New Music Gear Monday: Exponential Audio R4 Reverb Plugin

If you grew up in the days of recording studios built around consoles and hardware, then you were probably used to using a Lexicon reverb. Although not the first digital reverb, the Lexicon 224 and subsequent versions became a must-have for every studio to have in its arsenal in no time, and we all grew to love its sound. Michael Carnes helped design and perfect these reverbs for Lexicon for 25 years before he began making reverb plugins with own Exponential Audio. The company already has some pretty cool reverb plugins, but Michael’s new R4 gives you the best features and character of those old hardware units at a very reasonable price.

The Exponential Audio R4 has a super amount of flexibility, allowing you to conjure nearly any reverb sound you can imagine, or it can be dead simple, with dozens of meaningful presets that can be easily searched for a quick solution to every situation. Among its many features (taken from its press release, which I couldn’t top) include:

• A character reverb that outdoes all the classics
• 6 independently-selectable types of EQ for input, early reflection, and reverb tail. 
• Early and tail EQ can be dynamically modulated.  Whether a subtle pulsation or a sweeping notch, modulated EQ is a powerful new weapon in the producer’s toolkit.
• R4 retains the Chorused Hall of earlier Exponential Audio plugins. And it adds a second Hall with density modulation that adds motion to the tail without adding pitch change. Of course, you can add pitch modulation on top if you want it! These halls are the perfect solution for sparse or sterile mixes and solos.
• There’s also a Plate and Chamber; updated from R2.
• Multiple early-reflection patterns
• Warp section with compressor/expander, overdrive and word-size reduction.
• Pre-delay and reverb delay now adjustable by tempo
• Tail suppression circuit for more dynamic response
• Gated reverb effects
• Over 1200 presets
• Helpful tool-tips to guide new users.
• Freeze function to capture the reverb tail and run it forever.
• Industry-leading CPU efficiency–run as many reverbs as you want.

I’ve been playing with the R4 for a while, and I can tell you that unlike many reverbs that you have to struggle with to make sit in the mix, this one just works with almost no hassle. Dial up a preset and you’re ready to go, or you can get as tweaky as you desire with all the available parameters if you want.

The Exponential Audio R4 reverb plugin is now available on all platforms for $299, with a free demo available. If you’re an Exponential customer already, there’s also a $150 discount available. Check out the product page for more details, as well as the excellent videos that explain the features of the R4 supplied by Groove3.