I imagine someone have already asked this question in the past, but what happens when you set the ‘‘early reflections model’’ in Revelation to ‘‘none’’? The assumption I’m making is that no early reflections are generated, and that the tail is calculated directly from the direct sound. However the Amplitude to Time meter in the Plugin is amplified the most when I set early reflections to ‘‘none’’ so my assumption may not be correct. Can anyone explain this?
I’m wondering because I have recorded some of my music that already have some quite pronounced early reflections so I’m wondering what would be the best way to add a reverb tail that sound natural to this music.
Early reflections are the first few bounces of sound off nearby walls. They are the primary way our brains identify the size of a room and the location of the sound source within it.
With ER: The sound feels like it is “in” a physical space (e.g., a studio, a hall, or a tiled room).
With “None”: The sound loses its localized “depth.” It may sound like it is sitting “in front of” a wash of reverb rather than being inside the space itself.
2. The “Disconnected” Psychoacoustic Effect
Without early reflections, the gap between the dry signal and the dense reverb tail becomes much more apparent. This often makes the reverb feel “unnatural” or “dreamy.”
The Benefit: This is excellent for lush, atmospheric pads or vocals where you want a “halo” of sound without making the singer sound like they are standing in a specific room.
The Downside: For drums or acoustic instruments, the lack of ER can make them feel thin or detached from the mix, as those initial bounces usually add “density” and “weight” to the transients.
3. Changes to the ER/Tail Mix Control
The ER/Tail Mix knob in REVelation balances the volume between these two components.
If the Model is set to None, the “ER” side of that balance is essentially silence.
Moving the slider toward the ER side will simply make the overall reverb effect quieter or completely silent, while moving it toward the Tail side will isolate the late reflections.
But yes, you are right, setting the Early reflections model to “None” effectively disables the generation of the ER. IMHO it is effectively the same as setting the ER/Tail mix to 100% ER, so that setting might seem a bit redundant.
You can easily test it yourself, if you set ER model to “None” and the mix to 100% ER, you get no sound.
