[sdiy] Cheapest good sounding digital reverb?

[Richie Burnett]

A few general comments:

1. High quality reverb requires a decent chunk of MIPS and RAM.
2. Convincing small rooms with short reverb times are the hardest to do 
algorithmically.
3. Different reverb algorithms needed for different sources.  (More/less 
diffusion for percussive/pad sounds to trade off density & flutter against 
metallic ringing.)
4. 16-channels (or 64 !?) is a _LOT_ of data bandwidth.  Use DMA for the 
ADC/DAC/CODEC.

You also need a decent size word-length for the storage and calculations. 
Early 16-bit reverbs were very noisy due to build up of quantisation noise 
within the algorithm due to feedback.  Use at least 20-bit storage or that 
funky floating-point RAM that Keith Barr used for the delay memory.  Or you 
might get away with noisy reverbs if you're gonna put a VCA (noise gate!) 
after it, but there will always be sounds like a deep mellow bass sound that 
will reveal "fizzy" quantisation noise because there's no HF content to mask 
it.

-Richie, 


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