REPLX-1

DIGITAL REVERB

The lush, silky digital reverb of the classic studio racks — three algorithms, one big Decay knob, and the sound of the original converters.

Reverb that sounds right

A reverb does not need a million parameters. It needs to sound right — lush, deep and silky, and still clear in a busy mix.

REPLX-1 goes back to the digital reverbs that defined records from the late seventies on: a dense tail that moves gently instead of ringing, lows that bloom, highs that fade the way a real space lets them.

We kept what made those machines fast to use — a fader, one big knob, three algorithms — and modeled the part most recreations skip: the converters the sound went through.

Features

• One knob for the space: Decay sets the length of the tail in seconds, from a tight 0.2 to a 30-second wash. The fader sets the balance. Most of the time that is the whole job.

• Go deeper without menus: Step the pages with < and > and the four knobs under the display take on new jobs: size and diffusion, bass multiply and crossover, damping, early and late levels, modulation rate, the shape of the tail, a tempo-synced pre-delay — and, new in 1.2, ducking.

• Freeze the moment: Something the original units never could do. Press FREEZE and the tail that is ringing is held for as long as you like — nothing more goes in, nothing decays. Play it like a sustain pedal, then let it fall away at the Decay setting. Shape and Spread, also new, let a hall bloom after the note instead of starting at full strength.

• Ducking, in time with the song: New in 1.2, and another thing the originals never had. Turn up DUCK and the reverb steps back while the vocal or the kit is playing, then blooms in the gaps — so a big, long space stays out of the way of the part. Release sets how fast it comes back as a note value at your song's tempo. Twenty Ducked presets and ten ducked drum kits get you there in a click.

• The converters are part of the sound: Run the reverb through the gain-ranged 12-bit conversion and lower sample rates of the early machines, a later 18-bit stage, or completely clean. Darker, grainier, wider open — your call.

• 200 factory presets: Halls, rooms, plates, vocals, drums, guitars and keys, ambient and effects, an Orchestra bank of scoring stages and churches built on Shape and Spread — and, new in 1.2, a Ducked bank of big spaces that step aside for the part. Search, mark favorites, compare A and B, undo and redo.