Why EvoraVerb ships with two knobs
A reverb has at least six parameters that genuinely change the sound. We put five of them behind a single control, and then spent a release working out how to give them back without breaking anything.
The problem with a dozen knobs
Open most algorithmic reverbs and you get size, decay, damping, pre-delay, diffusion, modulation depth, modulation rate, width, and a couple of filters. Every one of them is legitimate. Together they define a space where most of the combinations sound wrong.
That is the part nobody mentions. A reverb with twelve controls does not offer twelve dimensions of usable sound; it offers twelve dimensions in which a small region sounds like a room and the rest sounds like a broken delay. Learning an instrument like that is fine. Reaching for it in the middle of a mix is not.
What Amount actually moves
Amount is not a dry/wet control and it is not a single parameter with a fancy name. It is a macro that rescales six internal values at once, each along its own curve:
- Size from 0.20 to 0.95
- Decay from 0.8 to 12 seconds
- Damping from 0.55 down to 0.30, so the space opens up in the highs as it grows
- Pre-delay from 10 to 35 milliseconds
- Modulation depth from 0.15 to 0.55
- Width from 0.70 to 1.00
The curves matter more than the endpoints. Damping moving against size is what keeps a long setting from turning into mud: a bigger room with the same damping just sounds duller, so the filter has to open as the space grows. Width widening with size does the same job for the stereo image.
The point of the macro is not fewer controls. It is that there is no wrong position. Anywhere you leave the knob, the six values underneath are a combination that works.
Then we gave them back
Two knobs is a good default and a bad ceiling. Somebody mixing a specific vocal wants 6 seconds of decay in a small room, which is not a point the macro passes through. So the advanced panel exposes those same six parameters directly.
That immediately creates a conflict: if Amount keeps writing to the six while you are editing them by hand, every macro move wipes your work. The rule we settled on is simple. Amount only writes to the six while the advanced panel is closed. Open it and the macro steps aside.
The second half of that decision is subtler. The default value of each advanced parameter is exactly what the macro produced with Amount at 50 per cent. Opening the panel on an untouched instance therefore changes nothing at all: the numbers you see are the numbers you were already hearing.
What deliberately stayed out
The low cut and high cut do not move with Amount, and that was a decision rather than an omission.
Amount describes a space: how big it is, how long it rings, how diffuse it becomes. Where you cut frequencies is not a property of the space, it is a property of the material going into it. A vocal and a kick in the same room need different filtering. Tying those filters to a knob that describes the room would make them move for the wrong reason.
The presets follow the same logic. They set Amount and Mix; the filters stay where you left them.