algorithmic, extra-terrestrial reverb, making it perfectly suited for Ambient music. It is also on sale for an affordable price, has a well-made website, and is open to development and feature requests.
Transcription #
If you don't want to watch the Video, or search for a specific topic, here is the transcription of the video with links to video markers:
[00:00.000] Hello guys, welcome back today in this video.
[00:03.480] It's about this plugin called Reach.
[00:05.720] It's made by one developer from Berlin and it just came out one week ago or so and there
[00:13.520] was no promotion at all.
[00:15.640] And it looks a bit from the design standpoint, it looks like an OP1 field kind of device.
[00:22.320] There's also here a dark version and a bright version, a few more into that.
[00:28.840] You can choose between two skins.
[00:31.600] It's also on sale at the moment for 24 bucks here.
[00:36.320] And the website is also very well made and it's an algorithmic, extra-terrestrial reverb,
[00:45.520] so it's perfectly made for Ambient and stuff like this.
[00:49.800] There's also a GitHub page here.
[00:52.800] So it's a very open development, let's put it that way, so you can file some issues here
[01:00.640] or maybe feature requests or just code stuff yourself if you want to.
[01:09.160] And yeah, the link for that is in the description below and I want to take this video and play
[01:13.000] around with this, so I'll give you some sound here.
[01:17.640] So I'm using Piano Stage ATF for the input, just the felt piano and on that I put here
[01:25.640] the reach.
[01:43.280] So with your mix of 50%, I go up to 100%.
[02:11.600] So what you see here, all these knobs are basically quick access knobs, so the most
[02:17.000] important parameters.
[02:20.440] And this plug-in consists basically of an algorithmic reverb module, what you can see
[02:25.560] here.
[02:26.560] There is modulation, of course, for the delay times, so you get a bit of pitch modulation.
[02:31.560] You can increase or decrease the gain of certain frequency bands, so there's a frequency
[02:37.920] splitter in there at some point and you have different, you know, all pass devices for
[02:44.480] the low end and for the top end.
[02:47.080] And we have some effects here we can put on the reverb.
[02:50.120] Decreate is something like a bit crusher, the flanger, chorus, distortion.
[02:55.240] And we have here a gain knob to increase the gain after the plug-in.
[02:59.560] And in my opinion, this gain knob here should only increase the gain of the wet signal, but
[03:06.360] it also increases the gain of the dry signal, which in my opinion doesn't feel right, because
[03:14.160] most of the times I want to increase the gain of the wet signal to match it with the loudness
[03:19.240] of the dry signal.
[03:21.120] So maybe in another update, it would be nice to have here the gain knob only acting on
[03:27.760] the wet signal itself.
[03:30.120] So when we put in some chorus, you can see we have also nice animations here, the flanger.
[03:46.400] You can also see this here down with these progress bars at the bottom.
[03:57.440] It sounds like a bit crusher, it's maybe something for lo-fi, lo-fi fans.
[04:10.520] So the flanger makes it very wonky if you want to, also the chorus here.
[04:21.960] So these are quick access knobs, and you can dive into these effects even more if you push
[04:30.240] this button here called effects.
[04:31.920] So we have reverb here, which is the reverb module, de-create, flanger, chorus from here,
[04:38.000] and distortion.
[04:39.400] And you can also rearrange these things, right?
[04:43.040] So you can say, I want to have the reverb at the end, I just want to use chorus in front
[04:48.080] of the reverb.
[04:49.080] So everything after becomes more rich, so maybe use a bit crusher for more overtones.
[05:16.040] And the mix knob here, I think, I'm not sure what this is mixing, maybe the effect section
[05:25.840] with the reverb section, so you can say I only want to have maybe the effects here, or both.
[05:37.760] I'm not really sure what this does here.
[05:42.240] Maybe I should have read the manual beforehand, but I just want to give you a shout out for
[05:48.720] this plugin.
[05:51.400] So here with the reverb, also the algorithmic reverb, there are some things in here you can
[05:56.960] change that you can't outside.
[05:59.480] So it's the feedback here, of course.
[06:01.160] If you increase the feedback, you can go up to 100%, you get this exclamation mark.
[06:10.520] It's building up then over time.
[06:14.120] And also a special case is, in my opinion, that the pre-delay is actually included in
[06:18.920] the feedback loop.
[06:21.800] So normally you go in with the audio, then you have a pre-delay here, I think, and then
[06:27.440] you go into the feedback loop.
[06:30.400] And it loops only what's in here, right?
[06:33.080] But here the pre-delay is included in the feedback tank FX or whatever you want to call
[06:39.560] it in the loop, basically.
[06:41.880] So it changes how long it takes for the round trip to complete.
[06:46.320] So you can make the reverb even longer with this.
[07:00.720] You get almost like a drone sound out of this with the long pre-delay and feedback here.
[07:17.800] So yeah, it sounds like it's included in the feedback loop here.
[07:23.000] And then we have here the frequency splitter, so we have three frequency bands.
[07:27.280] It's almost like in Bitwig Studio, like in FX3.
[07:31.920] So you have low, mid, and high part, and you can change the gain for them.
[07:35.880] And you can also change the crossover frequency here, but I think here the frequencies are
[07:40.680] pretty fine selected.
[07:42.840] And yeah, you can change that if you want to.
[07:47.160] And yeah, you have also quick access to time, space, diffusion damping.
[07:52.360] I think damping is just an EQ on top, but there's also here an EQ page separately.
[07:58.800] So you have pre-EQ, you can add notes to it, and you can say I want to have low pass here
[08:05.160] as a pre thing, or maybe a post-EQ at the end here.
[08:13.480] So low pass is usually what I do.
[08:31.080] Let's go back here to the reverb page, lower feedback.
[08:43.080] You can also make the space pretty small, timing pretty short.
[08:48.040] What's that?
[08:49.040] Diffusion, dials down.
[08:50.920] So you can also make pretty tiny rooms.
[09:17.520] So all kinds of things you can play around with to tweak your reverb.
[09:23.280] There's probably not something new in this plug-in, of course.
[09:28.280] But you know how it is with reverbs, right?
[09:31.600] Every reverb sounds a bit different.
[09:33.760] It has different features, and everyone does the algorithm, how a reverb works internally
[09:39.880] a bit different.
[09:40.880] So you have always a different sound in a way.
[09:44.360] And I really liked how this plug-in looks, how much it costs, and how it works.
[09:49.560] It's pretty clean-coded, in my opinion.
[09:52.120] I have no problems so far.
[09:55.040] I have this for two days now, and I use it in some occasions.
[10:15.000] Maybe the chorus at the end.
[10:29.280] Here you can utilize distortion for the loudness.
[10:49.600] So like I said, the gain knob is a bit...
[10:52.520] So when you have the mix at zero, you can basically change the loudness of the dry signal
[11:01.000] also, which just feels wrong, in my opinion, but I probably also not right with this.
[11:08.840] But it feels to me it should only control the volume of the wet signal.
[11:23.680] Oh yeah, it slightly changes the pitch.
[11:31.880] It's very subtle.
[11:39.040] So let's try this out here on a synth, maybe.
[11:45.360] It brings up to 100% here, go to reverb, put distortion in front.
[12:04.040] Get the range.
[12:45.600] Okay, sounds also nice on some pads.
[12:55.640] Maybe try some drums here.
[13:04.080] Take the drums and then reach, and I put my audio level also in here so we can hear it
[13:26.600] better.
[13:43.000] Amping, I have nice reverb at the end, I have delay spray.
[14:09.000] I have the flange here on the drums.
[14:38.840] You can also diffuse the signal, it influences heavily how the reverb sounds.
[15:08.200] So it's also nice on drums to also create some kind of spring reverb type of sound here
[15:16.120] with this.
[15:17.120] So yeah, short, tiny rooms are also possible with this.
[15:22.840] So it's a nice little good reverb, I would say.
[15:28.640] I'll probably use in the future in some occasions.
[15:33.120] I want to give a shout out basically for this plug in here because it's well made, it looks
[15:39.560] good and it sounds good and it's also an affordable price.
[15:45.560] So I think that's it for this video, link to this plug in is of course in the description
[15:50.400] below.
[15:51.400] Leave a like if you liked the video, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next
[15:54.320] video.
[15:55.320] Bye.