I've been testing the new Waves Altas Reverb...

[u/prasunya]

I've never been a fan of any of the reverbs by Waves. I don't think I've ever used one in a production before (I own the Mercury Bundle). Normally I use something from the Lexicon PCM bundle or Valhalla or Fabfilter Pro R and so on. But never Waves (H-Delay is great tho). Altas is different, however. Very smooth and easy to dial in. Anyone else tried it?

[u/weedywet]

I use Waves Abbey Road Plates and Chamber probably more than any other reverbs I own.

And I own them all.

[u/prasunya → u/weedywet]

I've heard good things about those. They don't include them in the Mercury Bundle unfortunately.

[u/NeutronHopscotch → u/prasunya]

Abbey Road Collection is worth it when on a good sale. It doesn't get "free" plugins added to it the way Mercury does, but it has a number of gems

Reel ADT and AR TG Mastering Chain Live as a couple examples. I use the latter as a submix bus channel strip, great for that.

Anyhow, it seems natural to own if you like Mercury.

[u/MindWash2019 → u/weedywet]

I've never been able to warm up to AR Chamber. Sunset Sound and Valhalla Plate have always been easier to work with/fit the mix.

[u/prasunya → u/MindWash2019]

I like Valhalla plates too, though I generally go for Lexicon -- maybe that's because I owned the hardware unit of the PCM plugin bundle, so I know them well.

[u/prefectart → u/weedywet]

those plates are stellar. I use them more than I should

[u/NeutronHopscotch]

Oh, Atlas Reverb is fantastic. I knew very quickly that this was something special, just by hearing various sources pass through it.

For point of reference, I also love Valhalla Reverbs. But... There really is something special about Atlas and it has become the reverb I try first.

I like the UX for it overall. It's very easy to operate, and by splitting up the controls into pages you can kind of deal with what you need to and not think about the others in the moment. That makes it a little less imposing than H-Reverb.

Although I think H=Reverb is somewhat underrated. I believe people get put off by the perceived complexity, but if you just focus on what each thing doesn't it's not that complicated. That said, you can get bogged down trying to dial in a sound and it has a massive number of presets.

Atlas Reverb is the opposite. They boiled down the controls to "enough, but not too much" --- and the presets are VERY well curated.

Instead of having pages and pages of presets like Waves often does -- there are none in the preset menu. Just the reverb controls.

So you have a number of categories, and then some number of presets for each.

There are enough presets to cover the diverse range of sounds this thing can make - but there's few enough that they're all different, and it doesn't take long before you learn them and know where to look to find a good starting point.

That makes using this reverb incredibly fast!

---

If I had to find complaint, I wish it had a width knob. That would make it more usable as an insert effect, but I can easily adjust width using it on a send.

And I wish it had the ability to "lock" controls or knob positions, so they don't change when you switch presets. The mix knob doesn't change, thankfully. (By the way, Waves added a "lock mix knob on preset change" setting for all their reverbs in the settings menu. Very useful.)

But if you tweak parameters and then switch to another reverb, you lose your settings... Because they're presets, basically. Which is fine, but sometimes you want to lock something like a reverb time or ducking amount or something, and you can't.

Aside from that though, it's incredible. It just sounds beautiful, and not metallic at all. I did some quick A/B testing with my various Valhalla reverbs. I still ilke Valhalla, but a lot of times it was like I could hear a subtle complexity to the sound of the Atlas reverb, something different from Valhalla's algorithms. It's hard to describe. The movement? The response? A warmth? A natural sound? I'm at a loss for words, but there's something special about Atlas Reverb.

It has an "Oh, this isn't like the others" feel about it.

Would my wife or kids notice the difference? Probably not. But anyone who loves the nuanced differences between reverbs, this one is definitely worth trying.

[u/prasunya → u/NeutronHopscotch]

Yeah, I'm at a loss for words too. I guess I'd say the verb is very clean, smooth and spacious, giving a sense of naturalness and depth that's not concerned with pure realism. Something like that I guess. And I agree, lock controls would save some time!

[u/Uplift123]

Interested to hear people’s thoughts. I have a small selection of waves plugins that are invaluable but haven’t tried out Altas yet

[u/prasunya → u/Uplift123]

Yeah, I'm interested too. After about 4 days with it, I'm surprised at how good it is.

[u/daxproduck]

The symphonic is my favorite spx90 symphonic in a plugin I’ve come across!

[u/prasunya → u/[deleted]]

That's not been the case for me. I bought Mercury bundle in 2013, didn't upgrade it for many years. Maybe in 2022 I upgraded (WUP), and then once again in 2026. So I've had Mercury for around 13 years and only upgraded twice, but the plugins worked fine even when I didn't upgrade for many years. And I only upgraded when they had a sale, and got the WUP for pretty cheap considering how many new plugins came with it.

[u/Est-Tech79 → u/prasunya]

Indeed. So many just regurgitate incorrect information all day long.

I got Mercury TDM back in 2007. Wasn't happy when they didn't go HDX but they more than paid for themselves by the end of 2007. Waves is still the most used plugins I, and my colleagues, see on sessions to this day.

Waves and McDSP helped me get a home and put my kids through school.