Back in September 2020, we updated ValhallaSupermassive with two new reverb/delay modes, Triangulum and Large Magellanic Cloud. September 2020 was two months ago, but this translates to several years in 2020 time. So we figured that today would be a great day to introduce TWO MORE MODES!!!!!!
We are happy to announce the 1.2.0 update of ValhallaSupermassive, and the new Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes.
Most of the modes in ValhallaSupermassive are designed to sound as smooth as possible. Lots of echo density, with the Warp and Density knobs allowing for a seamless transition between lower density echos and high density reverbs. The Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes aren’t smooth. They are bumpy. They are rough. They create echo patterns that repeat in weird ways. The density is far less than other modes, and even at their densest you can hear strange repeating patterns.
Why make reverb modes that sound weird and rough? Because they are interesting. Put a synth sound with a sharp attack through the Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes, and listen to the sound bounce around the stereo image. Play guitar through them, and enjoy the textures. The Cirrus modes are all about hearing the gaps in the sound, not about filling those gaps in. Space full of spaces.
All that being said, if you turn Warp up to 60% or more and turn Density up to 100%, you can use the Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor modes as an 80s modulated reverb. There will be a fair amount of predelay baked into the sound, but this is useful for emulating the sound of something like the H3000 Swept Reverb. The underlying architecture of Cirrus Minor isn’t all that dissimilar from the Swept Reverb algorithm – they are both feedback delay networks that can have fairly “sparse” scattering matrices. Set the Delay to somewhere between 100 and 200 msec, and you can get a reverb sound that hearkens back to the days of big hair and bigger drum sounds!
My favorite way of using Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor is to set the density to around 25-30%, and then adjust Warp to get a cool “multitap” repeating echo sound that gradually decays into reverb. The Low and High EQ are included within the feedback path of the Cirrus modes, so you can thin out the sound as it decays away.
ValhallaSupermassive is a FREE plugin, and the 1.2.0 update is a FREE update! We appreciate all of the enthusiasm and support we’ve received from all of you since Supermassive launched in May of this year, and we hope you enjoy the new modes!
P.S. All of the modes in Supermassive up to this point have been named after constellations or massive celestial objects. Cirrus Major and Cirrus Minor break from this tradition, and are named after one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs:
Thank You very very much for all of Your wonderful freeware! <3 🙂