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Reverb Foundry Tai Chi
Innovative Reverb Plug-in and Sound Design Tool
By Barry Rudolph
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| Reverb Foundry Tai Chi Surround/ATMOS Version |
Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art dating back more than 700 years, Tai Chi is practiced today as an intense, whole body exercise using artistic poses, Qigong breathing and energy methodologies. Tai Chi is also the name of Reverb Foundry's newest algorithmic reverb that breathes new energy into conceptualizing reverb sounds, modernizing sound design, and creating novel synthesizer augmentations.
Tai Chi is third in Reverb Foundry's line of software reverb products. It joins: M7 Link, a standalone software remote controller for the famed Bricasti M7 hardware reverb, and the HD-Cart reverb plugin that emulates the classic Lexicon 480L hardware reverb. The 480L could use an optional Surround Cartridge that allowed utilization of the entire processing power of both the 480L's A and B machines combined into a single reverb--this is emulated in the HD-Cart plugin.
Reverb Foundry is a London-based company founded in 2017 by Matthew Hill, its lead product developer and industry veteran David Bryce, head of sales and marketing. Hill's other software plugin company is LiquidSonics with its Seventh Heaven Impulse Response reverb (a software plugin version of the Bricasti M7 hardware reverb), an algorithmic reverb called Cinematic Rooms, and Reverberate 3 software for combing impulse responses to create wholly new reverbs.
Tai Chi is a 64-bit processor (iLok-authorized) and requires an Intel or AMD processor or Apple's M1 chip under Rosetta 2. Native Apple Support is said to be coming soon. Tai Chi comes in two versions: Tai Chi Standard and Tai Chi Lite with the chorus, reverb and reflections engines but without the multi-band, fidelity and dynamics engines.
Navigating Tai Chi
The no-nonsense monochromatic look of Tai Chi's GUI, appearing only in black and copper colors, works well for accessing and adjusting all parameters. I found the manual indispensible to fully understand Tai Chi's powerful capabilities. If you don't want to bother reading, or just in a hurry, all the familiar reverb parameter controls are there with 75 (and counting) many starting-point presets included.
Getting to know Tai Chi and its GUI is easy because it is organized into three horizontal rows. At the top just under the requisite plugin frame with its preset selection, A|B preset switches, and preferences/settings area is the first row that shows five selectable tabs or subsections.
They are named from left to right in a kind of hierarchy of importance as: Master, Advanced, Dynamics, Fidelity, and Equaliser. Clicking on any of the five tabs causes the second row's six controls' names and functions to change to the parameters required for that tab.
Always visible and available on the GUI's right side are the input/output meters and the Output mix. The number of meters changes depending on whether you are using Tai Chi as stereo (2-channel outs), stereo/LCR (3-outs), stereo/Quad (4-outs), stereo/5.0 or 5.1 (5-outs), 7.0, 7.1 (7-outs). 7.0.2 and 7.1.2 adds two height output channels. No reverb is sent the .1 LFE channel in any case. With the exception of the mono Centre channel/output, to conserve GUI space, the meters are labeled in stereo pairs: Front, Centre, Side, Rear, and Height.
Below the meters is the Output Mix section with Wet/Dry, Reflection/Reverb balance and Master Gain controls.
Rather than using the typical send/return reverb setup, I found it better to use Tai Chi's own internal Wet/Dry Balance--especially for creating signature 'hook' effects. Tai Chi works great on stereo sub-master buses in Pro Tools such has drums, keyboards or backing vocals.
The third row is the entire bottom half of Tai Chi's GUI. There you'll find the Multiband Reverb Time Multipliers. This looks and operates like a multiband EQ but it controls the RT60 decay times within adjustable frequency bands. You can select either three or four bands or bypass it.
For global reverb frequency sculpting, there is Treble Contouring section with its semi-parametric 6, 12, 18, 24-per/octave low pass filter, while the Bass Contouring controls that enable either dampening or exaggerating the reverb's low frequencies. I used these sections as finishing touches when programming a new reverb.
Master Tab
When Tai Chai first instantiates, Master is the default tab with controls and parameters most will recognize immediately. Reverb Time has RT60 values up to 89.9 seconds culminating in a Freeze feature, Pre-delay is either tempo-synced or variable up to 500ms, and I loved the Width control that uses Mid/Side techniques to vary the stereo width from mono up to 150 percent.
Next in the Master tab are Reflections where you may select the physical space for Tai Chi to emulate, be it a Room, Hall, Church, Garage, or Stadium. A control called Pattern works with another control called Spacing; together they set the reflectivity--the number of reflections and the time between reflections. Back in the Output section, the Reflection/Reverb balance control sets the balance between the reflections of the selected space and its reverberation. This is a powerful design tool that controls the reverb's core properties and sound.
Using the Wet/Dry control at fully wet, I found it is easier to adjust the ratio of reflections versus reverberation. Reflections are the discrete actual "slap" or flutter echoes in a space. There is a big difference between the number, spacing and color of reflections in Tai Chi's Room emulation versus its Stadium! Selecting the space is the most important first step in designing a new reverb preset.
Advanced Tab
Once I had a space picked out in the Master Tab, the Advanced tab opens up granular access to more arcane reverb parameters. The manual explains in good detail: Density, Diffusion/Diffusion Size, Chorus/Mod Rate, and Wander. The Density control sets how smooth the reverb sounds--how well the reflections are heard within the reverb's tail. I found sustaining synth pads or strings to sound better using low Density values whereas percussion and drum kits do not because single, sharp attacks become flams. Reverbs with higher densities are better suited for percussive sounds.
The Diffusion and Diffusion Size controls adjust how much the reverb is time smeared with higher Diffusion values equaling smoother reverb. Lastly are the Chorus, Mod Rate, and Wander controls that control and modulate time within the reverb delay loops within Tai Chi. The over all effect is to enrich the reverb without noticeable pitch-shifting. Tai Chi has many of the same parameters names I recognized from classic reverbs I've always admired such as the Lexicon 224 and others.
Dynamics Tab
The Dynamic tab has the controls of a stereo compressor because that is exactly what it is! With Threshold, Ratio, Knee, Attack, Release, and Trim (make up gain) controls you can Compress or Duck either the reverb and reflections or just the reverb signal only.
I immediately tried using Dynamics for a lead vocal in a Pop music mix. The problem was how to retain intelligibility and also have a lush, long reverb well heard? The singer sang percussively with rapid-fire lyrics that quickly started to lose intelligibility as I increased the RT60 time.
I inserted a Mono-to-Stereo instance of Tai Chi into the lead vocal chain right after heavily compressing it using Kush Audio's AR-1 Lisson Grove plugin. (here is my review of the discontinued original hardware Lisson Grove R-124)
With the vocal track now stereo, I used an extremely long RT60 time of 7.6 seconds, no Pre-delay, 150% Width, and selected the Stadium space with Wide Reflection Spacing and used the Duck mode to compress the reverb only and not include the reflections (you have a choice) whenever the vocal track exceeded the threshold setting.
Using the Reflection/Reverb balance control, I favored the reflections over reverb so the vocal had a slapback effect but the reverb tails were suppressed whenever the singer sang. However when the singer stopped singing such as during a break before the next verse, the super-long reverb continued to sustain through that break!
I used the Multiband RT Multiplier to lengthen the reverb decay in a broad mid-range area but much shorter in the bass so that the vocal track could be 'tucked' into the track yet still be understood.
Lock It In
One of many new ideas carried out well in Tai Chi is Parameter Lock. Parameter Lock facilitates searching and toggling through different presets by allowing you to lock down any parameter from change as is normal when switching presets.
I was looking for a room (or plate) reverb with a RT60 of around 2 seconds, no pre-delay, and a darker sound. By locking Reverb Time, Pre-delay and the 500Hz 24db/Oct roll-offs in both the Master and Reverb Contouring sections, no matter what preset I switched to those basic parameters stayed the same. And there is a way to reset all parameter locks with one click--Awesome!
Fidelity and Equaliser Tabs
Fidelity is for designing the overall sonic quality of the reverb by distorting the input signal to the reverb processor for the crunchy sound of many vintage '70s and 80s' digital reverbs. There are controls for: Input Bandwidth, a Bit Crusher section adds dirt selectively to the Output, Reverb or Reflections in any amount(s), and the Recirculation control changes the bit depth of the reverb signal as it loops around itself. The Equaliser does not touch the dry signal and offers 6, 12, 18, 24 dB/Oct shelving filters.
Amazing and Powerful Tai Chi has proven to me to be more than a reverb plugin by way of its imaginative design and extensive, deep parameter control. Brilliant ideas and products like this don't come around that often and I think Tai Chi should be 'standard kit' in any plugin folder and/or session template. Highly recommended!
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