These are not exhaustive options but go a long way to customizing the sound when used in conjunction with the Decay knob and EQ. A Decay knob allows you to shorten the IRs by a percentage amount (but not artificially lengthen them).Īn Options feature allows you to tweak a few additional settings on some of the reverbs, such as phase reversal, dampening in Studio 1 and 3, and decay length for the plates and spring.

Pre-delay is adjustable in milliseconds up to one full second. Although the specific details are not divulged by IK Multimedia, each reverb consists of multiple IRs as well as physical modeling of the consoles, the preamps, and the entire signal path. The reverbs are convolution based, but they are not completely static. I would gladly buy a collection of just these three reverbs as a standalone plug-in. These mechanical reverbs all sound top-notch. As represented in the plug-in, the EMT 140 and BX-20 give you three decay times (low, mid, and high) and the Echoplate provides nine different decay times between 300ms and 6 seconds. Sunset Sound has two vintage plate reverbs (EMT 140 and Echoplate) and an AKG BX-20E spring reverb shared by all three studios. Sunset Sound’s vintage mics positioned in the echo chambers have been in place for a very long time, so you get the very same sound you would get if you booked time at one of the studios and used its dedicated chamber-except you have access to all three chambers at the same time.

Like with the main live rooms, you can’t move virtual microphones around to change the inherent characteristics of each reverb. Rather than attempting to model virtually moving the microphones around within each main room by the user-à la Universal Audio’s Ocean Way Studios-mic positions for each room were chosen based on studio notes for historic sessions and the experience of the veteran engineers involved in the plug-in’s creation.Įach of the three Sunset Sound studio rooms has its own isolation booth and dedicated echo chamber, which are included in SSSR. Impulse responses for the live rooms of Studios 1 and 3 were captured from a single position in the room, while Studio 2’s main room gives you the option of three different positions. The SSSR plug-in is actually a suite of twelve different reverbs. The Sunset Sound Studios complex consists of three different rooms. The studio’s console preamps and signal paths for each room were meticulously modeled so that the end results are practically “indistinguishable from recordings made in the actual rooms,” according to IK Multimedia. The impulse responses (IRs) were captured through the Sunset Sound’s own microphone collection. Complete with models of the studio’s consoles and preamps, the results are as close as you can get to actually recording in the historic spaces where some of the world’s most famous recordings were made. Sunset Sound Studio Reverb (SSSR) is a reverb plug-in that gives you access to all of the venerated studio’s live rooms, chambers, and isolation booths, and several of their mechanical reverbs. Could a reverb plug-in really capture the sound of a world-class recording studio? You bet it could.

Ik multimedia sunset sound review