U-he - Protoverb | Free VST Plugin

The free VST plug-in this month comes from from u-he. They call their prototype reverb plugin 'researchware' because it is free but also an attempt at data mining.

Instead of spending months researching and testing it themselves, they hope that their community will come up with excellent settings that they can use. Therefore, sharing any great setting, you can come up with is very much encouraged. 

This is a really interesting reverb plugin. It is designed as a room simulator and, therefore, deliberately builds up resonances – modeling the body of air in a room.

This leads to a very natural sound, with a few unusual features that u-he are at pains to point out. Firstly, notes that are held for a longer time period tend to build up a greater resonance. Secondly, individual instruments tend to remain distinct rather than blend together. Thirdly, if a short melody is played, you will hear a ghost of that melody reverberating around the 'room.'

There are only three rotary controls on the UI; decay, dry, and wet. The rest of the characteristics of the reverb are dictated by a text box. The first half of the text sets parameters such as spatial characteristics, delay length, and network structure.

The second half of the text sets the average delay length, which prime number to choose, and so on. This sounds daunting, but in fact, the idea here is just to experiment – u-he encourages trial and error, and to this end, they've included two randomized buttons at the bottom of the UI. This reverb is great fun to use and can provide you with some excellent results!

The plug-in is available in AAX, VST2, and VST3 versions for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Both 32 and 64-bit versions are provided. You can download Protoverb from the u-he website for free.