ADPTR Audio Utopia

The Utopia reverb from ADPTR Audio is marketed under the Plugin Alliance umbrella and supports all the mainstream plug‑in formats for macOS and Windows. While most reverb devices and plug‑ins take either an algorithmic or convolution approach, Utopia uses a similar spectral manipulation technique to Zynaptiq’s Adaptiverb so, like Adaptiverb, Utopia can dynamically reshape the spectrum of the reverb to remove any elements that might clash harmonically with the input signal. This spectral approach to reverb generation also produces a very dense and satisfying reverb tail that can be made very long, without any ringing artefacts. If special effects are your thing, you might be intrigued to know that in this case, the reverb time can be set up to a whopping 500 seconds (after that you hit the Infinity mode).

The decay time can be synchronised to DAW beats and there’s also a Freeze button to extend the current reverb sound indefinitely by freezing the reverb buffer. Two rows of controls address all the key functions but more depth is often available if you click on the control name — for many controls, doing this opens up a parameter box at the bottom of the GUI (see screenshot) for adjusting settings in more depth. There are preset A, B and C variations, as well as manual adjustments available for Early Reflections, Spectral, Stereo, Detune and Shimmer.

Parameters

The Mix, Early Reflections and Tail functions each have separate controls, and there are further controls for Pre‑delay, Stereo and Shape, the latter adjusting the onset of reverb. A Send control below the Mix knob comes into its own when using the reverb as an insert effect, as if this is automated it allows the tail to fade out naturally, as it would if fed from a mixer’s aux send.

The lower row of controls include Detune and Shimmer, as well as controls governing Decay EQ, Post‑EQ and Colour. Behind the scenes, Colour adjusts what ADPTR Audio term the Focus and Atmosphere parameters, and is different for each of the factory presets. Focus reduces the contribution of noise and transients while Atmosphere can either bring out detail or create a smoother tail. Colour settings (which comprise spectral and EQ settings) can be loaded separately from any preset.

Although the control set looks fairly straightforward, many of the GUI controls are actually macros controlling multiple parameters. For example, Shape affects decay, sustain and swell. Furthermore, each of those parameters also links to a spectrum map to determine which frequencies are affected by the parameter and by how much. Volume Shaping is available with a choice of Duck, Gate (which can be used as a type of LFO volume modulator) and Pump modes, sync’able to tempo or to a side‑chain input. There’s also the option to tempo‑sync a buffer‑clear feature, to introduce rhythmic truncations of the reverb tail that can sound very effective on rhythmic parts. And finally, Auto Clear reduces harmonic clashes by suppressing frequencies in the reverb tail that clash with those of the input signal.

The shimmer feature sounds very smooth and the sync’able rhythmic effects could be put to good use when mixing dance music too.

Verdict

Applications naturally include the conventional uses of reverb in music production, but they also extend further into the territory of sound design, with impossibly long reverbs, spectral colouration, shimmer and rhythmic gain pumping. The shimmer feature sounds very smooth and the sync’able rhythmic effects could be put to good use when mixing dance music too. Other settings introduce unusual spectral textures, adding an otherworldly quality to the sound, so the possible applications of Utopia span almost all musical genres, from ambient and pop to experimental and EDM.

The plug‑in comes with a comprehensive set of presets, organised by category, demonstrating the range of possible effects, and there are helpful touches like parameter locks, to maintain selected settings when loading new presets. There’s a 14‑day free trial and I’d definitely recommend taking it for a spin.