Shimmer and Cloud Reverb

If you need shimmer and/or cloud reverbs for shoegaze or ambient genres, these pedals have you covered. Shimmizita nails the shimmer algorithm, TheCloud handles granular ambient textures, and Dragonfly covers traditional hall and plate sounds.

Our pick: Shimmizita

Shimmizita is the only plugin on the device with a pitch shifter embedded inside an FDN reverb feedback loop — the same architecture as Valhalla Shimmer. Each of the 8 delay lines has its own pitch shifter, so the tail climbs exponentially into an ethereal ascending shimmer cloud. Controls for shift (±6 semitones), speed, depth, decay (1–8 s), and HF damping.

This is the single most capable shimmer reverb on the device, hands-down.

New to loading plugins? See Plugins & Effects for how to browse and add them in MOD-UI.

Also great: TheCloud

TheCloud is a granular delay engine — 20 grain voices reading from a 2-second delay line with randomized position, duration, detune, and panning. It is not a reverb in the strict sense, but the dense cloud of recirculating grains produces the same atmospheric bloom as a cloud reverb algorithm.

Chain it after Shimmizita for the full shimmer+cloud wall-of-sound. Note that these plugins use high grain counts which can be heavy on the Pi's CPU; check your XRUNs and CPU usage in MOD-UI.

Plain reverb: Dragonfly Hall Reverb / Dragonfly Plate Reverb

Dragonfly Hall Reverb uses the fv3 zrev2 FDN, a proper 8-delay-line reverb with modulated delay lines and band-split decay, based on Fons Adriaensen's zita-rev1 design. Decay up to ~10 s, dense and smooth. This is the best hall/chorale equivalent when you don't need shimmer.

Dragonfly Plate Reverb uses the Stanford NRev plate algorithm (comb-bank → multi-stage allpass cascade). It's a very capable plate reverb.

Also considered

gx_zita_rev1 is the same clean FDN that Shimmizita builds on, but without the pitch shifter. Beautiful transparent hall reverb without the shimmer.

Airwindows-PocketVerbs are long allpass-chain Schroeder reverbs. To our ears, these sound quite metallic and lo-fi next to Dragonfly or zita. Useful mostly as a special-effect colour.

Airwindows-Galactic has modulated delay lines and a nice atmospheric wash, but no pitch shifter or granular engine. It's closer to a chorale reverb than shimmer or cloud: great if that's what you want!

Credits