Anyone using Valhalla Shimmer?

[timwat]

I've been tempted to jump into the shimmer reverb pool since hearing the various Strymon pedals on YouTube (Big Sky, etc.)

 

I hear it's a big thing in some genres I don't currently play (contemporary worship, for example), but I wanted to experiment with it at home before I try to fit it into a live setting.

 

In several of the shimmer pedal YouTubes, I see consistent comments to use Valhalla Shimmer instead, and it appears to be only $50 for the plug.

 

Anyone here have any experience with it?

 

https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-shimmer/

[Stokely]

I own a couple Valhalla plugs, that's one I don't.  You might see if Supermassive (free) has any shimmer effects first...not sure.

I like their stuff.  Easy and simple copy protection, he keeps them updated quickly as OSes change as well from what I've noticed, and I've yet to get charged for an update.  I like the vector-looking flat resizable interfaces.     He also seems to keep adding presets and algorithms to them    No sales but it's kind of refreshing to know the price will always be $50--I'm so tired of constant "It's normally $399, on sale for $29!" crap....

I've pretty much heard universal compliments on that plugin, for people going for that effect.  That said I'm not sure how it compares to the Strymon stuff.

[CyberGene]

I was about to purchase it once but after I listened to enough demos (shimmer in general, not just Strymon and Valhalla), and it’s an impressive effect at first no doubt, I quickly grew tired of it and realized it was a one trick pony. 

[CyberGene]

P.S. I’d add one more recommendation for the free Supermassive plugin by Valhalla which is one of my favorite FX plugins and I might have used it in all my tracks 😀 It’s a bunch of different drastic reverbs/delays/mods, etc. but some of them are quite shimmerish. Highly recommend! I’ve been tempted to buy other of their plugins just because the Supermassive is soooo good!

[timwat]

Good to know, and two independent commends of Supermassive is telling.

 

Gene, I think I'm just a sucker for riding that pony, at least to see how she fits with some of my ideas - I just didn't want to spend $500 for that ride LOL

[johnchop]

+1 to start with Supermassive.

 

Trial Eventide Blackhole ($29 when on sale) unless you are constitutionally opposed to iLok

 

Trial Shimmer

 

I got Blackhole because it had enough mojo that I didn’t feel compelled to spend more. And then Supermassive was released. 😂

[Tusker]

I have Supermassive and Shimmer. I use both, often together, and with other reverb and delay effects. (junkie alert) Supermassive is the more powerful of the two. It's great for taking you into vast nebulae of outer space. But it doesn't do pitch shifting. Shimmer adds this ethereal polish that only a pitch shifted reverb can do.

 

I'd start with Supermassive, but they are both useful in their own way.

[sunspot]

It's definitely a cool sound.  The first time I became aware of Shimmer reverb as a thing was when the Eventide Space was released.  It was then added to the H9 multi-fx device.   I always assumed that Eventide invented it but then I just found this blurb on the interwebz:

 

The Eventide ShimmerVerb combines a massively lustrous reverb with parallel pitch shifters to add ethereal layers making any signal, well, "shimmer." Oftentimes, producers would achieve the effect by using Eventide pitch shifting hardware such as the H910, H949, or H3000 or other rack mount units in combination with a reverb. This production technique was popularized by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno on U2's The Unforgettable Fire.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Sean Costello AKA "Valhalla" had a hand in the Eventide Shimmer algorithm.  Super talented guy (don't know him personally) and makes great FX at reasonable prices and even gives away cool freebies.  Don't know how someone could say "No don't buy his stuff" but what do I know.

[Tusker]

1 minute ago, sunspot said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Sean Costello AKA "Valhalla" had a hand in the Eventide Shimmer algorithm.  Super talented guy (don't know him personally) and makes great FX at reasonable prices and even gives away cool freebies.  Don't know how someone could say "No don't buy his stuff" but what do I know.

 

Love the guy. Here he is demoing Shimmer ....

 

 

[Pianoman JC]

Never used Shimmer but I am another fan of Supermassive. I use it a lot. Sounds great and you can’t beat the price.

 

 

 

JC

[CHarrell]

2 hours ago, Pianoman JC said:

Sounds great and you can’t beat the price

 

I wrote an e-mail to them asking if they could pay me to use it, and I haven't gotten a response. 😡

[AROIOS]

3 hours ago, Tusker said:

 

Love the guy. Here he is demoing Shimmer ....

 

 

Excellent demo, that MS-20 sounded great with it.

[brenner13]

Too late…the fad is over. Now is the time to use it to taste… no more than one song per set.

[Tusker]

8 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Excellent demo, that MS-20 sounded great with it.

Yes, and he is showing extreme examples of it, but it’s handy in smaller doses too. A serviceable tool. The pitch-shifting aspect of it is orchestrally the same as gently bringing in a sine oscillator a couple of octaves above the main tone in a pad. Or high flutes rising slowly over the warm bed of strings. You don't need it all the time. But it's brilliant icing on a cake.

[D. Gauss]

All the Valhalla stuff is great.  Valhalla Room and Valhalla Plate has been on every record I've mixed for years now.   Vintage Verb is also great if you're a Lex 224/480 fan. IMO, best $50 bucks you can spend on a plug-ins. fwiw, I never use shimmer.

[David Emm]

I drop Massive in as a send quite a bit. Its easy to use minus excessive fiddling. The tails are mega clean. I added my +1 to mention their Delay as well, which not only covers the basics well, but invites experimentation. You can create all sorts of unusual effects readily. They're low CPU consumers, too, so they make good inserts.      

[AROIOS]

17 hours ago, Tusker said:

Yes, and he is showing extreme examples of it, but it’s handy in smaller doses too. A serviceable tool. The pitch-shifting aspect of it is orchestrally the same as gently bringing in a sine oscillator a couple of octaves above the main tone in a pad. Or high flutes rising slowly over the warm bed of strings. You don't need it all the time. But it's brilliant icing on a cake.

Thanks for the insight, Tusker. Those techniques apply perfectly well to pads programming.

[Tusker]

11 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Thanks for the insight, Tusker. Those techniques apply perfectly well to pads programming.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. After decades of live performance, I am only just beginning to learn how to use reverb precisely. Late to the party. 🤦‍♂️ 😅

 

If you are like me, the first rule you were told was to not put too much reverb on your sounds, because it would destroy your imaging. This is true advice but not all that helpful. It's like saying don't play too loud. It doesn't tell you how to play or what to play. 

 

I am learning that the human ear desires reverb, just as it desires stereo placement. Our frequent inability to provide good stereo (left-right) live doesn't change the fact that the human ear desires it. The ear uses (short) early reverberations to locate a sound in a front to back manner and our frequent inability to provide those early reflections doesn't change the fact that the human ear desires them. The location of sound is deeply fulfilling and makes one of the biggest differences between what people call "real" instruments and "fake" instruments. With reverb and placement tools we can provide that realness as precisely as an acoustic guitar in a corner of a stage.

 

The reverbs we are discussing like Shimmer and Blackhole and Supermassive, won't help place sound precisely. But they will work better if you can use early reflections to place sound within the vast spaces these reverbs can create. I use Liquid Sonics 7th Heaven or Cinematic Rooms for those vital early reflections and I add these bigger "effect reverbs" for the special sauce. I also use tools like Expanse 3d  or Precedence to shrink and position the instrument within a soundfield. Along with massifying tools, you need shrinking and positioning tools also. Otherwise we are back to that true and unhelpful first rule: don't turn your sound to mud with too much reverb. Even within the group of "spacey" reverbs, there are differences. Massive delay networks like Valhalla's Supermassive bring something different from the pitch shifters like Valhalla's Shimmer or Eventide's Shimmer Verb. They can all work together inside your toolkit. Just like FM and samples and physical modeling and analog.

[cphollis]

Ditto on "late to the party" in learning to use shimmery, spacey deep reverb.  I'm finding it useful on all sorts of material, not just ambient, techno etc.

 

My "discovery" came via the new FX processing on the Stage 4.  I don't know how it compares to plugins, but there's oodles of shimmery reverb to play with now, all under preset/morph control.  

 

Now everything is drenched in goopy reverb, and I'm gonna have to learn how to back off now ...

[CyberGene]

I’ve been told not to use separate (insert) reverb on each track and rather use track sends to a common (master) reverb. But I personally like it more when I carefully choose a different type of reverb for each track. And the sum of all tracks still sounds great to me. Modern reverb algorithms are so creamy and smooth, they are already a sculpting tool to the sound, rather than just a generic reverberation. 

[Tusker]

1 hour ago, CyberGene said:

I’ve been told not to use separate (insert) reverb on each track and rather use track sends to a common (master) reverb. But I personally like it more when I carefully choose a different type of reverb for each track. And the sum of all tracks still sounds great to me. Modern reverb algorithms are so creamy and smooth, they are already a sculpting tool to the sound, rather than just a generic reverberation. 

 

So good these days, yes! 😃

 

I like both methods personally. Unique and sound design reverbs with spacial cues are on individual tracks and a finishing reverb sits in a separate bus to pull the mix together into a cohesive "space." That's my tendency. The positioning ideas are partly influenced by Rohan De Livera's use of Virtual Sound Stage (start the video around 12.45) with instruments which have no sampled reverb in them, and therefore also applicable to synthesizers. 

[AROIOS]

16 hours ago, Tusker said:

...The reverbs we are discussing like Shimmer and Blackhole and Supermassive, won't help place sound precisely. But they will work better if you can use early reflections to place sound within the vast spaces these reverbs can create...

Thanks Tusker, that's another great insight.

I've only used room/hall size and mix ratio to control the perceived distance of instruments from "the listener", and density/diffusion to emulate surface materials, but never paid much attention to early reflections.

Will definitely experiment with ER in my next mix, to see what I've been missing this entire time.

[Stokely]

I talked myself into Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms for that reason...a reverb kind of known for being able to place things in a space.  I don't have the Pro version, which has more control, more presets and surround.   There are other verbs like Berlin Studios that are really fascinating, they place instruments/groups of instruments into a particular spot in that particular place (Berlin Studio).   I recommend watching a demo of that, really cool stuff!

End of the day though it's all "reverb" of some sort, whether convolution or algorithmic, ERs or not (like a plate), but the differences are all very interesting.

[obxa]

I love anything Sean does. He doesn't do sales, doesn't need to.   His prices are a bargain. He also updates fairly regularly.  

I too bought  Blackhole before Shimmer was released.  I've been pretty happy with it, though I prefer Vahalla's UI.     Another similar candidate is Cherry Audio's cheap Galactic $19.  Native instruments very cool  Raum isn't a shimmer verb per se  but is delicious on synths and piano.

 

As Tusker alluded to,  I consider some reverbs more  "Character reverbs" or special purpose. and others more utilitarian..  But there is lots of crossover. Raum and Vahalla Vintage/Room Verb can do some light shimmer type action.  Because things like Shimmer/BlackHole  add harmonics, octaves, vibrato, modulation etc.  I've found it best to limit how many things are going through it. But all depends on the type of music. When you need it, you need it.  Always got Blackhole on my piano send for anything electro ambient.  But can do wonders on synth or string patch for more upbeat stuff. 

 

One trick  (Dave Pensado) I learned a while back that drastically changed my whole FX thing: is to use  filtering/cutting on your Reverb returns.  Rolling off the low end with a HP filter, and taking a little off the top really helps Reverb (and delay) sit better in the mix, or live. 

[Dr Mike Metlay]

I love Shimmer. My first Valhalla plug-in and now I have them all. Love it. Turn the detune way down and it becomes a completely different sound. Love it love it love it. I wish Valhalla did iOS AUv3 versions....

[David Emm]

I recall the early days of cheapo hardware reverbs, especially pedals and half-rack effects. I learned early on that while most of them had grainy tones & crap tails, stacking two in series greatly diminished their lacks. Now, I can add Supermassive to Logic's tiny AVerb for the best Mellotron toppings and its all so clean, I sometimes have to include a dollop of fuzz to give it some grit. Its far removed from needing a noise gate to address that brain-numbing hum and Zzzt.