Cloud Seed

Cloud Seed is perfect if you need a dramatic, 80s-style reverb effect. It is an excellent freeware alternative to commercial plugins like Valhalla Shimmer ($50) or Eventide Blackhole ($199). In my experience, Cloud Seed works best as a “special effect” reverb plugin for sound design. It can transform any sound into a wonderfully lush, evolving pad. It is not a plugin you’d use to recreate natural spaces like rooms and small halls.

Instead, it is perfect for simulating huge halls and surreal spaces. Cloud Seed was developed with C# and C++ and only works in Windows-based VST host applications. It doesn’t emulate any particular hardware reverb unit but perfectly captures the character and tone of vintage reverb effects of the 80s.