Waves Atlas Reverb Review: Do You Need Another Reverb?

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A few weeks ago Waves sent me a new reverb plugin, and my first thought was that the last thing any of us need is another reverb. I installed Waves Atlas anyway and put it on a snare. It sounded really good.

Then I put it on some guitars, picked a room, and didn’t have to change much. Then vocals. Everything I put it on sounded good, which almost never happens with me and reverbs.

Why I’m picky about reverb

I’m not a big reverb guy. My favorite is Seventh Heaven, because it’s much cleaner than a lot of algorithmic reverbs. I love Valhalla too, but Seventh Heaven is the one I go to most. When I run through a new reverb, I usually find something I don’t like right away: it’s too bright, or the decay is too long.

Atlas didn’t do that. It sounds warm and it isn’t overly bright, which a lot of reverbs are. If you want to see how I actually use reverb in a mix, here’s the reverb and delay chain I use on 90% of my mixes.

The controls

Atlas is a pure algorithmic reverb, and the layout is simple, which is another reason I like it. I like simple plugins.

• Pre-delay and decay. My one complaint: you can’t sync pre-delay to your DAW’s tempo. I wish every reverb did this.
• Programs. Rooms, plates and halls, with a lot of different rooms to pick from. Waves says there are over 100 programs.
• Space and damping to shape the size and the top end.
• A built-in ducker that actually sounds good.
• A simple EQ, which I love having right in the reverb.
• Mix and output.

For a test, I ran a vocal from Anjail, a fantastic singer from France whose songs I just finished mixing, through a bunch of different programs. None of them sounded bad. That’s rare.

DSP Legends vs the real thing

Atlas has a section called DSP Legends with its own take on classic digital reverbs. Waves doesn’t spell out the hardware, but the names point to units like the EMT 250 (“German 250”), the Lexicon 224, 300 and 480, and what’s probably the AMS RMX16 (“UK 16”), including its non-linear program.

EMT 250. I compared Atlas against the UAD EMT 250, which sounds fantastic, playing the same short vocal line over and over. They were fairly close. There are some differences in the tail, but in a full mix I think you’d have a hard time telling them apart. If you want that sound and don’t own an EMT 250 plugin, Atlas could cover it.

Lexicon 480. On the large hall, I set the same 24 ms pre-delay on both and the decay times were already very close on the initial setting. Have a listen in the video and judge for yourself.

Do you need another reverb?

Honestly, most people don’t. If you already have two or three reverbs you know well, learning them deeper will do more for your mixes than buying a fourth.

But if you’re looking for one reverb that sounds good on almost anything without much tweaking, Atlas is a good pick. It’s warm, it’s simple, it covers a lot of classic flavors, and Waves says it’s light on CPU and latency. I’ve been using it on snares, guitars and vocals, and it keeps sounding good, which is not something I say about reverbs very often. Full price is $149 at the time of writing, and Waves runs sales often, so check the current price on Atlas here.

Weighing up Waves overall? I compared the two big subscriptions in Waves vs UAD: which delivers better vocal mixes.

What do you think of Atlas? Let me know in the comments. And if you’d rather have someone else handle the reverb and everything else, that’s what my mixing and mastering services are for.