All user reviews of 3/5 for the Waves Renaissance Reverb

I received this reverb plug-in as part of a bundle when I started studying production at Berklee in 2007. I would say it's been a steady, although not usually first choice, part of my setup since then.

I would say it's a bit much for someone who isn't familiar with the complexities of reverb. Being one of those people myself, I prefer a more simple approach and don't recall ever doing much tweaking to any of the many controllable parameters in this plug-in. I appreciate the straight-forwardness of the visual representation of the changes you make to your verb, but I think active listening is a better way to go when it comes to reverb.

I can't personally imagine needing such a degree of control over my reverb settings but all-in-all it sounds really nice and has some great presets that I trust for a lot of my work.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

This reverb definitely performs well. I'm a fan of using the plate presets for drums and sometimes vocals. I usually work with this in Logic or ProTools and I always have to have my iLok plugged in to use the waves stuff, which is kind of a pain and also one reason I often go with other reverbs.

Like I said, I'm not such a tech junky and really don't bother with the extra features like the "reverb damping". I generally look for the type of reverb I want (i.e. plate, hall, etc...) and then tweak presets from there to get the desired wetness, pre-delay, and so on. That seems to have worked well enough for me over the last 8 or 9 years and it definitely hasn't decreased in capability or functionality in comparison to newer reverbs. I'm particularly a fan of the Waves stuff just because it doesn't ever cause any problems. I usually prefer, for example, to work with PSP plug-ins but they sometimes overload my system and a few are just too intense to load up more than one or two instances of them.

OVERALL OPINION

This is definitely a good-quality reverb plug-in. I'm not such a huge fan of some of the other Renaissance-Series items but this one is worth a look.

That being said, I don't think I would personally purchase this for the $150 asking price. If you're someone who is into having a ridiculous amount of control on your reverb settings this is probably for you but I prefer a more simple approach. I usually go with the PSP EasyVerb. It sounds great and the layout and features are easily understandable. It's also less than half the price.