Valhalla DSP - The Halls of Valhalla cardtridge
- Order number: 130421
Valhalla DSP's "The Halls of Valhalla" is an effect cartridge with eight reverberation algorithms, designed to work with the strengths of the Z-DSP and tailored towards electronic music.
The eight reverb algorithms are ordered from shortest to longest and are called Room, Chamber, Plate, EnsembleVerb, Cathedral, Niflheim, Asgard and Ginnungagap.
Generally the reverbs have a nice dense sound and even the short reverbs can be quite long with the decay control turned all the way up. Tone control is a powerful control damping the reverbs and has a strong effect especially with the Plate and EnsembleVerb algorithms. Chorus controls the frequency of a (more or less) slight motion, vibration or chorus.
A few remarks about some of the algiorothms: PLATE is definitely a natural but a clearly digital plate reverb. ENSEMBLEVERB softens attacks and sounds much like a string ensemble, especially with chorus. CATHEDRAL can have a long hovering space-ish sound with slight ensemble effect. NIFLHEIM's special behaviour is the the lower volume at short decay times; nice effect when controlled with voltages. GINNUNGAGAP sound very orchestral and you can turn monophonic sounds easily into pads.
Sean Costello had already some experience in software development when he coded some algoritms included in the much acclaimed Audio Damage EOS reverb module in 2009. By the same year, he established Valhalla DSP, developing some of the most praised reverbs plug-ins still to this day.