Spring Reverb IR Collection, Part One

Product Description

NOTE- This product is a collection of standard IRs- reverb impulses that will work with any convolution plug-in that allows you to load your own impulses. Most of my other products on this site are for use with Nebula, so if you don’t own Nebula be sure to stick to the Impulse Response Reverb category.

Spring Reverbs

Five different hardware spring reverb units were sampled to create this set of IRs. Four of them were sampled very extensively, the fifth one is really kind of a bonus. There’s a BX-20 which was sampled at seven different positions on its damper control, giving you different reverb lengths. The RV-1, 111b, and SRE-555 were sampled with their built-in EQs adjusted to various settings. The Sansui RA-700 is the bonus and has no variations, besides the dynamic steps.

Be sure to check out the audio demos to hear these spring impulses in action!

Damper Control Settings

The BX-20 filenames (except for the bionic IRs) include a letter ‘D’ followed by a number. These are the different sampled dampener positions. At ‘0’, there was no dampening. ‘1’ will have a little dampening, and as the number increases upwards from there the spring has more and more dampening, which gives you a shorter decay (as well as changing the overall reverb character).

EQ Control Settings

As mentioned earlier, the RV-1, 111b, and SRE-555 were all sampled with various EQ setups:

The IRs from the RV-1 have a little description in their filenames of the EQ boosts that were used on the RV-1’s built in EQ, while sampling that IR. Some are labeled ‘flat’ because they had no EQing. Then there are ‘mid +6’, ‘treble +3’, as well as ‘treble +6’. Value is dB.

The SRE-555 IRs are labeled with ‘EQ’ followed by a number, 1-5. These transition from a ‘smile’ style EQ (boosted highs and lows) at number 1, up to number 3 which is flat (no EQ), and then to 5 which is a ‘frown’ style EQ (highs and lows cut). Numbers 2 is also a ‘smile’ but with less boosting, and 4 is also a frown but with less cutting of highs and lows.

The 111b IRs are also labeled with ‘EQ’ and numbered 1-9. Number 1 is ‘trebly’, meaning that there was a bass cut and treble boost on the unit’s built in EQ. This could be considered an ‘upward tilt’ type of EQ. As the numbers increase, the upward tilt of the EQ becomes less and less, until number 5, which is flat (no EQ). From there, as the numbering increases, you have a ‘downward tilt’ which gets more and more extreme, up to number 9 which has a full ‘downward tilt’. This gives a very bassy, huge sounding reverb.

Edited, Organized

These impulses were all sampled at 32 or 24 bit, and have been meticulously edited for consistency. Expect a higher quality presentation than you would find in random free impulses you can find online. The filenames are thought out and give you information about what each IR is, and also give the set some nice organization.

Alt Versions

There are 3 alternate IRs of the BX-20, and 48 of them for the RV-1, which were made using a technique I came up with where the sampling tones are ran through the hardware at faster or slower than normal playback speed. The end result is that the frequency response of the spring is shifted up or down, as well as lengthening or shortening the decay. They still have the basic qualities of the spring unit, but with darker or brighter tonal fingerprints.

Dynamic Steps

Different levels of input drive were used during sampling, producing up to four ‘dynamic steps’ available for almost every sampled spring reverb setup in this set. The difference in sound between these options is usually subtle, but after you find which spring setup you want to use, you should also try all of its dynamic options out just to see if you prefer one over the others. The lowest drive option may have some noise towards the end of the reverb tail in some cases, but it’s usually very subtle and probably won’t be an issue (you may even actually like it).

Altogether there are 123 impulses in this collection. 44.1khz, 48khz, 88.2khz, and 96khz collections are available for download to all purchasers. You should use the sample rate that matches your project when possible.