Tune decay to taste without muddying speech¶

The Decay knob controls how long the reverb tail rings after each syllable. Setting it too high smears speech; this page shows how to find a value that adds presence without washing out intelligibility.

Before you start¶

The Reverb stage must be enabled in the CHAIN widget. The "Aetherial FreeVerb" sub-container is hidden until the stage is active.
Open the reverb controls: either locate the "Aetherial FreeVerb" sub-container inside the Aetherial Audio (TXDSP) parent container in the applet panel, or double-click the VERB stage in the CHAIN widget to open the floating editor titled "Aetherial FreeVerb — TX".

Steps¶

Locate the Decay knob. It displays a value in the format X.XX s.
Turn Decay down toward 0.30 s and transmit a voice sample. At this extreme the tail is barely audible.
Slowly increase Decay while speaking or monitoring a recording. Stop when the tail becomes audible between syllables.
Back off slightly until syllables no longer blur into one another. For most voice work, values in the range 0.5 s to 1.5 s keep speech clear.
If the tail still sounds muddy, increase Damp to roll off high-frequency energy in the tail, which often reduces the perception of smear without shortening Decay further.
Verify that Mix is not set too high. A Mix of 10 % to 15 % is typical for voice; excess wet signal amplifies the effect of any Decay value.

What each control does¶

Label	Default	Range	Persisted key	Behavior
Size	50 %	0.0 to 1.0 (displayed as %)	`ClientReverbTxSize`	Sets the modelled room size. Uses linear mapping.
Decay	1.20 s	0.3 to 5.0 s	`ClientReverbTxDecayS`	Sets the reverb tail length. Uses exponential mapping across its range (~16.7× from minimum to maximum).
Damp	50 %	0.0 to 1.0 (displayed as %)	`ClientReverbTxDamping`	Higher values cause high frequencies to decay faster in the tail, reducing brightness and perceived smear.
Pre	20 ms	0 to 100 ms	`ClientReverbTxPreDelayMs`	Pre-delay between the dry signal and the first reflections. Uses linear mapping. Label displays as `X ms`.
Mix	15 %	0.0 to 1.0 (displayed as %)	`ClientReverbTxMix`	Dry/wet balance. A high Mix value amplifies the audible impact of every other parameter.

Live visualisation¶

Starting in v0.9.7, the applet panel and the floating "Aetherial FreeVerb — TX" editor both display a compact waveform diagram (90 px tall) that updates in real time as you move any knob. The diagram uses three colour-coded layers:

Cyan — the dry signal packet, gradient-faded toward the right. Its amplitude decreases as Mix increases.
Yellow — first-order reflections. Spacing and count respond to Size; amplitude per reflection decreases with higher Damp values.
Magenta — the reverberant tail. Its horizontal length reflects Decay, its high-frequency roll-off reflects Damp, and its overall amplitude reflects Mix.

The visualisation is for orientation only; it does not represent a precise impulse-response measurement. Use your ears to make final adjustments.

Tips¶

Because Decay uses an exponential mapping, the knob is much more sensitive at the low end of its travel. Make small adjustments when working below 1.0 s.
The applet knobs and the floating "Aetherial FreeVerb — TX" editor stay in sync at approximately 30 Hz. Adjustments made in one are immediately reflected in the other.
Double-click the Decay knob to reset it to the default of 1.20 s.

Troubleshooting¶

Speech sounds washed out even at short Decay values — Check Mix. If Mix is above 30 %, the wet signal dominates regardless of tail length. Reduce Mix to 10–15 % first, then re-evaluate Decay.
Decay knob has no audible effect — The Reverb stage may not be enabled. Confirm the VERB stage is active in the CHAIN widget. The applet is hidden and the processor is bypassed when the stage is off.