Paragon £419

Intelligently merging real spaces with virtual, Paragon stands as perhaps the most pliant convolution reverb we’ve met so far

PC MAC

From slick, sound-refining plugins such as the bass-sculpting prowess of Monofilter and the fastidious Visualizer, to their polished mastering assistant MasterCheck, and innovative virtual gadgets such as routing co-ordinator SigMod, Nugen’s wares this last decade have proven uniformly trailblazing.

Though their spatially-oriented releases to date have been geared more at the post-production industry, the company’s first bona-fide convolution reverb has universal application, and – used in a production context – provides spectacular natural reverb straight out of the box. Its prospects become even more delicious when you factor in its bewildering power to manipulate these real room impulse responses in the same manner as a processed reverb.

Location, location, location

Paragon isn’t just a bold step for Nugen, then, with the plugin’s abilities affording it the honour of being the world’s first 3D-compatible convolution reverb. The control set here is one that you’d usually find on an algorithmic reverb. So, although Paragon comes pre-loaded with legitimate room impulse response samples, it’s possible to re-shape these spaces, and alter the room size, decay levels, frequency damping and brightness of them as if these were simple virtual constructs.