Waves Audio has released Atlas Reverb, a new flagship algorithmic reverb plug-in.
Developed around an all-new algorithmic engine, Atlas draws on the character classic DSP reverb units that have been used on countless recordings – not from perfect realism, but from the way they responded to a performance. Atlas offers a curated collection of distinct reverb programs, each designed from scratch and tuned by ear for tone, density, reflection behaviour, modulation, depth and feel.
‘When I found out that the Waves team were tuning this by ear, I was very intrigued, because that’s very much how the great reverbs came to be,’ says mix engineer Chuck Zwicky (Prince), who has served as consultant and program-designer in the creation of Atlas. ‘You can trust the fact that each space on Atlas has been created by someone who really knows what they’re doing. You might put it across something and then realise a whole new way of looking at a song.’
Rather than recreating a static space with impulse responses (IR), Atlas generates reflections in real time, allowing reverbs to move, react and evolve with the source. ‘Convolution can capture a moment in a room,’ says Waves Atlas Product Manager, Shai Mantzur. ‘But we weren’t chasing the sound of a room, we wanted its behaviour – reflections that move and modulate as the music moves.’
On a practical level, Atlas is designed to support the way producers and mixers choose reverb. Its browser makes it easy to audition dramatically different spaces without leaving the song, while its controls allow users to blend each reverb into a mix. Beneath the interface lies a deep algorithmic architecture of hidden parameters, allowing producers to make musical decisions instead of engineering the reverb, and helping them move quickly from ‘the vocal needs a space’ to ‘feels right’.
‘We wanted every program in Atlas to feel like a different musical decision, not just a variation on the same reverb,’ Mantzur says. ‘The process was mainly listening – thousands of hours across songs, rooms and classic hardware devices – then refining until the reverb felt like it was part of the music. The goal is not for the listener to say, “The reverb is beautiful”. The goal is for them to say, “I love that song”.’
Atlas Reverb includes a wide collection of original programs for all types of vocal and instrument applications, offering both realistic-sounding spaces including Halls, Rooms, Chambers, Plates and Springs, as well as imagined spaces including Signature Halls and Dreamscapes. Atlas also includes Waves’ take on claasic DSP reverb sounds.
Atlas’ low-latency architecture and efficient CPU performance make it equally at home in demanding studio sessions and live mixing applications.
‘Having done many reverbs, this one stands out as a milestone, mainly due to Shai’s work,’ says Waves Audio CTO, Meir Shashoua. ‘He brought a creative layer beyond the purist math, making this reverb simply majestic.’
Atlas Reverb is available as a standalone plug-in. It is also included in the Waves Ultimate plug-in subscription, and in the Mercury, Pro Show and SD7 Pro Show bundles.