Reverb unit for acoustic piano sounds

[MrVegas]

Has anyone on here ever used a reverb unit (similar to what a guitarist would use) with their keyboard/synth to get added reverb to their acoustic piano patches? I have a Kronos now and want some atmospheric piano with really heavy reverb for some of the "ambient" playing that I do during worship services. Any ideas? Eventide?

[Mike Warren]

Maybe I'm missing something, but won't the onboard reverb work for that with a bit of editing?

[timwat]

If you haven't already, try working with both the IFX and TFX chains in your Kronos piano programs - it seems to me you're able to bathe quite a lot of wet reverb with the built-ins.

 

However, if you're looking for something else, I've been consistently knocked out by the Strymon pedals. I haven't used them myself, but have gigged with guys using the Big Sky and Blue Sky - pretty darn amazing to my ears.

[Reezekeys]

Count me super-confused. The Kronos's reverb doesn't cut it?

[Theo Verelst]

Well I don't know about the musical intention, but for a great, broad, deep and controlled sound, usually one would think Lexicon. My experience however is that there isn't a digital signal creator around which satisfies it's desire for proper (digitally prepared) wave forms, so it will work (like the cheap MX200), but not so great as expected, usually.

 

T

[MrVegas]

You are correct, I should thoroughly explore the onboard reverbs in the Kronos. I was fiddling over the weekend and wasn't blown away, but I tend to be impatient with editing. Thanks for the replies.

[Nathanael_I]

Unfortunately, reverb is not a one-knob deal. It isn't a lot of editing, but pretty much all reverb processors are meant to adjust to fit the need at hand. The ones in the Kronos are quite capable and will only take a few moments.

 

1. You will want to first select the reverb type (hall, chamber, room, etc). Probably a hall or chamber.

2. There are controls for the "size of the room" / amount of decay - this is how long the reverb rings out. Try 1.4 - 2.5 seconds to start. But there aren't right answers.

3. How much reverb you want (dry/wet ratio) - usually somewhere between 15-30% effect will get you a usable sound.

 

There's lots of fancy parameters for High frequency damping, and other things. But get the algorithm selection, room size and wet/dry correct and you'll be most of the way there.

 

Do realize that reverb will "push the instrument back in the mix". This is just normal psycho-acoustics. If you want it to not sound "dry", but have some life and remain forward, use delay instead. Or you can get super fancy and use a delay followed by a reverb where you are just using the tail and not the early reflections... But that is lots more tweaking than you may want or need to do.