I have tried to make it better and better.... I ended up with this setup....here for everyone I open up the pandora box:
Ok what I did was this.
On my first I AUX I USED the Breverb for having a more dynamic feel with the Reverb... an IR alone is not breathing with the music.
I created on the Breverb a short room:
Time 200 ms / Size 25% /Diffusion 100%/ Decay 17%
In my second AUX I have two pitch-shifters with 5/-5 cents.
In my third AUX I have the CS 1 from the UAD card with the Delay DUAL for each Channel as well with the reflection engine which is great for adding an extra portion chaotic reflections...
In my last two Auxes you can see two instances of Altiverb which are only working for a dense ER part no tails.
First Instance is mono IR second stereo IR.
Both followed by a logic compressor with short release to make the IR breath with the music.
The stereo IRs in AUX 5 is followed by BT Stereo Spreader of Nomad Factory waht gave me an extra drive for the 3 D room feeling.
Further you can see in my setup that I send AUX 3 into AUX 4/5 crosswise. I do this to ad more chaotic reflections and even to make the ER more dense.
The IRs of the Altiverbs are prepared.
They have nearly no tail I cut it of they only work for the ER. I raised the ERs in the altiverb about 4-5 db.
Why is this sounding so dam good?
I think I know the answer without having ever worked at a Lexicon.
If you read the Manual of the Lexicon 480 L you can see that you also can set Precho-delays. So for me this means they try to create the natural sound as close as they can get.
Most reverb units in the Plug In world sound not very real because there is one fixed delay but this is very unnatural and this is the main thing what bob katz is complaining about reverb.
It seems to me that reverb is sounding much better with very dense ERs which we recreate by the altiverbs. But also a factor is the extra portion of chaotic reflections by the UAD CS-1.
Most people love plate reverb a plate also is having dense ERs too.
Most Plug Ins have a lack of ERs the ERs is a must have for the ear to tell the brain how the room is big or small etc.
If I read the manual of the breverb which is great in anyway someone could come to the conclusion that reverb is a thing which can be calculated because it is an fixed order.
I bet you the big Lexicons have an extra algorithms for random reflections. And this is what the UAD CS-1 does.
Also I think the idea of one fixed predelay if used is totaly wrong and boring to the reverb sound.
Create your own predelays and not only one of it by using delays.
There is only one bad thing about my setup.
Maybe in a big session I can go with 3 and this would bring my mac pro to high CPU LOAD.
It would be my go to vox verb and the rest I would try to cover by good IRs.
I never worked with the setup in a mix I just find it very notable that we can come Close....
Andreas