This allows you to create smooth and natural decays, sounds that fall sharply then release slowly over time, and sounds that duck before swelling back up again. With decay, you can control the volume shape of your reverb’s tail.

On the surface, these look a little like split-point envelopes, with time running from left to right, but here you’re limited to only two or three points to edit each line. These can be found in the temporal shaper graph at the plug-in’s bottom right, each occupying its own tab. Before we get to that though, we’d best begin by covering the main elements that you’ll be using to shape your reverb sounds: decay, spread and density. This absence is at the core of what this plug-in is about: you don’t need pre-loaded presets when you can generate your own in seconds. For those used to firing up new plug-ins and flicking through patches to get a broad idea of what they’re capable of, this might seem unsettling. One of the first things you’ll notice about Smart:Reverb is its lack of presets. But is this approach really as intelligent as the marketing suggests or is “artificial” the more operative word here? Start from scratch Following on from its successful Smart:EQ 2 and Smart:Comp plug-ins, Sonible’s Smart:Reverb is a source-adaptive effect that listens to your audio and creates for it a custom-tailored preset that can be edited in great detail.

AI’s grip on modern plug-in design shows no signs of abating, with Austrian company Sonible now turning its attention towards reverb.

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