A lot of producers tend to undermine the importance of reverb.
While everybody uses some kind of reverb, people tend to forget that a reverb can be very musical, and not just something to fill your stereo space.
Of all the reverb plugins we’ve ever used, The Polyverse music Comet reverb is the most unique.
Here’s why it’s so good and why we love it.
A wholly unique take on reverb, Polyverse knocks it out of the park with Comet. While limited in some sorts, the versatility and quality of the reverb make this very much worth your money.
- Gorgeous, lush-sounding reverb.
- Great design, easy to use.
- Create eternal reverbs or short flangers.
- 5 morphing slots mean unique reverb transitions.
- Automation for precise control.
- Easy Midi Mapping
- Parameter locking.
- While a great feature, morphing is very niche, and might not get used too often.
- Price-y for a reverb
Contents
What Is Comet?
From Polyverse, the creators of the incredible Infected Mushroom Manipulator, and Gatekeeper, comes the latest addition to the roster, the Comet reverb.
We get what you’re thinking, oh good, another damn reverb.
There are lots of very fine impulse response-based reverb processors on the market, so we arguably didn’t need another one anyway.
Oh boy, if you’re of the same mindset as we were, Comet is going to be an even bigger surprise to you.
Comet isn’t a plugin that is trying to emulate any particular physical space.
Instead, it is designed to “create beautiful trails of sound”.
In another product, this might sound like a pretentious snake oil marketing technique, but reverbs really do aspire to this kind of thing, so it’s a fair claim.
By not limiting themselves to recreating a realistic space, Polyverse has created one of the most unique and lush sounding reverbs.
Why is Comet so good?
The Infected Mushroom Comet features a beautifully designed reverb algorithm, that adds textures, modulation and other reverb effects to your audio.
While the reverbs are huge, gorgeous and vast, the versatility of the Polyverse Comet also needs to be mentioned.
Comet, when it’s decay is turned fully up, will switch to a self oscillating mode, essentially creating eternal, unending reverb tails.
On the other side of the spectrum, you can reduce the size and decay of your space to a point where it sounds like a flanger effect.
One of our favorite things to do with Comet was to drop it on a vocal channel with a very fast decay and room size.
This essentially creates a beautiful, wobbly and warbly sound, add on to that some of their great detune and you’ve got yourself a beautiful sound already.
Along with melodies and vocal channels, Comet can add a lot of depth to any sound.
Preset morphing
The feature that is the most unique to Comet, is the preset morphing.
Something we’ve never seen before, Comet allows you to pick 5 presets, that you can then quickly morph between.
This can create some incredibly unique and interesting transitions and gliding effects. You can pick 5 presets, that you can then switch between in real time via automation or midi cc.
On the lower left hand side, you’ll find a glide knob. This essentially affects how fast your presets will morph to one another. This morphing feature means you can switch between presets, super smoothly, in real time.
On a normal reverb, if you wanted to switch to a different space in the middle of your track, you’d have to use another plugin. Comet makes sure that, when you’re morphing between presets, you get absolutely no clicks, or any other unwanted artefacts.
This feature alone makes Comet one of the most unique, as well as one of the most musical reverbs ever.
User Interface
The User Interface of the Polyverse Comet is also extremely well thought out. As usual in these reviews, we’re biased towards plugins that manage to put everything in one page.
Having to go between 3 subsections of parameters to get to what you need is the worst thing about in-depth plugins
When a device manages to be extremely powerful and versatile, while being intuitive and easy to use, in our eyes, that’s a home run.
The GUI is dominated by the two central knobs, being Size and Decay.
On the left side of it, you’ll find your Pre-Delay, Diffusion and Detune controls.
The Detune in particular is amazing when combined with a shorter reverb tail, the detune on Comet just feels warmer than other plugins.
To the right, you’ll see a high damp as well as low damp and color.
The former two function mostly like filters.
The hi damp is a low pass filter, while the lo damp is a high pass filter.
The Color control affects how bright or how dark your reverb sounds.
Using these in combination means you can easily and quickly make your reverb sound exactly the way you want to.
Parameters can also be locked for consistency, with tiny lock icons letting you keep individual sections consistent between presets.
The added saturation module for the input and output, is also further helpful to shape your reverb.
Lastly, something we wish more developers would implement, the Midi Mapping in Comet is incredible.
Simply press on settings, and you’ll instantly be able to click on any parameter and map a midi control to it.
You can also choose whether you’re mapping a linear or a rotary control, for better and more efficient mapping.
Pros
Gorgeous, lush sounding reverb.
Great design, easy to use.
Create eternal reverbs or short flangers.
5 morphing slots mean unique reverb transitions.
Automation for precise control.
Easy Midi Mapping
Parameter locking.
Cons
While a great feature, morphing is very niche, and might not get used too often.
How Does It Sound?
To demonstrate how great the Polyverse Comet sounds and how unique it is, we’ve assembled our favorite examples of presets.
Additionally, we’ve also included a couple preset morphing examples, to fully demonstrate what this plugin is capable of.
Preset Examples
Comet’s Features
- An unbelievably smooth and beautiful reverb
- Five interchangeable preset morphing slots
- Glide control to morph between parameters
- Pre Delay & Glide available in milliseconds and rhythmic subdivisions
- Lockable parameters for consistency between presets
- Uniquely rich and musical detune algorithm
- Saturation module from input gain for extra density
- MIDI and CV control for every parameter
- Supports VST2 / VST3 / AU / AAX plug-in formats
- for Windows 32bit, Windows 64bit, OSX 10.7+ 64bit
Verdict
A wholly unique take on reverb, Polyverse knocks it out of the park with Comet. While limited in some sorts, the versatility and quality of the reverb make this very much worth your money.
- Gorgeous, lush-sounding reverb.
- Great design, easy to use.
- Create eternal reverbs or short flangers.
- 5 morphing slots mean unique reverb transitions.
- Automation for precise control.
- Easy Midi Mapping
- Parameter locking.
- While a great feature, morphing is very niche, and might not get used too often.
- Price-y for a reverb
One of the most unique reverb plugins on the market, Comet accomplishes what a lot of other reverb developers have sought for years.
How to make a great sounding reverb, while making it wholly unique and interesting.
In our opinion, Polyverse have definitely succeeded in that regard, and we’re going to keep using it.
If you’re in the market for a new reverb, Comet definitely deserves your attention.
Want to find out about another unique device? Here’s the Devious Machines’ Texture review.
Additionally, if you’ve no idea what music production is, read our helpful guide on it.
Toms is a music producer & DJ, born and raised in Post Soviet Latvia. Currently based in Brighton, Toms has had over 6 years of experience with all things production and in that time, he’s done a tonne of cool stuff! He’s played multiple festivals, had experience in the field with mixing & mastering and even become a freelance journalist in the music industry.
Toms currently creates music under the alias Sovereign. Producing music that’s intimate and subtle, while full of edge and energy, the young producer combines the artistic sounds of Trip Hop artists like Massive Attack, with the energy and youthfulness of producers like Flume, Jamie XX and Yaeji. You can check his stuff on Soundcloud.
