V3RB-X5 User Manual

Overview

V3RB-X5 is a recreation of a 1987 digital effects processor, measured off the hardware program by program. All fifty of its ROM programs are here, default ROM values match those of the hardware.

The plugin includes all reverbs, early reflection patterns, delays, chorus, flanging, dynamics, pitch shifting, and a bank of distortion and distortion hybrids.

The plugin has two modes. ORIGINAL matches the sound of the hardware. MODERN has more high end, oversamples the distortion, and gives the reverbs a tail that moves.

The plugin runs as VST3, AU and AAX and is compatible with macOS and Windows.

Getting started

Insert V3RB-X5 on a track or a send.
Pick a program. The group buttons across the top choose a family, and the list on the left picks a program within it. The arrows beside the display step through the whole bank.
Set MIX. On a send, leave it at 100%. On an insert, bring it down.
Set INPUT if the program needs it. The dynamics and distortion programs respond to level, so a hot signal into a gate or a drive behaves differently from a quiet one.

Every program comes out at about the same loudness at its stored values, so clicking through the bank does not need the output riding along with it. The hardware's programs vary widely in level; the plugin evens them out.

On a bus wider than stereo the plugin can fill the room. See Immersive. On a stereo bus it is a stereo effect.

The display

The red display shows the memory number, the family, the program name, and the last control you touched with its current value.

Click the memory number and type a number to jump straight to that program. Press Return to go, Escape to cancel.
The arrows step to the previous or next program through all fifty. The scroll wheel over the display does the same, one program per notch.

The meter beside the display shows one bar per channel of the bus the plugin is on, named. Click INPUT or OUTPUT in its header to choose which it shows.

Choosing a program

The group buttons select a family and load its first program. The small number under each is how many programs it holds.

Button	Programs
REV	1 to 10	Halls, rooms, vocal plates and plates
E.R	11 to 15, 30	Early reflection patterns and gated reverb
DLY	16 to 20	Delays and echoes
MOD	21 to 27	Flanging, chorus, phasing, tremolo, symphonic
DYN	28, 29, 35	Gate, compressor, parametric EQ
PCH	31 to 34	Pitch shifting and triggered pan
DST	36 to 50	Distortion and distortion hybrids
USR	your own	Lights up once you have stored a preset

The program list on the left shows every program in the current family. Click one to load it.

Selecting a program loads the program. Any edits you made to it are not remembered. Dial in something you want to keep and store it to the USR bank, which is what that bank is for.

Working with the controls

Drag a knob up or down to set it.
Double-click a knob to return it to the program's stored value.
Click the value under a knob to type one in. Return commits, Escape cancels, and clicking anywhere else commits and closes the field.

Values are typed at the resolution the control actually uses. A Decay that steps in whole milliseconds does not offer decimal places.

Where a filter reads THRU it is out of circuit. The high-pass reads THRU at its lowest setting and the low-pass at its highest.

Automating

Every knob is an automation lane. The program itself is not: you choose it by hand, and it loads its stored values, as always.

To automate a change of setup on the timeline, use the A/B/C/D slots. Fill A, B, C and D with the setups you want — each slot holds a whole setup, its program and every control value — then automate the A/B/C/D selector to switch between them as the track plays. The switch is faded so it stays smooth. This is the way to change patch during playback, and it is unambiguous: the whole setup moves together.

STORE, RESET and AUDITION

STORE. Saves the current settings to the USR bank. Type a name, or pick one of the names already listed to overwrite that preset instead of adding a second one.
RESET. Returns every control on the deck to the program's stored values.
AUDITION. Fires a short noise burst through the effect so you can hear it without playing anything.

The USR bank

Stored presets live in the USR bank and travel with the session.

Double-click a name to rename it.
Right-click a preset to rename or delete it.
USR memory numbers start at 51, past the end of the factory bank.

Global panel

These controls sit under the program deck and apply to every program.

INPUT and OUTPUT

Level into and out of the effect. Both are useful on the programs that react to level: the gate, the compressor, and the whole distortion family.

MIX

The balance between the dry signal and the effect. 100% is fully wet, which you would use when the plugin is inserted on an aux return.

MONO / STEREO

How the plugin is fed. As the hardware is mono input only MONO is the default: both inputs sum before the converter, so where a source sits has no bearing on the wet.

STEREO keeps the placement. A source panned left comes back with its reverb leaning left, this was not possible on the hardware.

On some programs where the effect is mono by construction, the option of stereo is not possible, for these it is Greyed out and stereo is not selectable.

On a surround bus the second position reads SOURCE on the reverb programs, and does more: the room follows where the sound actually is. A source at the rear left fills the rear left most and the opposite corner least, on all three axes, front to back, left to right and up to down. A centred source is unchanged. MONO sums everything and ignores position, as the hardware does.

To hear it, the plugin has to be fed the surround bus itself, after the panner. An insert on the 7.1.4 or 9.1.6 bus does that; a stereo send does not, because a stereo send carries no position to follow. Switch the meter to INPUT and pan the source: if only L and R light up, the plugin is not receiving the panner's output and SOURCE has nothing to work with. When it is fed correctly the input bars follow the source around the bus.

Then switch the meter to OUTPUT, set MIX to 100%, and toggle MONO against SOURCE with the source panned into a corner. On MONO the output bars sit level across the room. On SOURCE the source's own corner rises and the opposite corner falls, by about 5 dB and 8 dB respectively. Percussive material with gaps between hits shows it most, because the tail is what moves.

MODE

ORIGINAL closely matches the hardware.

MODERN keeps every program's voicing and lifts the limits the original hardware's converters imposed:

The top end runs on past where the box stopped, on every program.
The reverbs get a tail that moves rather than sitting still, and a denser network behind it.
The early reflection programs get more top end, and the pattern fades into a short wash instead of stopping dead when the pattern runs out.
The distortion programs oversample, so the harmonics stay where they belong instead of folding back down the spectrum.
The parametric EQ's bells keep their shape up to the top of the band. A bell set high in the spectrum no longer narrows and slides down as it nears the sample rate's limit. (de-cramping)

NOISE

The unit's own hiss, modeled from a silent capture off the hardware. OFF by default.

GATED follows the track: the hiss appears when there is signal and goes away when there is not, so it does not sit under a stopped transport.
ON runs it continuously.

Only the hiss is modeled. The mains hum in the capture belongs to the rig, not to the box.

A / B / C / D and COPY TO NEXT

Four slots to compare setups. Click a letter to switch to it. COPY TO NEXT copies the current setup into the following slot so you can make a variation without losing what you had.

The A/B/C/D selector is an automation lane, so this is also how you change setup on the timeline: fill the slots, then automate the switch. A slot carries the program and every control value, so the whole setup moves at once. The switch is faded, and it works with the window closed.

The programs

Reverb, 1 to 10

Rev 1 to 3 are halls, 4 and 5 rooms, 6 to 8 vocal, 9 and 10 plates.

Reverb Time. How long the tail runs, 0.3 to 99 seconds.
HF Ratio. How much faster the top decays than the rest. Lower is darker as the tail falls away.
Pre-Delay. The gap before the reverb arrives, up to 50 ms. Longer keeps the source clear of its own tail.
HPF and LPF. Voicing on the way in. Both read THRU when out of circuit.

Early reflections and gates, 11 to 15

Early Ref. 1 and 2, Percussion E/R, Gate Reverb, Reverse Gate. These are the discrete part of a room: a pattern of countable reflections without the wash that follows them in a real space.

Type. Hall, Random, Reverse or Plate. Each has its own pattern.
Room Size and Liveness. The shape of the pattern and how much energy stays in it.
Delay. The gap before the pattern starts.
LPF. Top end on the pattern. Reads THRU at maximum.

At their stored settings these replay a pattern captured from the hardware. Moving Type, Room Size or Liveness reshapes the field and the plugin builds the pattern instead. Delay and LPF do not, so those two keep the captured pattern playing.

Delay and echo, 16 to 20

Delay L, R and Delay Short and Long, plus Echo Short and Long.

L Delay and R Delay. Up to 500 ms each, set independently.
L Feedback and R Feedback. How much comes back round, and negative values invert it.
HF Feedback. How much top end survives each pass. Lower gets darker with every repeat.
SYNC. With it on, L Delay and R Delay follow the host tempo as note lengths instead of milliseconds: 1/32 up to a whole note, with the dotted and triplet values in between.

Modulation, 21 to 27

Stereo Flange, three Chorus programs, Stereo Phasing, Tremolo and Symphonic.

Mod Freq. Rate, 0.1 to 20 Hz.
Mod Depth. How far it swings.
Mod Delay. Where the swing sits, on the flanger and phaser.
Feedback. Flanger only. How much comes back round.
The chorus programs split depth into Delay Mod Depth and Amp Mod Depth, and the two are what separates Chorus A, B and C.

ADR-Noise Gate, 28

A gate with a full envelope rather than just an open and shut.

Trigger Level. Where it opens, on the unit's 1 to 100 scale.
Trigger Delay. Negative is look-ahead, which holds the audio back so the envelope can act before the sound it is acting on. Positive delays the trigger.
Trigger Mask. A retrigger lockout. Once the gate has fired it ignores new triggers for this long.
Attack, Decay, Decay Level, Hold, Release. The envelope. Decay Level is where the envelope settles after the initial decay, and Hold is a minimum open time measured from the trigger.
MIDI Trigger. See the MIDI section.

Compressor, 29

Attack, Release, Threshold, Ratio. The usual four.
Detect Delay. Moves the detector ahead of or behind the audio.
Delay. Delays the output.

The meter beside the knobs shows gain reduction, growing downward from 0 dB.

On a surround bus with IMMERSIVE on, the gate and the compressor work as bus dynamics: one detector reads every channel except LFE, one gain is applied to all of them so nothing moves in the field, and LFE passes through untouched. Neither program is compatible with the spatial modes, so they are greyed out and not usable.

Reverb & Gate, 30

The reverb tank through an output gate. Found under E.R rather than DYN, which is where the hardware keeps it.

Reverb Time, HF Ratio, Pre-Delay, HPF, LPF. As the reverbs.
Trigger Level, Hold, Release. The gate on the reverb's output.
MIDI Trigger. See the MIDI section.

Pitch and pan, 31 to 34

Pitch A (31). One voice. Pitch in semitones, Fine in cents, Delay, and Feedback for arpeggio effects. Base Key is a MIDI function, covered below.
Pitch B (32). Two voices, both fed to both channels. Each has its own Pitch, Fine and Delay.
Pitch C (33). Two voices, one to each channel, so the detune spreads across the image.
Triggered Pan (34). A pan sweep that fires on the input. Trigger Level, Trigger Delay and Trigger Mask arm it; Attack, Panning and Release shape the sweep; L/R Balance weights the starting side and Direction chooses which way it travels. MIDI Trigger is covered below.

Parametric EQ, 35

High-pass, two peaking bands with their own frequency, gain and Q, a low-pass, and an output delay. HPF and LPF read THRU when out of circuit. Takes STEREO in, one chain per side. In MODERN the bells hold their shape right up to the top of the band. On a surround bus it works on the front pair and leaves the other channels alone; the spatial controls are greyed out on it.

Distortion, 36 to 40

Mid-Band Drive, Heavy Metal, Light Dist., Chunky Rhythm, Smooth Drive.

Distortion. How hard it is driven.
Treble, Mid Freq, Mid Gain, Bass. Tone after the drive.
Trigger Level and Release. A gate on the output, which is what keeps the noise down between phrases.

These react to input level. Drive them the way you would drive an amp.

Distortion hybrids, 41 to 50

Distortion into a second effect, with a balance between the two.

41 Overdrive Hall and 42 Distortion Room. Into a reverb, with Reverb Balance, Pre-Delay, Reverb Time and HF Ratio.
43 E/R Distortion and 44 Slide Gate. Into an early reflection field, with E/R Balance, Tone, Type, Room Size, Liveness and Delay.
45 Delay Dist. and 46 Dist. Filter. Into a stereo delay, with Delay Balance, independent L and R times and feedback, HF Feedback, and a mid band.
47 Flange Dist., 48 Chorus Dist., 49 Phase Dist., 50 Symphonic Dist. Into a modulation effect, with Effect Balance and that effect's own rate and depth.

Every hybrid carries Trigger Level and, where the effect allows it, Release, for the same output gate as the straight distortion programs.

Immersive

On a bus wider than stereo, every program fills the room. The front pair is the stereo plugin, unchanged. Everything behind and above you is added, so turning the surround down takes away the sense of space and leaves the sound exactly as it was.

STEREO and IMMERSIVE in the header choose how the plugin behaves on a wide bus, and the choice is saved with the session. STEREO runs it as the stereo plugin: the front pair is processed and every other channel passes through untouched. IMMERSIVE places the room and shows the spatial controls. On a stereo channel there is no room to place, so IMMERSIVE is unavailable and the header says why when you point at it. The spatial controls are part of the Immersive edition.

OUT FORMAT

OUT FORMAT, at the right of the header, is the speaker layout the output is rendered to. It appears on any surround bus and is set from the bus automatically: twelve channels read as 7.1.4, sixteen as 9.1.6, and a host that names its bus is followed as declared. Pick another layout to override it, whether the host named the bus or not.

The layouts on offer are 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.4, 7.1.6, 9.1, 9.1.2, 9.1.4 and 9.1.6.
Some hosts, Reaper among them, label a track by its channel count rather than a named layout, so twelve channels could mean 7.1.4 or 9.1.2. This is where you say which.
A layout that needs more channels than the bus has is greyed, because there is nowhere to put them.
A smaller layout on a wider bus renders into the bus channels its speakers belong to: 4.0 on a 9.1.6 track uses L, R and the rear pair, not the first four channels. The channels it has no speakers for carry only the dry signal at the MIX setting, so at 100% they are silent. LFE passes through untouched as always.
The spatial knobs follow the layout you pick: choose 5.1 and MIDDLE, WIDES and the height controls go, because that layout has no speakers for them.
Your pick is saved with the session.

How each program fills the room

Reverbs, Reverb & Gate, and the reverb hybrids. A decorrelated version of the signal is sent to each speaker so that the sound is truly immersive. The same decay and tone is kept, so it sounds like an extended, spatial version of the original preset. With the input switch on SOURCE the room also follows where the source is, rather than filling evenly.
Early reflections and the pure distortion programs send the front pair to the sides and rear through a treatment that makes each copy decorrelated, later and a little darker.
Delays and echoes send each repeat one step further around the room, quieter and duller with every hop, in time with the front.
Modulation runs the same effect around you, with the sweep at a different point in its cycle in each direction.
Pitch detunes each pair of speakers in opposite directions by a few cents. The overall pitch stays as is.
Triggered Pan sweeps across the sides and rear as well as the front.
ADR-Noise Gate and Compressor work on every channel from one detector. Parametric EQ is front pair only.

FRONT, CENTER, WIDES, MIDDLE, BACK, TOP

How much of the effect lives in each part of the room, in room order across the panel. 50 is the unchanged level, 0 is off, 100 is 6 dB up. FRONT is the front pair, CENTER the centre speaker, WIDES the wide pair beside the front, MIDDLE the sides, BACK the rear, TOP the height speakers. FRONT at 0 with BACK or TOP up puts the effect behind or above you and nothing in the front pair.

A knob disappears when the bus has no speakers for it, and the ones that remain spread out to fill the row. WIDES needs a 9.1.x layout. CENTER needs a centre channel. TOP and TOP LINK need height speakers; TOP TILT and ALL need at least two rows of them. On a 5.1 bus MIDDLE goes too, because 5.1 has three speakers at the front and two behind it and no sides at all: its surround pair is the rear, so BACK is the control for it.

A bus without height speakers has no height layer: TOP, TOP LINK, TOP TILT and ALL are not shown and put nothing anywhere.
LFE never carries any effect and passes through untouched.

CENTER

How much of the room reaches the center speaker. Off by default. The center is derived from the sides.

SURROUND, ROOM, MOVE

Three ways to place the same program.

SURROUND is one room, all around you. The sides, rear and heights are the same space as the front, a few milliseconds later and a touch darker. This is the default setting.
ROOM is a bigger room behind you. The rear and heights come from a second, longer, slower reverb, later and darker still. Echoes take longer strides toward the back.
MOVE moves. Reverb circles the room, echoes move from speaker to speaker, modulation and the triggered pan travel around you. MOTION sets how far and how fast. Its inner ring, the small dial in the middle of the knob, sets the direction the movement sits in: point the marker where you want the spin centred. Straight down is the default, and a double click on the inner dial returns it there. Its direction in degrees shows under the MOTION value; click the number to type one. MOTION only appears in this mode; it has its own slot at the right of the row, past the divider.

Switching modes fades the surround out and back in over a few milliseconds.

Folding down

A fold-down to stereo or mono comes out a little wetter than the stereo plugin, because the added channels sum in. It does not comb: every channel is made to be unlike every other.

MIDI

Four controls take MIDI. The plugin appears to the host as an effect that accepts MIDI input, so a MIDI track in your session can be routed to the instance.

MIDI Trigger on ROM 28, 30 and 34. Switches the trigger source. With it on, the audio threshold is out of circuit and a note fires the envelope instead.
Base Key on ROM 31. Names the home note. A played note shifts the effect by its distance from that key, so with Base Key at C3, playing E3 moves the shift up a major third. Set it to OFF to ignore notes and use the Pitch control alone.

MIDI Trigger replaces the trigger source, it does not add to it. With it on and nothing feeding it, the program stays silent. That is what the hardware does.

Any note fires the trigger. The note number only matters to Base Key.

The Trigger lane

Not every host will route MIDI to an audio insert, and some cannot at all. For those, the Trigger parameter fires the same envelope from an automation lane. It works on the rising edge, and only while MIDI Trigger is on, so it cannot fight the audio threshold.

A note is more accurate than the lane. Notes carry their exact position inside the audio block; automation arrives at block boundaries, so a drawn trigger lands within one buffer of where you put it, and that figure changes with your buffer size. Use notes where the host allows it.

Base Key needs a real note. There is no automation substitute for it.

Licensing

Click the key icon in the footer to open the license dialog. ACTIVATE LICENSE takes a key. Once this machine is licensed, MANAGE MACHINES opens your account, where machines are added and released. Without a license the dialog offers BUY. A license for the stereo edition shows UPGRADE as well, which takes you to your account.

The key icon lights when this machine is authorized. It updates on its own, so a machine released elsewhere shows here without you doing anything.

Tooltips

Hover any control for a one-line explanation of what it does.

The ? button in the footer turns the tips on and off. They are off by default.
The flag beside it chooses their language. Twenty-two are available, and the choice is remembered across sessions and instances.

Control names stay in English whatever language you pick. They are the legends printed on the hardware panel, so the tip for the knob marked TRIGGER LEVEL still starts with those words.

Support

Click the book icon in the footer to open this manual.
Click the lightbulb icon to request a feature.
Click the bug icon to report a problem.
Click the info icon for version and build information.
Visit max1musaudio.com for support, downloads and account management.

Trademarks

Yamaha, SPX, SPX50D and SPX90 are registered trademarks of Yamaha Corporation. V3RB-X5 is developed independently by max1mus audio and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Yamaha Corporation. Any reference to these trademarks is solely to describe the vintage hardware this software models.