Sonible smart:reverb 2 has shown me the future of reverb mixing£109 (intro price £79), sonible.com
Sonible’s smart:reverb was one of the first innovative and intelligent reverb processors that can tailor its sound to your material. In version 2, Sonible has given it a complete redesign, tearing up the reverb rule book in the process. smart:reverb 2 reworks the controls you use for dialling in your sound, and how you set up reverbs across a whole mix. With the new Group mode, you can now mix and control multiple plugin instances from a single window. It’s a bold approach that offers a new solution for anyone who struggles with adding depth to the mix.

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It can be all too easy to get excited about new reverb plugins, build up a large collection of them, and end up with choice paralysis. I’m guilty of this, too; I’m often fearful of trying new reverbs and deviating from my tried and tested settings at the risk of upsetting my mix.
With an intuitive interface that invites you to dial in the perfect sound stage to fit your track, smart:reverb 2 could finally be the reverb plugin to consistently rely on.

How does smart:reverb 2 work?
smart:reverb 2 doesn’t come with any presets. Instead, it offers quick and intuitive controls for dialling in the exact sound you want. And, unlike many traditional reverbs, it’s designed to be placed directly on a track, as opposed to a bus send (although you do have the option of setting it to 100% wet and using it that way).
The first thing you do is choose one of the 22 profiles covering drums, guitars, vocals, keys and more, which is an increase from the previous version. You then hit the Learn button and the plugin listens to your audio to create a tailored reverb tail that enhances the sound without masking important details. There’s then a Source Adaption amount at the bottom of the window that can adjust its influence. At 0% you get the raw reverb tail, and at 200% you get any potentially clashing frequencies carved out from the tail to increase the overall clarity.
If you’re worried about AI taking over and making decisions for you then fear not. The Learn function doesn’t actually set the reverb parameters, it just adapts the reverb tail to match your source material.
Main GUI. Image: Press
How do you control smart:reverb 2?
The next step is to adjust the reverb itself. Sonible has done away with controls for pre-delay, mix amount and early reflections, and instead presents a single Distance control that changes these things under the hood.
As you increase the Distance, the sound gets pushed further away from the front to the back, including a Distance Filter that increases the perception of depth by rolling off top-end frequencies at a distance or introducing a subtle proximity effect. It’s simple, intuitive and ultra-effective at moving a sound deeper into the sound stage. It could be useful for creating extra variation between verses and choruses, or as a cool special effect for an outro where it sounds like a singer is walking away into the distance. Of course these types of effects are possible with any reverb, but carefully balancing and automating several parameters at once can prove tricky to get right.
However, smart:reverb 2 would be more flexible if it did have a pre-delay control for those times when you might want a specific gap to fit the timing of a track.
Group Mode 1. Image: Press
How does smart:reverb 2 sound?
Alongside this, you have controls for Size, Width, a tonal Color control, and a dial called Clarity.
Clarity ducks the reverb when the source is present to help maintain intelligibility and definition. Below this is the large Reverb Matrix, where you use an X/Y pad to smoothly blend between Room, Hall, Plate and Spring styles. I’m happy to report that the algorithms have been massively improved compared to smart:reverb, with smooth and glossy tails and a more realistic sense of depth. This was always a criticism of the original, so it’s an extremely welcome upgrade.
A Reverb Display visualises how the reverb’s energy decays in real time. This helps to give a better understanding of the frequency spread and what the Source Adaption is doing, and it updates as you make adjustments to the other controls. There’s also an option to mono the reverb at lower frequencies, a useful Auto gain feature, and four reverb modes. You’ll probably spend most of your time in Normal mode, but you also have the option of Reverse, Infinite and Bounce modes that can be used for more creative effects and drone-like sounds.
These relatively minimal controls can get great results, but if you want to tweak further, then a Manual Override button opens up extra options. It splits the tail into three adjustable bands and lets you increase or decrease the energy in each to give the output a different tonal flavour. You can also pull a slider across that cuts off the tail early, set in either seconds or beats, for instant and easy gated drum effects.
Group Mode 2. Image: Press
What makes smart:reverb 2 different?
Perhaps the biggest innovation here though, is Group Mode. Like Sonible’s smart:EQ 4, it allows you to group multiple instances of the plugin and have them interact with one another. Once you have several instances loaded on your tracks, you can create a new group and add up to seven members.
If you want more, then you’ll have to create separate groups, but to be honest, having seven reverb plugins is probably a reasonable limit when it comes to processing power.
All the instances can then be controlled and edited simultaneously from a single window. You can adjust the Distance amounts for each while listening to the mix, which is an incredibly fluid, fast and natural way to set reverb amounts without having to jump around your DAW.
But the real party trick is that smart:reverb 2 lets you highlight all instances in a Group, and then hit Learn to intelligently optimise how the reverbs interact. It’s essentially doing the Source Adaptation but with a knowledge of how all the tails combine, so frequencies in one tail might be carved out to make space for another. It’s a unique function that helps reduce masking between tails and keep everything sounding clearer. Don’t expect miracles, but on the tracks I try it on, it definitely helps reduce clutter. And when you’re squeezing for that last 5% of polish, then every bit of mix real-estate that you can tidy is worthwhile.
Profiles list. Image: Press
Do I need another reverb?
Since it was released, I’ve been using the first smart:reverb exclusively to help my vocals sit in the mix. I didn’t especially love the sound, but there was something magical (and fast) about how it could add a subtle sense of invisible space. This new version improves on the sonic quality and is also much more inviting to be used across multiple mix elements. The only extra things I’d like to see are a simple output EQ, a dedicated pre-delay control, and the ability to pan the reverb signal, but these are all minor.
It’s not a reverb with buckets of character, and if you’re looking for a sound design tool, then there are other options out there (like Valhalla’s SuperMassive, ModeAudio Airspace, or the new UVI Bloom). But when it comes to creating depth, and adding polish and glue, it just works. The thoughtful plugin design encourages you to mix intuitively and use your ears, which can only be a positive thing.
I think I’ve finally found the plugin that lets me overcome my fear of reverb.

Key features

Content aware reverb plugin (AU, AAX, VST and VST3)
Shape the engine to your audio using AI with 22 instrument profiles
Built to be placed on individual tracks
Innovative Group Mode lets you control multiple instances from one window
Use Group Learn to unmask and clean up multiple reverbs at once
Intuitive Distance control lets you set the track depth
Reverb matrix for blending between Room, Hall, Spring and Plate
Additional controls for Size, Width, Color & Clarity
4 playback modes: Normal, Reverse, Infinite & Bounce
Mono below and Auto gain functions
Manual Override lets you edit the tonal balance and create gated effects
Machine or iLok authorisation

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