Bitsonic has introduced Custom Reverb, a freeware reverb effect VST plugin for 32-bit Windows host applications. Optional commercial version of the plugin is also available.
Custom Reverb is a very decent freeware reverb with some pretty interesting features (especially in the commercial version) and it’s quite a shame that the plugin only works in 32-bit Windows based hosts (although the developer states that their plugins work flawlessly on 64-bit Windows with jBridge). The thing I really liked about Custom Reverb is its user interface, or more precisely, the available control parameters. You get full control over the early reflections and long-tail reverb, along with a handy set of low/high cut filters, a high-shelf filter, delay, and a built-in gate which is something that we rarely see in freeware reverbs. The sound is fine and the plugin is overall a joy to use. The free version also includes a preset manager with a useful set of factory presets to help you get started.
The CPU hit is somewhere around 3-4% per instance on an i5 processor, which is actually a positive surprise considering the fact that the plugin was made with FlowStone/SynthMaker. The CPU hit can often go through the roof when it comes to SynthMaker creations, so Custom Reverb is actually a glowing exception to that rule. In addition, the plugin was fully stable during our test and we didn’t catch any bugs and/or missing features. The one confusing thing, though, is the email address field that shows up when loading Custom Reverb for the first time. It’s quite possible that the developers have included this in order to invite the users to sign up for their mailing list, however there’s no indication anywhere on their website to confirm this. Without any additional info from the developer, this is just a generic input field labeled “email address”, and it definitely doesn’t look very inviting.
The plugin is available for direct free download from the Bitsonic website. You don’t need to sign up for a user account or enter your email address in order to get the download link. The plugin is distributed as an EXE installer, which is a bit unnecessary (we’d prefer to see a simple DLL file). At the end of the installation process, you will be asked to visit the developer’s Facebook page, however this step is completely optional. The commercial version of the plugin is priced at $15 and provides some interesting looking additional features such as a sequencer, swing, reverb pitch, etc.
On a related note, the same developer has recently released a freeware delay effect called Violent Delay. It is quite a feature-packed delay effect, including a set of filters, phaser/chorus effects, and some interesting modulation features.
Download
Custom Reverb is available for free download via Bitsonic (3.98 MB download size, EXE installer, 32-bit VST plugin format for Windows, made with SynthMaker).
