Room Reverb

Room vs Hall

As the name suggests, a room reverb is closely related to a hall reverb. They are both designed to simulate the natural sound of acoustic spaces. The main difference is that rooms are smaller spaces, meaning sounds travel much faster through them, and the decay is always quicker.

Realistic Sound

When instruments are recorded with close microphone positioning, the room can be the right choice to add realism. Guitars and drums can benefit from processing with room reverb. Furthermore, room reverb gives the impression that the instrument is played in a real acoustic space.

Slap Delay Replacement

Room reverb can also be used as a substitute for slap or echo delay effects. This can be done quickly by keeping the room reverb's time short and relatively long pre-delay time. This is usually done to make the slap/echo effect sound more realistic, mainly if the mix contains most real instruments. Nevertheless, it should be used with caution. This is because if room reverb is used too much in the mix, the result will be a boxy/small sound. Another problem is the choice of a room reverb. If you use a less sophisticated unit, it can add unwanted resonances to the mix. This doesn't go well musically.  

Modern Room Reverb

Nowadays, room reverb units are pretty scarce. In hardware and software, they usually exist as combo reverb units. You can switch between room, hall, and plate reverb types inside. Regarding room reverb simulators, both hardware and software, digital units are most common.

ValhallaRoom

Recently, one of the better-designed software room reverbs is the ValhallaRoom plugin. It is an entire stereo room reverb unit that realistically mimics natural acoustic spaces. The GUI is designed for easy navigation. In addition, the Early and Late reverb sections are both stereo-in and stereo-out. The energy spread between the stereo channels can be controlled over time, which helps preserve the input spatial image. It also possesses 12 unique reverb algorithms.