Reverb Redux: Pro-R2 Expands Sonic-sculpting Palettes
Hailing from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, FabFilter founders Floris Klinkert and Frederik Slijkerman have continuously delivered cutting-edge plug-ins that challenge industry conventions to reimagine how we interface with sound. With Pro-R2, they’ve taken another resounding step forward in their ongoing crusade of innovation, evolving sonic potential by building upon the groundwork laid with its predecessor. Additional reverb algorithms and sound-shaping tools, like Ducking, Auto Gate, and advanced EQ controls, are supplemented by UI/UX updates that improve and streamline your workflow. FabFilter’s hallmark versatility is augmented by the capability to import and interpret IR files, integrating them into your preset library for virtualizing any space, thoroughly impressing Sweetwater’s sound scholars. From intimate rooms to enormous cathedrals (and everything in between), FabFilter’s sophisticated algorithms faithfully create the perfect ambience for any track, with pristine fidelity and gorgeous tails. Pro-R2 takes this to the furthest reaches of spatialized sonic terrain.
Related Videos: Pro-R2 Reverb Plug-in
New in R2: evolved control and new parameters
FabFilter’s first incarnation of the Pro-R plug-in offered a suite of groundbreaking possibilities for completely digital space-shaping. Now, Pro-R2 introduces further parameters with deeper control and increased compatibility options. The company’s innovative algorithmic reverb engine has received three new entries: Modern, Vintage, and Plate. These new algorithms — alongside all existing reverb algorithms — also benefit from the inclusion of new parameters. Brightness and Thickness functions allow you to refine textural and timbral elements of your reverbs, while Auto Gate and Ducking promote consistency in volume, increasing clarity within the mix. Delay times have also been expanded from both ends, boasting a minimum of 0.05 seconds, and a maximum of 40 seconds.
New in R2: advanced EQ and multidimensional spaces
The original Pro-R plug-in was lauded for its detailed control points, visual interfacing, and real-time feedback that helped refine your reverbs with nuance and finesse. Pro-R2 deploys distinctive avenues for harnessing three-dimensional space, including extensive options for immersive audio and Dolby Atmos support. Expanded adjustment can be made with each post-EQ point, allowing you to control elements like EQ curvature, Brightness, or any other parameter per individual speaker. Effect TILT elevates immersive control with Surround Sound configurations by letting you modify the distribution of effects parameters within a three-dimensional space. If you want higher Brightness up front, less Width in the mid/side speakers, and more Thickness in the rear end of the space, you can change the balance to suit your style. What’s more, Pro-R2 now allows you to import IR files, in WAV or AIFF impulse response formats, to be interpreted by FabFilter’s engine. Rather than reading the IR natively, it’s approximated and translated into parameters within Pro-R2, meaning you can continuously re-shape, modify, and build upon any real-life spaces that have been captured.
Amazing reverb, powerful control set
FabFilter designed impeccable room models for Pro-R2, ranging from subtle, barely there ambience, to gargantuan halls. And trust Sweetwater — it does sound amazing. But it also offers a number of smart controls that let you nail the right reverb quickly. Stepless Space control intuitively combines the room model and decay time. Decay Rate control adjusts your overall decay time from 50% to 200% of the current Space setting. Intelligent Stereo Width control has the stereo soundstage covered from mono to stereo and beyond. Other features include a Distance control, 6-band Decay Rate and Post EQs, Predelay control, a real-time spectrum analyzer, a unique Character control, and more. If you record and mix music, you owe it to yourself to give FabFilter Pro-R2 a serious audition.
FabFilter Pro-R2 Reverb Plug-in Features:
- New algorithms include Modern, Vintage, and Plate for a broader palette of space-shaping possibilities
- Auto Gate and Ducking functions provide detailed dynamics control to introduce consistency in volume without altering source audio
- Brightness and Thickness parameters allow for new ways to adjust timbre, texture, and saturation independently
- Extensive post-EQ control for immersive audio and Dolby Atmos enable per-speaker EQ and parameter adjustments for detailed, 3-dimensional sound design
- Effect TILT allows you to redistribute the balance of effects through all three axes of space
- IR files can be imported and interpreted by the engine, recreating any real-life space to be endlessly fine-tuned, modified, and more with the full Pro-R2 suite of sound-sculpting tools
- Impeccable room models, ranging from subtle, barely there ambience to gargantuan halls
- Carefully developed to easily fit in the mix, without causing undesirable coloration, density, or phase problems
- Gorgeous interface with large interactive reverb display featuring Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ curves
- Very easy to set up, with comprehensible, non-technical controls
- Stepless Space control intuitively combines the room model and decay time
- Select from over a dozen carefully designed room models and seamlessly blend between them
- Decay Rate control, changing the overall decay time from 50% to 200% of the current Space setting
- Intelligent Stereo Width control, ranging from pure mono to true stereo and beyond
- Distance control to adjust the proximity to the sound source in the selected space
- Character control ranges from transparent decay, to lively reverb, to over-modulation
- Brightness knob affects overall brightness plus HF decay
- Mix knob with Lock Mix, which prevents preset loading from overriding current mix setting
- Predelay control ranges from 0 to 500ms, with optional host tempo sync
- 6-band Decay Rate EQ, with Low/High Shelf, Bell, and Notch filters
- 6-band Post EQ effects your final reverb sound, with Low/High Cut, Low/High Shelf, and Bell filters
- Real-time spectrum analyzer also visualizes decay time at different frequencies
- Full Screen mode offers a large analyzer display and reverb Decay Rate EQ and Post EQ