A couple of weeks ago I released a pretty comprehensive update of Color Springs, one of my oldest libraries! I’ve had people saying it really lowered the CPU use for them and is still one of their favorite libraries. One of the main points of the update is also to reorganize where it’s found in the Nebula categories. I’m trying to go back and group some of my older releases together, into the same categories, because I think it will make the experience a lot better for any people who own several of my similar libraries, to have more options to choose from right in the same place. My last reverb release, ReelVerb1, is grouped with Color Springs now, and very soon I’m releasing another one with two more springs which will be placed there. I think I’ll move the Raybon Spring release there too. To me, that’s a key point of the update, but if you don’t own those other libraries there’s still a lot of improvements here:
*Two of the bionic reverbs were actually lengthened because the reverb continues beyond where it was cut off in the older programs. These are the lower pitched ones.
*Trimmed lengths of the harmonics also, much shorter. This lowers CPU use and probably has no noticeable effect on sound.
*Attack, Release, and Dist controls have all been removed. The attack and release have been set internally, to settings that should reflect what I sampled as close as possible. The dist control allowed you to adjust the level of the harmonics but it’s not the same as an input overdrive so it’s not really authentic. You could get some weird distortions by boosting the dist control really loud but i doubt anyone used it much, so it’s gone.
*Added feedback control.
*Some other changes to how the programs work were done under the hood, to reflect how my more recent reverbs have been done, for the past few years.
*Removed all the different versions of each reverb. There were 1k and 6k versions, and short and long versions for each of those. The short versions just had the lengths truncated in the ‘kern’ page of nebula. This isn’t really very good because it just creates an abrupt gating, which wasn’t really what I wanted with those presets. They were just there to give a lower CPU version. I don’t really feel that these are needed now since the main programs have been reduced in CPU use.
*Some unwanted artifacts were removed from some of the reverbs.
*Added subtle fade outs to the tails of some of the reverbs that were previously just cut off at the end, even in the full length versions. I could’ve re-rendered them to have the longer tail but they would have then used more CPU and I didn’t think it was worth it. So now they fade out nicely at least.
*Removed a weird ‘direct’ portion from many of the impulses. It was almost like a bit of dry signal getting through in some cases. It could throw off the balance of the reverb/dry mix, so it’s a nice improvement to be rid of it.
*Programs are now set up as sends by default upon loading, as I do with all my reverbs for the past few years now.
*The library is much smaller, due to the samples being trimmed, so it takes up much less space on your drive. The programs load faster, they use less ram, and in almost all cases they use less CPU (compared to the 6k originals).
*Turned off the smoothing which was for some reason being used in the originals. Probably not much of a noticeable difference, but smoothing isn’t needed with reverbs.
*Renamed all or most of the programs. The original names just weren’t very descriptive or creative. Now they’re either more descriptive or at least more memorable.
*Moved the programs to a new category- “CS9” for 96khz and “CS4” for 44.1khz. I have some other spring reverbs from another library in that same category, and there will be more.