Tips on using reverb?

[PhotonOfficial]

Hey,

I haven't really seen much information on how I can use reverb to improve the sound of a mix.
I recently noticed that some songs that I have listened to have sounds with heavy reverb and long decay and sound pretty good. In the past I've always only applied miniscule amounts of reverb; I'm actually pretty intimidated by it

So I was wondering what settings I should use in certain situations for the reverb, and how to make the most out of using reverb?

What kind of reverb should a mid-bass sound have compared to a melodic layer?

I'm probably going to get some answers saying that "there is no magic setting" or whatever but if someone would explain to me how to benefit from using it most, I would be grateful.

Thank you:)

[rockonin]

To save cpu power i tend to have a couple of reverb's as sends. I also high pass my reverb's around 100Hz mostly. Settings wise ill pick a preset that's close to what i want, then I alter the parameters.

[NinjaEdit]

You can set up a short and long reverb send, and use those to control depth.

[PhotonOfficial]

You can set up a short and long reverb send, and use those to control depth.

I've actually just literally done that now, seeming to give better results. I've also changed which plugin I've been using for verbs and it's a lot better quality:D

[titchbit]

the settings that matter most are the highpass/lowpass, decay time, dry/wet, and maybe size, depending on your plugin.

decay time is what matters the most for me especially for percussion. like if you want a real long snare, go for a long decay time, and if you just want a little spaciness on your hihat, go for a shorter one.

for your midrange bass, i would go for a medium decay time, maybe 1 or 2 seconds. dry/wet at like 30-40% maybe. and then do high and lowpass to what makes sense. usually you don't want the sub to get any reverb so highpass that out.

"melodic layer" is a bit vague, but it really depends on the arrangement. if you have like really quick 1/64th note melodies going, a long decay will probably make it sound a bit muddy, but if your playing one chord every couple of measures, then you could go for a longer one.

[MUT3]

Also a good tip is to put reverb on everything. Yes everything. Just adjust it to taste. Make sure youre not overloading on some elements.

No reverb on the sub and maybe the kick.

this will put everything in the same space.

little tip i got from squarewave

[legend4ry]

I set up my sessions like this :

* = situation depending on the track

Bus 1 :
Short room reverb
Saturation
EQ

Bus 2 :
Dub Delay *
Longer decaying reverb
Saturation
Chorus/Phaser *
EQ


Bleed what parts need what reverb and cut out what doesn't need to be there.

Add saturation before the EQ and adjust this in the final stage before the 'offical' mixdown. It will add a less "floaty" sound to your 'verb and take up more space in the frequency spectrum without it sounding like it is being drowned or to loud.

The key is to know HOW much reverb to put on each track.

Kick drums are going to need more than snares.

Pads either need LOADS or none at all, I find in between feels messy.


Remember that you can add multiple bus's and I know a few people who have more bus's than I do but really, having a different reverb on every track can get messy and incoherent very fast, you can add these during the mix down stage but during the composition stage? I think reverb should be used to add musical value.

just my 2 pence.

[titchbit]

Kick drums are going to need more than snares.

meh i dunno if i agree with this. there might be times where you want a kick to have more reverb than a snare, but i'd say as a whole, if there is any statement you can make, it's that people usually put more reverb on snares than kicks.

[forbidden]

Kick drums are going to need more than snares.

meh i dunno if i agree with this. there might be times where you want a kick to have more reverb than a snare, but i'd say as a whole, if there is any statement you can make, it's that people usually put more reverb on snares than kicks.

have to agree here as well, not sure about slamming your kicks with a lot of verb..seems to me that would be a tremendous headroom-eating bitch. that said, all of your other advice is good, i need to use sends/returns more although it's really hard to max out my cpu unless i'm running a ton of plugs at 96000.

[legend4ry]

I usually cut my room verb at around 800hz, generally snares will have peaks around the 2k+. Kicks on the other hand will have most of it at around 200-500. The top end will be a lot less prominent, thus needing to be 'bled' into the bus more, is what I mean.

[nowaysj]

I've got a long way to go on verb, on creating a cohesive mixspace. I don't ever really focus on it.

A few thoughts to try:

1. Mono paned reverb on mono elements. This will blow your mind how much space it leaves in the mix, and how they all can blend into a larger whole.

2. High pass to fuck your verb. A few ways to do that (all verbs are now on sends for me, finally getting out of major lazy slumpage) - eq before the reverb on the send, cutting lows, mids out of the input to the verb. This can give you a clean verb as the reverbs algos are chugging only on the frequency content you want. Can eq the output of the verb, cut those low and mid even. And can do both.

3. Predelay is your friend on transient sounds. Set a too large predelay as the transient element is playing/looping. Now cinch up the predelay into the end of the transient by shortening the time. Just so it is flush/seemless. This will let your transients through clean, but still leave that reverberant tail.

4. Learn the difference between plate and hall. Do it by listening, not reading.

5. Less is generally more with verb, but all bets are off with dubstep and other overly dramatic forms. Freaking 20 second tails and shit. Hehe.

And it is sleepy time. Peace to the middle east. And the far east, for that matter.

[OfficialDAPT]

I would definitely recommend having reverb send channels instead of putting separate reverbs in each channel. Like Nowaysj said, definitely keep those transients crisp by adding some predelay. Make sure your reverb isn't muddying up your mix. By listening to your track in your sig, you're definitely doing alright using reverb. BTW I'm by no means an expert and I'll add a disclaimer to my message- it depends on what you're doing and the amount of reverb is different from track to track.

P.S. Your snare sounds too pitched up IMO.

[123kidd]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but try using compression after a reverb

[cyclopian]

This is something I've been doing for a while to keep the illusion of really long reverb tails while keeping the tails from muddying the mix/taking up too much headroom and its dead simple:

Put a compressor after your reverb and gently sidechain (to taste) it to the master channel. Or something like the drum buss. This will duck your reverb tail out when a new sound comes ins. Really helps clean up the mix. If you push the sidechain hard you can get some interesting effects as well.

Another thing I found helpful when I was learning about reverb is to not just listen to what the reverb is 'doing' to your sound in terms of the tail etc, but to actually try and pay attention to where the reverb is placing that sound in the mix.

Lastly, a bit of mid/side EQ'ing can do wonders for reverb. I usually drop out a bit of the reverb in the mid section by a few Db and boost the side a few db (depending on the reverb/sound in question where the boost/cut happens is different). This keeps your mono mix a bit more clean and 'pushes' the airiness of the reverb out to the sides of the mix.

[Hashkey]

generally.

Room -> Depth
Plate -> Width ( more of a 2d )
Hall -> Height.

On The Snare I like to use a mono Reverb to get some depth.

Of course after every reverb on send you need to eq properly.

[AxeD]

High pre-delay gives the the impression of a big space without muddying up your mix.
Compressing the tails, like andius mentions, works wonders as well.

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

less is often more tbh i have found recently

[nowaysj]

whoa big changes

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

eh?

[audiowaves]

route your send reverbs (or all your sends) to a bus and sidechain it...