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Old 10-15-2019, 08:17 AM   #31
Funkybot
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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So a couple of things:

1. Your Lexicon is going multiple rounds of AD/DA conversion when used as an insert. That will impart a sound. Particularly older AD/DA converters like in the M300.

2. The idea that hardware verbs still outshine ITB reverbs just isn't true anymore. Sure, there's no Briscati plugin, but we're talking about a Lexicon M300 here. As pointed out by others, there are ITB reverbs that should sound as good, or better to some ears.

3. Michael Carnes from Exponential was THE Lexicon guy. Now he's taken all his knowledge and making new reverbs. Different story as to whether you'd prefer them, but I think he'd tell you they're objectively better. The M300 is one of the older Lexi's and these had a vibe due to quantization noise, converters, lower sampling rates, that Michael Carnes might view as flaws today. In fact, the Warp modes were added to the Exponential Plugins to degrade the signal back to those levels. But yeah, there's something cool about those old reverbs, hence why the Relab LX480 and Valhalla's VintageVerb are so popular.

4. With that in mind, it's probably a matter of looking at it differently. Does the M300 still sound good to you? Great! Do VST reverbs sound different? They should. Which is better? Well, whichever you prefer on a particular source. But those modern VST reverbs (thinking Lexicon PCM, Exponential Audio/Izotope, Relab VSR-S24) are probably cleaner, with better frequency responses, fewer errors, higher sampling rates, lower noise, less pitch-y (and more complex) modulation, etc. But all that stuff may not sound better to you. So it's not a question of "which is better" or "why isn't VST as good as" it's more of a question of "why do you like what you like and why?" You'd probably be better off comparing the M300 to something like Valhalla VintageVerb or LX480 if you wanted something with a classic Lexi-vibe. Whereas things like R4 and Nimbus or VSR-S24 might sound too hi-fi to your ears in comparison.
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