PreSonus Blog

Shimmer Reverb

As reverb transitions from being simply a way to emulate an acoustic space to an effect in its own right, new reverb designs are becoming more popular. One of these is “shimmer” reverb, which uses pitch shifting before the reverb to add high-frequency content. Some of these recirculate the pitch-shifted output back to the input; although this implementation doesn’t do that, it still gives a solid shimmer effect—check out the audio examples.

After hearing the examples, you’ll probably want to download the multipreset included for Pro users. If you’re an Artist user and have the Ampire add-on, you can do this effect by using buses. Fig. 1 shows the Shimmer Reverb’s block diagram.

Figure 1: Shimmer Reverb FX Chain.

The Splitter has three splits. Two go to a Pedalboard with a Pitch Shifter module, set for an octave higher shift (fig. 2). The third provides a dry signal.

Figure 2: Pitch Shifter settings.

Because the fidelity drops off with extreme transposition, having two Pitch Shifters in parallel gives a smoother sound. Note that Mix Harmony is set full up, and Harmony Detune is up halfway. Feel free to experiment with the Detune parameter.

To smooth the sound further, an Analog Delay (fig. 3) follows each Pitch Shifter. They have identical settings, except that one is set for 31 ms of delay, and the other for 23 ms.

Figure 3: Analog Delay settings.

You’ll need to set the wet/dry balance in the FX Chain itself, using the level sliders for the three splits. Or, eliminate the dry split, and use this only as a bus or FX Channel effect.

And that’s all there is to shimmering your sound. Happy ambiance!

Download the Shimmer Reverb multipreset here.