PSP’s new Nexcellence (ver 1.0.2 tested) is a spring reverb emulation plug-in inspired by the “Necklace” reverbs made by Hammond Organ company starting around 1959. Nexcellence models the three springs hung like a necklace.
Nexcellence provides two different spring set processors that can use one or both processing engines at the same time. And unlike the original hardware units, there are adjustable parameters to control the inherent characteristics of all spring reverbs.
PSP is super-accurate in all their emulations and I liked using Nexcellence on electric guitars—just as they are used in guitar amps. I used a lot of Nexcellence to develop surf music sounds of the ‘60s. It adds a “bubbly” twang but with more control over the brightness (Color knob), the bubbles and the twang (Decay Time knob) with 0.8 to 7.2 seconds.
I liked overdriving this reverb when the built-in opto-limiter kicks in and the sound of the reverberation mellows out and takes on a darker character. Lastly, the M/S processing and that one spring can be used for the left and the other for the right side. Having control over stereo width is something all new and not possible with hardware spring reverbs. Awesome! Nexcellence sells for $149 MSRP as a download from PSP Audioware.
pspaudioware.com/plugins/reverbs/psp_nexcellence
Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com
