Dubstepforum.com

hey guys, i was working on a mixdown and was bouncing each track to wav. and i had a little difficulty here with my drum and lead tracks, which both have a bit of reverb on them. now, should i bounce out the whole songs worth of midi/pattern and leave the reverb tail on the end? because i was bouncing out a 16 bar and then arranging my songs like this, and i was having trouble deciding where to cut the tail off the reverb.

hopefully you guys get what i'm saying, after the 16 bar pattern, there is a tail of reverb that goes into the next bar.. where should i cut this, or should i bounce out a whole songs worth and then just leave the tail at the end of the song.

i don't want that tail to overlap and muddy up my mix if i do it 16 bar pattern by 16 bar pattern.

why are you bouncing only 16 bars at a time? 16 bars is one short song.

here's a protip for you; ambience effects go in parallel (reverb, delay), while gain effects go in series. That is a tip, obviously not a rule.

^^ agree with drake

its all up to you really, but I would keep the tail end to keep it from sounding weird
the mixdown should keep it from muddying up the track (mentioned gain effects in previous post)

You generally don't want cut reverb tails, unless it's for a deliberate effect (like gated reverb).

Reminds me of a cut in The Police's "Roxanne," I think the line "sell your body to the night."

Bounce wet and dry in 2 different tracks.
With that you can make what you want like editing reverb tails or sidechain the reverb bounce with the dry track.

If you're bouncing loops, bounce them as dry as possible if you intend to arrange them later and add the reverb in then.

If you're bouncing the whole song, I generally add an empty 4bar pattern at the end of the arrangement to allow any reverb/delay to decay naturally. This can then be chopped off/shortened once you know where the sound ends.

thanks guys really great info here!! thank esp to drake i had no idea about separating effects like that, looks like its time for me to learn up on mixer routing.

i absolutely hate getting stems w/ ambience printed on them. unless it's amazing, captured-in-the-moment space... and even then, i'd rather get that ambience printed separately, so i can blend it in.

How about fading the tail? So if it gets muddy or something, a slight fading might do the trick. Not sure if this works.

ps i bounce 16 bar loops because i perform my songs that way, building in and breaking down, etc. instead of djing or hitting play/beat repeat