I’m excited to announce that 40 new impulses responses (and 10 presets) from Mechlab Productions are included in a pretty awesome new convolution plugin from Viiri Audio. Aava is genuinely a convolution reverb unlike any I’ve ever used before. As someone who doesn’t rely heavily on software effects, it takes a lot to impress me–which Aava does with ease.

• Layer up to four impulse responses simultaneously
• Rhythmic and pitched modes allow vastly different interpretations of the same IR
• Four different modulation sources, with five different modulation options
  • LFO
  • Sample & Hold
  • Envelope follower
  • Attack/Decay or Attack/Release envelope
  • Key follower
• And my personal favorite: Modulate all the things!

This modulation flexibility is really what sold the plugin for me. As someone who uses modular synths, the concepts and workflow were really intuitive and instantly gratifying. I’ve never created such complex ambience with such ease and satisfaction.

The Threshold is getting long in the tooth, having been first released in 2004 or 2005 (I don’t quite remember the exact date), and I’d long since moved on from convolution. When I was creating that library, the processing power of an average PC was so low that I often couldn’t audition an IR in real time. I would have to process a WAV file, then listen to the results. That we’ve come so far as to have a plugin where I can listen to four IRs simultaneously, in a mix with a 20+ tracks, with no appreciable performance issues is a miracle unto itself.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to walk somewhere, uphill both ways, in the snow. But, seriously. Go pick up a copy of this plugin. It’s awesome.