Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
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Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Straker Tue Jan 07, 2025 10:06 pm
EnochLight wrote:
Straker wrote:Just what I am saying is that Reverb is the most used effect on mixing and since MPC is going to be a standalone mixing box, maybe a better reverb would make sense for everyone.


You're preaching to the choir, my brother!

Straker wrote:Talking about reverbs, what about Slowdive? Do you also like them? I absolutely love them.
They use tons of Reverb in every track, voice, guitars or whatever, they cannot live without reverbs, they are addicted, poor guys


I just saw Slowdive back in November, and they sounded probably better than they ever have. Absolutely MAGICAL show. Rachel had her Roland Juno 106. I saw them back in the 90's and I don't remember them sounding nearly as good. They've actually gotten better!

I also saw them last year and they had a perfectly balanced sound.
The guitars were just wonderful.
I think they finally have a good live sound engineer.
The strange thing about these 90s band is that now their audience is much much bigger then in the 90s.
They are getting somehow famous now. In the 90s they were bands for few.
So I guess now they can afford better sound engineers for live performances.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By dustyslices Wed Jan 08, 2025 6:52 am
I've posted this long time ago, it looks like they've beed considering adding better reverb (or exploring ways to add it) and by the look of things they've decided that more than two instances of ether is too much overhead. You need to understand that people are stupid and are capable of adding several instances of a reverb into one channel strip which will bog down the mpc in no time.
https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=218084&p=1885322&hilit=instances#p1885322

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Nerknablerk Wed Jan 08, 2025 11:23 am
Given the amount of different instruments Air Reverb is going to have thrown at it in the MPC, it needs to be a versatile tool. I find it has plenty of parameters that I can tweak to get it to work on whatever.

That said, I know what people are talking about when they say it sounds harsh or not great. I have never pulled it up on a channel in it's default state, reduced the mix parameter to taste and thought "yeah, that's sounding great". To be fair this has never been the case with Air Reverb on my Pro Tools rig either. On whichever platform, I have to work at tweaking it to get the results I want.

For anything other than percussive instruments I select the Philharmonic early reflections because they sound the nicest to my ears. I widen the stereo image using the input and output width controls. I adjust the ER/ Tail ratio to open it up. I open it up even more by adjusting the Ambience and Density controls. It ends up working.

Because I'm lazy I use it as a channel insert most of the time. If I really wanted to make exciting reverb tails I would use it on a return and eq the reverb tail, modulate the reverb tail and add delays to the reverb tail. It's all possible, you just have to do it the long way.

People have mentioned the Roland Dep 3. I have one and I love it, it only ever gets used on guitars though. For vocals it adds too much mid-range because of it's 12 bit converters which limit the bandwidth. If you want the early Pantera gated reverb snare sound this is the box! I have an Alesis Midiverb 4 from the 90s which has particularly harsh sounding reverb, but on one hall preset it sounds massive with a long reverb tail. It has a built in chorusing parameter in the reverb which is what makes it sound nice. But it's not versatile.

Air Reverb is versatile. It doesn't set the world on fire but it can get the job done. Yes, it would be nice to have another reverb option that could do lush interesting reverb tails in one plug-in. Maybe that's not possible on the current hardware for the reasons people have mentioned.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Masi Wed Jan 08, 2025 7:14 pm
dustyslices wrote:I've posted this long time ago, it looks like they've beed considering adding better reverb (or exploring ways to add it) and by the look of things they've decided that more than two instances of ether is too much overhead. You need to understand that people are stupid and are capable of adding several instances of a reverb into one channel strip which will bog down the mpc in no time.
https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=218084&p=1885322&hilit=instances#p1885322

DrumSynth Multi can only be used exactly once per project. The number of other DrumSynth plugins is also limited.

Make it the same for the magical super reverb. Or don't include a mix knob so it's a send/return plugin by design :)

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By T-Monk Sun Jan 12, 2025 6:45 pm
They could just do the Jura reverb standalone. It’s pretty good, and it runs with a VA synth and other effects in Jura without being too CPU intensive.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By mpc_fan_2022 Sun Jan 12, 2025 8:37 pm
What sounds good on the Jura will not necessarily sound good on a snare or vocals.

The obvious issue is that all reverb plugins on the MPC line tend to sound like very short delays with heavy feedback and decay, not reverbs. Some low pass filter might mask that effect a bit, however it will change nothing to their low definition sound. Again, it might work on some sounds better than others but it is just no ideal. Of all my gear, the MPC has the worse reverb. Even the crappy Zoom ARQ groovebox has a much better sounding reverb, you can hear the difference immediately.

By now we can all agree that a high quality reverb with a limited number of instance, or just one, would be an excellent trade off all things considered.
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Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Lampdog Sun Jan 12, 2025 9:08 pm
mpc_fan_2022 wrote:Of all my gear, the MPC has the worse reverb.

Same.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By T-Monk Sun Jan 12, 2025 9:56 pm
So, does anyone have workarounds to make it sound better?

I read using granulator, but is it all just lipstick on a pig, or has anyone gotten decent sound out of it?

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By akimov Sun Jan 12, 2025 10:36 pm
Quality reverbs and other effects require a dedicated processor. The single ARM processor of the 2010s that powers MPCs is not capable of handling effects that require a great deal of computing power on top of what it has to manage.
When you listen to recent ARM-based pedals (eventide H90), you realize that it's possible to have very high-quality on-board effects. In any case, the solution of having an internal processor dedicated to effects processing would perhaps be less costly for AKAI than the introduction of a recent and powerful general-purpose ARM processor, as offered by all the smartphones, tablets and other ARM-architecture devices we all dream of....

Otherwise, we'd need a more substantial I/O offering, both analog and digital, to process tracks with external processors. Currently, on a KEY 61 or MPC X, you can use output 3/4 as send and return 1/2. To be seen with latency. On stage, I think it's acceptable.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By T-Monk Mon Jan 13, 2025 1:20 am
External effects processing isn’t a great option with the MPC One since there are only stereo ins and outs.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Straker Mon Jan 13, 2025 11:32 am
T-Monk wrote:So, does anyone have workarounds to make it sound better?

I read using granulator, but is it all just lipstick on a pig, or has anyone gotten decent sound out of it?

you can chain it with a bit of modulations, like chorus, phaser, etc.
You can also try to be a bit creative, putting a distortion before reverb on return track, or as you said a granulator, an autofilter or whatever.
You can also eq after reverb, find the metallic spots and put them down a bit.
I tried all but honestly, it still sounds flat and harsh.

Re: Let's talk about Mpc Reverb.

By Straker Mon Jan 13, 2025 11:36 am
akimov wrote:Quality reverbs and other effects require a dedicated processor. The single ARM processor of the 2010s that powers MPCs is not capable of handling effects that require a great deal of computing power on top of what it has to manage.
When you listen to recent ARM-based pedals (eventide H90), you realize that it's possible to have very high-quality on-board effects. In any case, the solution of having an internal processor dedicated to effects processing would perhaps be less costly for AKAI than the introduction of a recent and powerful general-purpose ARM processor, as offered by all the smartphones, tablets and other ARM-architecture devices we all dream of....

Otherwise, we'd need a more substantial I/O offering, both analog and digital, to process tracks with external processors. Currently, on a KEY 61 or MPC X, you can use output 3/4 as send and return 1/2. To be seen with latency. On stage, I think it's acceptable.

Yeah that's what I also thought about the need of more cpu power for high quality reverbs.
But what about reverbs of the 80s?
Some of them still sound really good, maybe not natural as the new generation ones, but pleasant anyway.
And I think they had a fraction of the processor powers of today.

Your idea to put a dedicated processor just for fx is a very good one, it makes a lot of sense.
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