Exactly the right amount of control, exactly the right amount of thinking done for you.
You would not be blamed for feeling completely lost amidst the wash of reverb plugins (see what I did there). Every plugin company has their own version, some are better than others, but if we’re really being honest with ourselves, they all pretty much do the same job.
The Pro-R2 is plugin heavyweight FabFilter’s newest addition to the long lineup of reverb plugins, well it’s not necessarily a completely new addition, rather it’s an updated version of their long loved Pro-R plugin.
So I hear you ask, ‘if there’s so many reverbs out there, why should I give a damn about this’, the answer is the same as it always is with FabFilter, they sound fantastic, but almost more importantly, they give you exactly the right amount of control, whilst doing exactly the right amount of thinking for you, arming you with a silky smooth workflow.
If you’re a FabFilter user, opening up Pro-R2 will feel very familiar, if you’re not, it’s all pretty straightforward. Across the top of the GUI you’ll find pretty much all of your tweakable parameters; pre delay, character, thickness, distance, space, brightness, width, ducking and mix.
You’ll also find some switches for the reverb type (modern, vintage, or plate) and an auto gate switch and slider. Beneath that you’ll find two EQ curves, one to control the decay rate of different frequencies, and one that is just a post reverb EQ curve.
The two new reverb algorithms in Pro-R2, vintage and plate are a huge addition to this reverb offering. The ‘vintage’ algorithm is my favourite, it sounds fantastic and really gives that vibe of putting loudspeakers in a big chamber and recording it with old microphones. And you can dig even further into the colour of the algorithm by cranking up the character knob.
The other additions I couldn’t get enough of is the autogate and ducking features. Interestingly only a week or two ago we checked out the new Cableguys ReverbShaper plugin and they’ve also included autogate and ducking so maybe this is a new trend.
I certainly hope so because both of these are such massive timesavers. The Pro-R2 even claims a bit of an edge by including tempo syncing in the autogate which I absolutely love because I’m a bit of a sucker for that huge 80s gated reverb snare sound and this makes timing it to close right on the kick drum a breeze.
It also now supports full immersive, Dolby Atmos functionality, which is becoming a bit of a must for plugins now, given the growing popularity and commercial support for Atmos.
The Pro-R2 is an absolute workhorse and when it comes to pulling up a sound it’s about as quick as it gets. If you’re already a Pro-R user you’ll be absolutely stoked with the new features, and if you’re looking for your next go to reverb you kinda can’t go wrong with the Pro-R2.
You can grab the Pro-R2 for 169 USD, if you’re keen to pick it up or you’re interested in having a deeper dive into what else is new in the Pro-R2 head on over to the FabFilter website.
