CarbonDSP has released Vellum Pro, an algorithmic reverb designed to solve one of mixing’s biggest headaches: getting a large, spacious reverb sound without burying your lead vocal or instrument. Here’s what they say:
Going beyond traditional ducking, which pumps the whole reverb up and down, Vellum Pro can analyze your source frequency by frequency and carve out space only where the two are actually clashing.
Normally, when you put a ducking compressor on a reverb, the entire reverb gets quiet every time the singer sings or the instrument plays. This keeps the track clear, but it makes the sense of space disappear. Vellum Pro solves this by instantly analyzing your audio and only turning down the specific frequencies that are clashing with your source track. Your vocal slices right through the mix, but the reverb stays wide, bright, and immersive around it.
The plugin also features a detector that recognizes harsh consonants (like heavy “P”s or “S” sounds). Instead of making the whole reverb pump unnaturally when these sharp sounds hit, Vellum Pro recovers lightning-fast, keeping your vocal smooth and upfront.
Vellum Pro is highly optimized for modern sessions. It uses less than 1% of one CPU core at typical settings and introduces absolutely zero latency to your project by cleverly hiding its processing time inside the reverb’s natural pre-delay.
Four spaces (Room, Plate, Hall and Air) set the character, and seven source voicings tune the controls for whatever you are putting through them. It comes loaded with 76 mix-ready presets across lead vocal, backing and doubles, spoken word, instruments and creative effects, including a showcase set built around each Pro feature.
While CarbonDSP’s free Vellum plugin remains available as a vocal-focused tool, Vellum Pro is built to be the only reverb you need for an entire session.
Key Features
- Frequency-Selective Ducking: Instead of turning the whole reverb down, Vellum Pro lowers only the specific frequencies that are fighting with your lead instrument. You get a massive, spacious reverb without the muddy buildup.
- Consonant-Aware Recovery: The plugin tells a held note from a consonant like a P or an S, and lets the reverb recover faster after consonants, so words stay crisp without the whole reverb pumping or breathing.
- Seven Source Voicings: Voice, Drums, Bass & Low, Guitar & Keys, Strings & Orchestral, Bus & Glue and Design each re-map what the controls do for that material. Vellum Pro can even analyze your audio and suggest one – it never switches on its own.
- Draw the Decay: Draw how long the reverb rings at each frequency across six bands, from 60 Hz to 12 kHz. It works like an EQ, but for decay time.
- Unlink Room Size and Length: You can finally put a track in a massive-sounding room but give it a short decay time, keeping the grand scale of the space without flooding your mix with an endless tail.
- Match a Real Space: Load an impulse response of a real hall, chamber or plate, and Vellum Pro measures it and sets itself to the closest match it can make. It is a strong starting point, not a copy, and it tells you when a file is something it cannot reproduce.
Pricing & Availability
Vellum Pro costs $20.00 and is available as a VST3 effect plugin and Standalone application for Windows. A demo version is available with no account required, and is fully functional for 7 days from first load.
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