ADPTR Utopia: what makes this spectral reverb one of the best effects of 2025

Move over, recycled ideas and emulations: it’s been a year of reimagining entire effects categories. And ADPTR Audio’s Utopia stands out in a 2025 class of reverbs that are more than just reverbs. Here’s a look at why it’s an effect I can’t put down, why it’s so much fun to tweak, and how the developers thought about it.

Airwindows VerbThic, VerbTiny let you go even more rabid for reverb, for free

Chris Johnson, aka Airwindows, continues to share his love for DSP with free tools, open source code, and elaborate discussions of the joy of crafting reverbs. So just in case you don’t feel blessed enough with free effects after SuperMassive’s new Sirius reverb/delay, here’s the tiny and the thick in all-new Airwindows editions. And they’ll even run in VCV Rack or on a Raspberry Pi.

Peter Kirn - December 3, 2025

Valhalla’s all-new reverb, 8 years in development, goes clean and natural

We don’t need another great reverb, let alone another great Valhalla reverb/echo. But we get one anyway. Sean Costello and Valhalla say this one is focused on transparency and realism — plus modulation and a bunch of echo modes when you want them. The now is FutureVerb.

Peter Kirn - November 13, 2025

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