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Which current crop reverb pedals are covering the ambient needs best ?

1. super long reverb-ish tail, wide stereo field
2. reverse/bloom/swell
3. glitch reverb (erroneous, weirdly colorizing, lo-fi)

Ok i start, from the clips i have heard it sounds like

1. Specular Tempus, Big Sky
2. Big Sky, others ?
3. Oceans 12 sounds a bit glitchy

Yeah, I was gonna say Space after reading OPs wants. Fits the bill perfectly.

I wanna say the source audio ventris can also cover those bases but its been a while since I've played with one.

Empress Reverb hits all those points.

I'm not sure which of the categories it falls into, if any...But the Walrus audio Slö deserves a mension in any thread about ambient reverbs.

It doesn't glitch, no stereo or reverse...But as far as all wet endless decay dark pad verb goes, it's pretty awesome considering the size and okay price tag.

So if you had to choose between Space / Big Sky / Empress, why would you prefer Empress over the other pedals?
I just wonder which are the most preferred pedals and why.

I am curious to try out Context 2 and the Empress.
I've never tried the Slö, but heard good things about it.

True, cantremember, that would also tick all the boxes. Would it be preferable to you over the Empress?

I've never tried the empress so I can't really say.

The expensive ones, and then the Zoom MS70.

prophonic wrote:So if you had to choose between Space / Big Sky / Empress, why would you prefer Empress over the other pedals?
I just wonder which are the most preferred pedals and why.

I am curious to try out Context 2 and the Empress.
I've never tried the Slö, but heard good things about it.

I can only speak to the Big Sky and the Empress, as I've never tried a Space/context/Slo/Ventris.
I had a Big Sky, and it's an amazing pedal. Like all the Strymon stuff, it's constructed well, has a lot of great sounds within and a ton of tweak-ability. I ultimately chose the Empress for a few reasons. To my ear, it sounded more realistic and natural than the Strymon. The Big Sky has a very characteristic sound, and a LOT of people use it, so I found it a bit underwhelming to play as I felt like every preset and engine was something I'd heard someone else playing already. That's pretty subjective of course. There are a lot of very big, majestic, cinematic, synthy reverbs in the Big Sky. It was very impressive to hear it at first, and fairly quickly I was tired of it. It's like a song that you really like a lot at first, right off the bat, and then after 20 - 30 listens, you're sort of over it. The Empress was (and is) the opposite for me, I don't get sick of the way it sounds. It's a song you think is ok at first, but then it's gradually stuck in your head, and 10 years down the road it's still something you appreciate and connect with. I love that it has an effect loop, so I can insert other effects into the loop and have them effect only the reverb. I've come up with some amazing sounds that way. It sounds great in stereo (which I'm sure the Strymon also does). The Empress is also continually evolving. They update the firmware now and then, fix bugs, add in additional algorithms. Empress' customer service is great also. Also, also, the pedal is almost worth it just for the Ghost setting alone. Super spooky and ambient. The Spring algorithms suck pretty bad, if I'm being honest. But if you're looking for an ambient, glitchy, atmospheric reverb, realistic Spring settings are maybe not top of your list? I'm sure there are other reasons why I love it, but those are a few reasons I would personally choose (and did) the Empress Reverb over the Big Sky.

Awesome post. Thank you for comparing Empress Reverb and Big Sky in such detail and what made you go with one over the other.
You make some important points:
- taste and subjectivity, the comparison to a song becoming a cliché makes sense. At the same time there is a place for both, "natural" and more subtle sound processors vs electronic "artificial" obvious treatments.
Outside of reverbs for example something like Shallow Water would be somewhere in the middle, because it mimics old technology. Wobble certainly is a cliché, but can be applied tastefully.
Maybe with the Big Sky it is hard to be subtle, Cloud has a certain sound plus the (in)famous sheen of the Big Sky pedal in general.
- effect loop: agreed, to put external stuff inside of the reverb tank is amazing.

- firmware updates: many pedals get way better with a few software updates, small boutique companies seem to be more open to user input than others.

I'll post a few links from a few interesting sound examples below. I just want to make the point, that that "naturalness" is what many of the newer hi quality pedals seem to have, Ventris for example. While that is great, i prefer at times a more obvious electronic sound.
Maybe the Grain algorithm of Context 2 or Specular Tempus are going in that direction?

Context 2:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jYitLbZ6X10

Comparison Specular Tempus, Ventris, Mercury 7, Oceans 12:
https://www.amazona.de/vergleichstest-s ... nthesizer/

Empress Reverb:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VkFpn6_ZA0o

Specular Tempus:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VczmqKUS8NU

Source Audio Ventris:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yq-PYEvQHrM

The Pladask Draume really embraces the artificiality of being digital. It also does the grainy stuff, so unless you want something super menu dive-y or overly complex, that might be a good option for you as well. It's not stereo though.

Pladask would be absolutely down my alley (Fabrikat, amazing). I'd like to use it with various sources, guitar, violin, synths, as a studio processor.
But sound is definitely most important, more than stereo.

prophonic wrote:Pladask would be absolutely down my alley (Fabrikat, amazing). I'd like to use it with various sources, guitar, violin, synths, as a studio processor.
But sound is definitely most important, more than stereo.

Draume is an amazing pedal, and while it does certainly embrace its digital nature, it can also be dialed back to get some "normal" hall-type settings. But the fun is in the beautiful broken reverb sounds it does. The grain setting on V1 is more stuttery and distinctly granular like Fabrikat, the grain version on V2 is more subtle, with the grains sounding more smeared. Both are amazing, just depends on what you want. For me, as I have the Fabrikat already, I prefer the sound quality of V2 over V1.