Eventide Temperance Lite is a new musical reverb plugin for macOS and Windows, and it’s a free download for a limited time.
There’s an absurd number of reverb plugins on the market these days, ranging from many excellent free reverbs to plugins that cost hundreds of dollars. Many use the same concepts as algorithmic methods or convolution technology.
To move the topic forward, there are always efforts to improve reverbs. Eventide is now trying to do this with the new Temperance Lite, a free reverb for a limited time with a musical soul.
I’ve been dreaming of a musical reverb for 40 years. In 1985, I met Isaak Vigdorchik, who believed that Cremona violins’ plates were sanded to ring out at the 12 notes of the musical scale. Isaak said, ‘Anthony, the notes are in the wood.’ Years earlier I had developed the SP2016’s reverb algorithms and, with reverb still on my mind, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if the notes were in the room?’ But that would require modeling a room in exquisite detail and the processing power required might never be attainable.
I was right about the modeling and now the processing power is at hand. Eventide’s passionate and brilliant developers have made my dream come true. Now, for the first time, any space, real or imagined, can be crafted with the artist’s musical intent.
Eventide’s Resident Fossil, Tony Agnello.
Eventide Temperance Lite
Temperance Lite is a new reverb plugin for macOS and Windows, described by Eventide as “the world’s first musical reverb. My question: Aren’t reverbs always supposed to be musical? Otherwise, they’re not considered musical tools, right?
This was probably not the case for the Eventide developers, so they have now developed a reverb with a musical character.
Temperance Lite is based on modal reverb technology that has existed conceptually for decades but was previously impossible to implement in real-time due to its computational demands. Thanks to significant advances in computer technology, it’s now possible to make it available to music producers.
Unlike traditional algorithmic and convolution reverbs, the new Eventide plugin lets you control reverb resonances using the familiar 12-note chromatic scale. This gives you control over which notes bloom or wither within your chosen space.
According to Eventide, it responds musically in ways previously impossible, allowing artists to create spaces that enhance their musical intent rather than working against it.
Temperance Lite features three distinct reverb algorithms, including existing and new algorithms. Bright Room is based on the SP2016 reverb, Large Studio is an algorithm from Dr Ralph Kessler, and a modal reverb-based algorithm called Synthetic Space.
You can control them with classic controls such as dry/wet mix, decay, and size. Further, you have a temper knob to control how much tempering is applied to the reverb. This is used to emphasize or de-emphasize selected notes.
There is also a notescape visualizer that displays the emphasized and de-emphasized notes, sustaining, and decaying.
First Impression
I also own tons of reverb plugins from various developers. Many of them are free ones that I try before publishing the news. I’m looking forward to trying out the new Eventide plugin. The idea certainly piques interest, and as long as it’s free, it’s worth a try.
Eventide Temperance is available now as a free download through December 31, 2025. It runs as a 64-bit VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS and Windows. A minimum of an SSE 4.2 processor is needed to run Temperance Lite on Windows.
More information here: Eventide
there is really no point in a musical reverb. you could just duplicate your original track, add a normal reverb on full and play…..different…..notes to that track.
Hey everyody, don’t listen to toenail up here (no offense). I think we all know about reverb sends or the effing piano roll & pitch knob, not everyone is a knob. We all know what we CAN set up (and believe me, we CAN) it also takes time to do it. Do you wanna really incorporate a key tracking filter into all of your reverb sends “Cumsleg”? Eventide is a wonderful company, and we all feel honored that they’d give it out for free. It’s a beautiful UI, and unless there’s performance issues with it, this plugin will only tighten up your workflow at worst, and open up a whole avenue of thinking for most.
Yeah why that hate. Also dont forget live use case