One of the features I like best about Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms Professional is the Crossfeed control. This is something which makes Cinematic Rooms Pro standout against other reverb plugins. In essence, something which can often make a surround reverb sound unconvincing is when the characteristics of the reverb don’t change as the sound pans around the room. In real spaces, the level of the reverb, along with frequency content and delay all vary with distance from the sound source. This is what Crossfeed Control seeks to address.

There are actually two crossfeed sections within Cinematic Rooms Pro. These can be found in the Reflections and Reverberation areas of the plugin. There are four controls within the crossfeed sections; Depth, Level, Delay and Rolloff. My approach when setting these controls is to adjust the level first. By reducing the level control, reverb coming from channels further away from the current sound source position is attenuated, simulating the lower acoustic energy of reflections in a room. This has to be tailored to suit the space you’re depicting with the reverb. A larger room with more absorbent surfaces will require a greater drop in crossfeed level than a more highly reflective or smaller space.

After level, I typically go for the delay control. Remember, this is separate to the pre-delay control for the reverb itself. The crossfeed delay determines the delay time of reverberation in channels furthest from the sound source. If, for example, a sound is panned to the rear left surround in a 5.1 mix, the front right reverb would be subject to the full crossfeed delay. Naturally, it adapts and changes as the sound pans, giving an extremely convincing simulation of the interaction of a sound source with the room as the sound changes position within the space.

Rolloff determines the upper frequency limit of the crossfeed reverb and, coupled with delay and level, can help to give a highly accurate rendition of the reflections and reverb in a space.

The depth control is more subtle than the others, but can be adjusted to give a slightly different character to the crossfeed reverb, again assisting in giving the reverb a more realistic sound.

Crossfeed is perhaps best demonstrated than described, so take a look at the video below to see and hear it in action.

The only way to fully appreciate the crossfeed feature in Cinematic Rooms Professional is to try it out for yourself. It supports channel counts up to 9.1.6 for Dolby Atmos and is, in my opinion, one of the very best surround reverbs currently available.