Parlour

Parlour is a real room around a drum kit or a voice: early reflections you can bring up or down, and Damping from a dead booth to a lively wooden room. It's the most natural way to put a dry recording in a space.

The controls

Predelay

Time before the room starts, 0 to 100 ms.

Size

The room's size.

Decay

How long it rings, 0.15 to 3 s.

Damping

How absorbent the room is: high sounds dead and dark, low sounds lively.

Low Cut

Clears the low end of the room sound.

Early

How much of the first reflections you hear: the sense of being in a room.

Width

From mono to extra-wide.

Mix

How much room.

Best for

• Drums: a real room around a dry kit
• Vocals and instruments recorded too dry
• Glue: put several tracks in the same room
• Short ambience for guitars

Starting points

Load Parlour, set these, then adjust by ear. In the plugin, Level match helps you judge the sound, not the loudness.

Hints and tips

• Early is the secret: turn it up for a sense of space without a long tail.
• Put several tracks through the same Parlour settings to make them feel recorded together.
• Short Decay and a little Mix make a dry vocal sound produced, not reverby.

Chains it works best in

Every Original works in a chain with the others and with members' hardware. These are good places to start.

• Fettle then Parlour: drums with punch and a real room
• Parlour then Cellar: a room up close and a chamber behind it
• Ferrum then Parlour: a dry vocal recorded in a nice room

Watch out for

• Too much Mix: the instrument moves backwards. Small amounts go a long way.