The Waves Renaissance Reverberator

The Waves Renaissance Reverberator or RVerb for short is probably the most widely used reverb plugin in the Waves arsenal (The IR-1 is quickly becoming a favorite also). The RVerb is easy to use and can be used on many genres of music with minor tweaking. There are 12 reverb types and the presets are variations of them. I won’t get into an extended explanation of the different types in this review but will give some suggestions as to which types work for different styles. There are various controls but the ones to be most concerned with are the ones located on the lower left hand side of the plugin window as these affect the character of the reverb drastically. Please check the manual for a more detailed explanation of all the parameters of the RVerb.

For Hip Hop and R&B use a small room or plate and for Pop and Rock use a medium to large Plate or Hall depending on the song. For an intimate sound try turning down the reverb parameter while turning up the early reflections and reducing the time, size and decay. A good way to learn this reverb is to go through the presets and change the parameters on each to see how it affects the sound. Be especially aware of the pre-delay as this determines the onset of the reverb tail which helps to give the illusion of space and at the same time give the direct sound presence. I prefer to use the RVerb on a send instead of an insert because it allows me to send multiple sounds to one instance of the reverb which is a more efficient use of your CPU. I mention this because I get a lot of song files with reverbs on multiple individual tracks (eg. 10 tracks of background vocals with a reverb insert on each one). The presets should be considered starting points only as each song will dictate the reverb that works best for it. It takes some time to fully understand this plugin but its time well spent because the knowledge gained can be applied to other reverbs since they all have similar parameters