Every year, Mix contributors Rich Tozzoli, Mike Dwyer and Bruce MacPherson decamp to St. John, USVI, and temporarily turn a house into a studio where they record TV cues while also testing new equipment and software, resulting in a bevy of Mix Real-World Reviews written in a unique part of the real world.
I love reverbs. It’s that simple. With that in mind, there are probably few software reverbs at this point that I don’t own or have tried. Liquidsonics‘ Seventh Heaven is one of those that I heard about through my L.A. grapevine, so I had to give it a try. What also got me was the website statement: “exhaustively and meticulously sampled, it is the most comprehensive and realistic simulation of the Bricasti M7 available.” Ok, now I really had to know!
Under the hood, you have Ambiences, Chambers, Halls, Plates, Spaces, Interiors and Nonlinear presets based on 30 of the best reverbs from the Bricasti M7. It can run from mono up to 9.6, so multichannel capabilities are deep.
Ninth Annual St John, USVI Recording Retreat Results in Reviews
After not more than a few minutes of use on some strings and big percussion, I knew there was something different here. Digging deeper, I found out the design team used what is called Fusion-IR to build this—basically, a hybrid of algorithmic and convolution reverb. Simplifying the technique, the sound is crisp, clean, deep, organic and unique from other software reverbs I have. Up to 30 seconds of this caliber of reverb? I’m in!
Cherry Audio GX-80 & Mercury 6 — A Mix Real-World Review…in the USVI
I appreciate that it includes compact view and full view, where you can get to the Advanced Controls page with Reflections, Pre Delay, Delay, Roll-Off, Frequency Dependent Decay Time and a Ducker. Clicking the Master Equalizer tab, there is a 5-band equalizer available where the low and high bands can be switched between a shelf and a bell.
This is one I was excited to show the guys when we arrived, and even in a non-perfect recording/mix environment, it was clear how sonically powerful this thing was. Not only did we use Plates, Ambiences, Spaces and NonLin on just about everything (via typical Aux channels), but I came to love applying it directly to a track or bus and using the Decay Time, Mix and all-mighty Gain knob to make huge string sections absolutely sing. Also, on epic percussion tracks, I would push up a little bit of high-frequency air with the EQ and pump up the Low Freq multiplier, which is like a multiband monster on steroids. An instant check of the master bypass confirmed how much better tracks sound with Seventh Heaven doing its magic. This is an undeniably badass reverb.
