It's that time of the year again (already, huh) when Soundtoys releases Little things that go a long way.

Available for free until November 22th is Little Plate, a plate reverb plugin based on the hefty EMT 140 plate reverb unit introduced in 1957 by Wilhelm Franz at Germany’s Elektro-Mess-Technik.

In an easy‑to‑use plug-in. The Pure Plate Reverb plug-in provides UA's revolutionary plate reverb emulation in a simple, affordable package — with all of the essential features.

Best Plate Reverb ever Made

Even in 2017, the EMT 140 is still regarded as the best plate reverb ever made.

A few fun facts I came across today while digging for more information about this mythical verb machine:

• The real thing still costs thousands (dollars, euros) today, if you manage to find one in reasonable condition.

• There was an EMT 140 Plate Reverb for sale on reverb.com a few years ago for around 5000 Euros. I'm not sure whether it was actually sold or not.

• The EMT 140 weighs hundreds of pounds, it's about the size of an upright piano without the keys.

• It takes at least three people to carry and at least one chiropractor to realign their joints afterwards.

• The EMT 140 was virtually the only reverb that was used on Pink Floyd’s 'Dark Side of the Moon.'

• Speaking of vibrating plates… In 1957, the year the EMT 140 plate was introduced, San Francisco got all shook up by an earthquake also known as the Daly City earthquake, on March 22nd. That's the same day Elvis’ “All Shook Up” was released as a single. Coincidence? I think not! ;)

Tons of Plates

Double hat tip to Soundtoys for making such a tasteful 32-second teaser for a new product.

You'd almost think wish something bigger is coming up. 'Revenge of the Plate Verbs' on Netflix, anyone?

The sounds are headphone-worthy:

To develop this plugin, Soundtoys obsessively collected five real EMT 140 units from around the United States, put them in the labs in Burlington, a city in northwestern Vermont, USA (best known for ski resorts, IBM employees, maple syrup, and Ben & Jerry's ice cream.)

After potentially breaking the bank, dislocating a few vertebrae, cleaning, tuning, testing, and coding, they ultimately ported the classic EMT 140 sound over to the digital realm.

In other words: tons of plate reverb (a single EMT 140 weighs 600 pounds) are now available in a Soundtoys plugin that weighs and costs nothing.

Little Plate will set you back $99 after November 22nd though.

:)

Plugin Interface & Features

Meeting the needs of those of us tinkering daily with today's DAW's, Soundtoys too added a few useful features to the plugin that were not available on the original EMT 140 hardware unit:

Compared to the EMT 140's limited reverb decay time of around 6 seconds or so, Little Plate offers a broader range of reverb decay times, from half a second up to infinity - so that you can use it both for short ambience reverb effects and frozen reverbs. Check out the product page for audio examples.

Use the Modulation switch to subtly modulate the reverb's tail for a thicker sound on vocals, keys, guitars, and other instruments. Check out the product page for some examples.

Use the Low-Cut Filter to remove the build-up of low frequencies in the reverb to keep your mix clean and modern. The filter goes all the way to 20 kHz. That should be useful if you're into using plate verb on percussion.

Free vst synth for fl studio. An onboard modulation section adds movement, for authentic ’80s-sounding ‘wobbly’ reverb, and high and low EQs help tame and shape the effect.

Plate Reverb Tips & Tricks

In all fairness, you can't say 'EMT 140 plugin' without mentioning other third-party plugin developers, two of them being Universal Audio and Waves.

UA published an excellent page covering how and when to use plate reverb back in the summer of 2011.

The tips are still valid today.

To get you going, this quote:

Another cool option would be to use DAW automation to gradually increase the reverb level on the strings — often called a “reverb build” — in order to create a heightened sense of drama as the piece develops. This would be impossible to do with the hardware because of the mechanical noise, but with the plug-in version, continuous automation of decay time works perfectly.

More tips to be found in the full article, here:

The Abbey Road Reverb Technique

You can't say 'EMT 140' without mentioning the Abbey Road Reverb Technique either.

As plate reverbs are still widely used today, mostly on vocals I presume, you may want to learn more about this mix engineering trick if you haven't already.

Put simply, the Abbey Road Reverb trick involves rolling off everything below 600Hz and above 10kHz by using high- and low-pass filters placed before the reverb.

As demonstrated by mix engineer Dave Pensado in this video (there's a big bonus tip about 9 minutes in: watch Dave use a little tube saturation for extra plate lushness, it's subtle but brilliant):

Download & Plugin Formats

Download Little Plate here.

Be patient, Soundtoys' servers have been awfully busy as of this morning.

To use Little Plate, you'll need a free iLok account, which you can get here.

If you're already an owner of the Soundtoys 5 bundle like me, note that a license for Little Plate has already been deposited in your iLok account.

If the new version 4 of the iLok License Manager software is giving you major BS, don't panic, take a few minutes to read this:

Little Plate comes in the AAX Native, AAX AudioSuite, VST, and Audio Units plugin formats, both 32 and 64-bit.

Have fun with your new soundtoy!

Disclosure: When you buy through our links, we may get a commission at zero cost to you.

Imagine creating music with no reverberation whatsoever, you hear the audio directly with no simulation of the sound of space (a room, hall, or a sound-reflective space), this would give you a dry signal, which is unnatural to the human ear, and this is because we are used to getting the illusion of the simulation of a real space in a mix.

Reverb is one of the tools and effects used by music producer/engineer to extract selective clarity, size, richness, wideness, etc. from the various elements of a multitrack production.

It can be used to create all sorts of effects, and can greatly make your music or mix stand out if used properly, but it can easily be misused too, typically, reverb effects can be used to…

• Create depth in a mix; pushing elements further back in a mix
• Multitrack projects are often crowded with 24, 36, and often more tracks filling the arrangement simultaneously (fighting to be heard), adding long reverb times can make certain element uncluttered in the mix
• It can be used to bring coloration to a sound
• You can use it to create drama in a track, for example, the intro can bring in a lush sound, and when the first verse begins, you can automate or dial back the lushness aggressively, making it sound not only dramatic but also pleasing to the ear.
• To create a reverse reverb, the original sound is reversed in time (flipping back), and you then add a duplication of the original track to the next bar, which when played together snap back to its original place in time, using this can be used to create suspense in a track, super useful

A before and after of a simple melody I just created, one with no reverb, and the other with a classic reverb:

You see how the reverb added more clarity and depth to the melody, wish I could show more example, I’ll leave that in your hands.

Since we know the importance of using reverb, I would be recommending some of the best reverb effects plugins in the music production scene right now.

Let’s get going…

1.) MangledVerb by Eventide

MangledVerb combines reverb and distortion to give you a stunning effect, it sends a stereo reverb into distortion, and when that is done, you get a plugin that is capable of creating lush reverbs, ripping distortion leads and sound-sculpting musical chaos.

This plugin is especially great if you are a guitarist, and if you are performing live, you’ll enjoy the RIBBON, you can program two settings for any combination of the controls and seamlessly transition between them.

The way the RIBBON work is you click on the white dot at the tip of any knob and drag it to the desired setting for the left-hand side of the Ribbon. This will program the knob and draw a blue arc from the initial knob position to the new, programmed knob position.

►Key Features:

• Create out-of-this-world soundscapes by increasing the Size and Overdrive.
• Use it as Mono-In/Mono-Out, Mono-In/Stereo-Out or Stereo-In/Stereo-Out for ultimate flexibility.
• Smoothly move from Softclip distortion to Overdrive for ripping transitions.
• Use the Wobble control to create spooky detuning effects.
• Use The Ribbon control to easily manipulate multiple parameters in a live situation.
• Program the HotSwitch to instantly change multiple parameters at once.
• Optimized for live use with MIDI control of The Ribbon and Tap Tempo for quick meta-control on the fly.
• Use Mix Lock to scroll through presets while keeping the wet-dry mix constant.

►System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher // 32-64bit
• macOS 10.7 or higher // 64-bit only
• 64-bit only
• AAX, VST2 & VST3 Formats for Windows, and
• AAX, AU & VST2 Formats for mac

2.) MorphVerb by United Plugins

MorphVerb is a multipurpose reverb plugin, whether you need a chamber, hall, algorithms for spring, ambience place, and a plethora of reverb effects.

VST 4 FREE - Free Audio Plug-ins and Archives. Free VST downloads: FabBass (Hofner violin bass by Samsara Cycle Audio) - Digital Nylon (Nylon guitar by TED) - Classic.Gtr (Spanish guitar by Quiet Music) - SuperRiff Bass (Bass guitar by SuperRiff) - Electrik GuitarZ (Electric guitar by DSK) - Strummer (Guitar. https://auditomg.netlify.app/free-bass-guitar-vst-effects.html. Electronik Sound Lab – Haunted Guitar Lite size 261 MB / 263 MB / 275 MB Haunted Guitar Lite is a multi-sampled Fender Stratocaster Plus Deluxe electric guitar rompler. Each preset contains 28. Guitar / Bass INSTRUMENTS VST. Guitar & Bass Effects Software. Plugins 3.3k Best Free Plugins 2.9k Best Free Instrument Plugins 1.3k Free Synth Plugins 457 Best Free Effect Plugins 1.6k Best Free Guitar Effect Plugins 52 Free Reverb Plugins 104 Free EQ Plugins 136 Free Plugins Host 100 Free Kontakt Instruments & Libraries 204. Guitar & Bass Effects Plugins: VST. On Samara Cycle Audio, you can find a big collection of free VST instruments and effect plugins. One of them is Om Bass 2, a much-improved successor of the original Om Bass. This VST plugin is a fun one: With 128 presets to try and a ton of settings, you can shape your bass. Ample Bass also comes with some nice ‘articulations’ including palm mute, slap and legato slide for those little accents that makes bass pop. Download Ample Bass P Lite II For Free. LinPlug – FreeAlpha. This plugin is the free version of LinPlug’s Alpha. But just because it’s the free.

The beauty of this plugin is the fact that it supports multiple reverb types, it features a lush algorithm for Spring, Ambience, Echoes, Room, Chamber, or Plate. It also features great spaces like Hall or Cathedral and your reverb can even be Infinite.

Another interesting feature of this plugin is that you can blend smoothly between any two neighboring reverb types. So you can get 20% Chamber and 80% Hall. MorphVerb fills the gaps between reverb styles and gives almost infinite possibilities.

►System Requirements:

Tse 50 32 vst free trial. Mac

• macOS 10.10 and newer
• 64-bit only
• Intel/AMD processor with SSE2 support
• VST2, VST3, AAX, or AU compatible host

Windows

• Windows 8-10
• 32-bit or 64-bit
• Intel/AMD processor with SSE2 support
• VST2, VST3 or AAX compatible host

3.) XenoVerb by Audiority

Free Vst Plugins Download

XenoVerb is a superb Multi-Algorithm Reverb plugin with a sleek and intuitive GUI, I really love the interface of this plugin but it doesn’t only thrive in that aspect. It also features both classic and creative reverb algorithms delivering a wide range of reverbs with a clean and simple interface.

►Key Features:

• 10 Reverb Algorithms:
• Room, Hall, Plate 1, Plate 2, Springy, Glass, Flow, Shimmer, Bode, Formant
• Over 250 presets
• Pre Delay
• Diffusion
• Modulation
• Tone Control
• Reverb Freeze
• Soft Limiter

►System Requirements:

PC

• Windows XP SP3 or later
• Intel i3 or higher
• 2GB RAM
• Screen resolution: 1024×768
• VST2, AAX 32-bit or 64-bit host

MAC

• OSX 10.7.5 or later
• Intel i3 or higher
• 2GB RAM
• Screen resolution: 1024×768
• VST2, AU, and AAX 32-bit or 64-bit host

4.) Perfect Room by denise

Perfect room plugin is a re-implementation of the classic algorithmicreverb, denise ditched the method of using a combination of short feedbacking delays to create the illusion of reverberation, they instead created TXVerb™ technology.

This technology doesn’t use delays for the tail and will enhance the character and coloration of any audio you run through it in an extremely natural way, whether you are using it for drums, vocals, and any other instrument, you’ll absolutely enjoy the mechanism and sound quality of this plugin.

►System Requirements:

Mac:

• OSX 10.7 to macOS 10.14 (64-bit only)
• VST, VST3, AU, AAX

​Windows:

Free Plate Reverb Vst Plugin

• Windows 7 or newer (64-bit only)
• VST, VST3, AAX

5.) GrainSpace by Audiority

GrainSpace is a granular processor by Audiority that focuses on real-time granularization and reverberation of the incoming audio signal.

GrainSpace provides dynamic grain generation (up to 32 per channel), 7-grain parameters, 4-grain modulators (including two 11 waveforms LFO), smearing, chord resonator, and reverb to create crazy sound effects, rich textures, and much more.

System Requirements:

• Windows XP SP3 or later // OSX 10.7 or later
• Intel i3 or higher
• 2GB RAM
• Screen resolution: 1024×768
• VST2, AAX 32-bit or 64-bit host

6.) Spring by Eventide

Eventide Spring is an easy reverb that models the sound and character of the popular artificial reverb found in guitar amplifiers, with an additional tube amp style tremolo.

It doesn’t only model the sound and the character, but also allows you to make a further tweak to physical parameter controls not readily available in the real unit.

One thing that struck me with this plugin is the intuitiveness and play-ability. You can easily adjust the knobs or specifically, you can use the RIBBON to program two settings for any combination of the controls and seamlessly morph to any sound between them.

► Key Features:

Best Professional Vst Plugins

• Artist presets by Matt Lange, Nick Hook, and Nu-Trix.
• Tempo Sync reverb decay to your DAW
• Craft original sounds by changing the number of springs and damping frequency
• Alter overall resonance by selecting the size of the spring tank
• Tube-amp-style tremolo that can be routed pre- or post-reverb
• Create chorus-like effects by altering Modulation Level
• The Ribbon controller allows for dynamic modification of several knobs at once to easily morph between settings
• Programmable Hotswitch provides the ability to jump instantly to an alternate sound at the push of a button
• Mac/Windows plug-in version works as VST, AU, AAX

► System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher
• macOS 10.7 or higher
• 64-bit only
• AAX, VST2 & VST3 Formats for Windows, and
• AAX, AU & VST2 Formats for mac

Note: Eventide tests their plugins in Ableton Live, Cubase, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and Studio One. However, their plugins should work with any compatible host.