Valhalla Supermassive Tutorial (with presets)

Introduction

Valhalla Supermassive is a great VST, it’s a delay/echo and reverb unit combined with varying feedback methods and processing parameters making it capable of vast and intricate echoes and reverbs that swell into huge soundscapes. I use it loads in the studio, here I run down all you need to know in an in depth tutorial as well as some audio example and free presets for it.

Here’s how it sounds on a chord and then a kick drum to get big cavernous sounds:

I also use it loads on drums, although I’m not sure that is how it was intended. Here’s a quick example I made, using only 808 drum samples and the Valhalla Supermassive. There is no other processing or effects. Just 808 samples (kick, hi tom, low tom, snare, clap, open and closed hats)and Valhalla Reverb. Supermassive is used to add booming reverb rumble to the kick, bassy rhythmic delays on the low toms, oldskool Hawtin style triplet delays on the snares (and to filter them it), reverb to the clap, a back ground ambience is derived from the open hats, and rhythmic delays to the high tom. The closed hat is the only dry one.

Update December 2023: Here’s a dub techno example using the Valhalla Supermassive Version 3.0.0 which has just come out… it is just 1 chord sample and 1 kick sample, not changing, then 3 instance of Supermassive come in to delay the chord and add background textures and rhythms. The first 4 bars are dry, then the effects start to come in at 8 mins. Just one chord and a kick, showing off the new Leo and Virgo modes. You can get the presets below….

See also: Studio Brootle Dub Techno Chord Rack, Dub Techno Tutorial: 4 Ingredients. Convolution Reverb Ableton, Spring Reverb Ableton. You can find all of our VST presets here including our techno presets for Repro-1 .

Valhalla Supermassive Tutorial

Welcome to our Supermassive reverb tutorial…..

How To Use Valhalla Supermassive

Here’s quick run down of what the parameters do:

Mode: This changes the mode and can change the functionality and sound of the reverb unit dramatically. Each mode affects how the reverb and echoes feedback on each other and their time settings. See below in the Mode section for a description of what each mode does.

Mix: Wet/dry control. You can lock it in place by clicking on the MIX title above it, so you can change presets and keep it locked at its current setting.

Width: This is stereo width. In general I like it as wide as possible unless using the reverb for sub bass on a kick (the infamous techno rumble), where I set the width to 0. It goes to -100% to which flips the stereo field. (For more on techno rumbles see our guide here.

Delay: This controls the delay time. It seems straight forward, but can have very different effects depending on the mode and how the echoes and reverbs feedback on each other.

Under the delay you can set it to sync: you can change the time setting from Msec (the default, not synced and the time is in milliseconds), the others settings are Note, Dotted and Triplet which are fairly self explanatory – they are synched to the bpm too.

Clear: this clears out sound feeding back, so if you have a huge sound that is feeding back and you want it to stop, just click Clear.

Warp: this ‘warps’ the delays time, it pushes all the delays and echoes longer, relative to the delay time. This can drastically change the character of the sound and change the delays into one huge reverb.

Feedback: feedback amount.

Density: controls the density of echoes and the bleed between the different chains, turning it all the way up will smear the sound into a long reverb.

Mod: the mod section is like a post-reverb chorus – you can control the Rate and Depth of the effect.

EQ: High and Low knobs control filtering on the unit. Note: they are named after the EQ ranges that they reduce, so Low is actually a high pass filter and High is a low pass filter.

Valhalla Supermassive Modes:

Here’s a quick run down of Valhalla Supermassive’s modes, they really affect the sound as they change how the reverb and echoes, their length and decays, all interact as they feedback.

Gemini: Simple delays with feedback.
Hydra: Two delay chains.
Centaurus: Multiple repeating echoes
Sagittarius: Reverb and repeating echoes
Great Annihilator: Long reverb and repeating echoes
Andromeda: Lots of smaller repeating echoes and long reverb. Great for smearing sounds into a long drone.
Large Magellenic Cloud: Single delays with lots of feedback and reverb.
Triangulum: Never ending simple echoes, slightly off.
Lyra: Really tight echoes. Great for drones using warp and feedback.
Capricorn: Really tight delays almost like spring reverb.
Cirrus Major: Short tight repeating delays. Really nice for building tension.
Cirrus Minor: Really short tight repeating delays.
Cassiopeia: Lots of feeding back echoes – great for dub / dub techno sounds.
Orion: Out of time echoes, that filter out quickly.
Aquarius: Really tight delays and reverb, like a combination or spring and then plate reverb. Can make some really nice pads with this, just feeding in a chord stab and playing with the warp and density.
Pisces: Really tight delay and reverb, like the Aquarius mode. Great for sound design especially pads.
Scorpio: Dense tight delays.
Libra: Repeating echoes that filter out over time. Great for dub/dub tech no.
Leo: Long swelling and dense – really good for back ground textures. This was added in December 2023.
Virgo: Like a short digital reverb with a feedback loop with moving filters. This was added in December 2023.

Supermassive Review

Great things about this VST: it’s free, it produces huge reverbs and echoes, you also get explanations of what everything does by just hovering over the setting with your mouse. The negatives are that a lot of the delay/feedback chains features are hidden away, and only loosely described by each mode, although this is also a positive as it make very complex echo and reverb set ups easily playable with just a few controls. This is my favorite spatial effect plugin, and I use it from drones, rhythmic percussion and techno rumbles, as well as pads and chords.

Valhalla Supermassive Presets

You can download our 5 Supermassive presets here.

You can download our 5 Supermassive presets here, and the more recent, updated 3 dub techno presets from December 2023 can be found here. I’ll update these packs as I make more presets.

Here’s what they do:

The first patch ‘pad from anything’ produces long pads or drones, I have put just a short chord sample through it and then a kick drum, you can here the effect in the audio preview below:

The second patch is rhymical and can be applied to drums or chord, you can hear it previewed below on a chord and kick:

The third is a really nice swarming effect, you can hear what it does to a chord and kick in the preview below…

The fourth is a reverb rumble for making techno sub basses. You can hear it on four kicks below:

The fifth is a techno reverb rumble, making a sub bass reverb from a kick drum cutting the highs. The audio preview below uses 4 kick drums…

Valhalla Supermassive Download

You can download Valhalla Supermassive VST for free here. Currently at time of writing it on version 3.0.0

You can download our 5 Supermassive presets here. The updated 3 dub techno presets from December 2023 can be found here.

Valhalla Supermassive Free Presets…

Here’s a list of some free (at time of writing) presets for Valhalla Supermassive:

• You can the Studio Brootle presets here and here.
• Howard Smith’s pack here.
• Audio Voltage here.
• Divkid here.

If you know any more good free presets, please let us know.

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