Ouros, gods of the mountains
The OurAVerb is here to get your tone all the way out there! It’s an outdoor focussed reverb designer that is just a bit different from the usual. I’ve been tweaking this for some time to let you dial in a variety of amazing tones without a roof (well, as much or little roof as you want).
That other reverb
I really wanted a reverb that was not a box and would feel more like busking, playing my acoustic in the forest, playing drums in an old quarry, and yes a “Pompeii” setting for when I need to recreate Pink Floyd’s epic outdoor masterpiece.
Why it sounds like nothing else
There’s no “lid on the can”. Everything considers the sky above, with the ability to “cover up” to varying degrees (think foliage, cloth).
- Echoes, not a wash. In a room, sound bounces around until it blurs into one smooth tail. Outdoors it flies off and comes back from whatever it hits: a cliff, a far ridge, a line of trees. You hear separate answers, each one later and further away than the last.
- Distance has a sound. Air eats treble. The far canyon wall answers darker than the rock next to you, just like the real thing.
- What it hits matters. Rock sends back a sharp copy. Trees scatter it into a soft haze. Fresh snow swallows nearly all of it.
- Hills are picky. A surface only bounces back pitches smaller than itself. Hillsides return the bright, crisp part of your sound, while the low end wraps around them and rolls on like distant thunder.
- Real left and right. The walls sit either side of you. In a fjord the echo ping-pongs across the water and reaches each ear a split second apart, the way your ears place a sound in the real world.
- Sky optional. Pull a cover over any place: a sail over a fjord, canvas over an amphitheatre, ice over a canyon. How high it hangs tunes it, from a slow flutter down to a humming drone.
The controls
Location: where you are
- Place (the OU button and display): Fjord, Canyon, Valley, Forest or Colosseum. Each one is a different shape, with its own pattern of echoes. Press OU to step through them. The new place answers what you just played, so you can switch mid-song.
- Expanse (tight → vast): how far away the walls are. Turn it while you play and the echoes bend like tape. A fjord turned right down becomes a city street.
- Surface (soft → hard): what the walls are made of. Hard is rock: sharp, loud echoes. Soft is foliage, and right down at the bottom, fresh snow: quieter, darker, smeared into a haze.
Distance: what happens on the way
- Air (dense → open): dense air eats the top end, and far echoes lose the most. Open air keeps everything bright.
- Bounce (absorb → reflect): how many times the echo crosses back and forth. All the way to absorb, each wall answers once. Towards reflect, it keeps going.
- Tone (warm → bright): which pitches the place throws back. Bright is hills, glass and ice: thin, crisp echoes with the low end rolling on underneath. Warm is wood and earth: the highs get soaked up. Noon is neutral.
- Height: where the cover hangs, from 1 to 60 metres. High gives a slow flutter, low gives a drone. Sweep it while you play for a flange. You only hear it when there’s a cover up.
Cover: how much sky
- Ceiling cover: how much of the sky is closed, from open air to fully covered.
- Cover density: what the cover is made of, from canvas (soft, dark, leaky) to ice (bright and glassy).
A full walk through/user guide on Github. (see link below)
Install
Cloudbuilder install link:
Github repo: