Reverb: How, when and where are you using it?

I like to give a mix a space to dwell in. With that I use a convolution type to give it a space. I often use certain reverbs on certain instruments as well. I have come to love the Pantheon or some other one like it to sweeten them.  

@scook.... Yeah, Breverb was kind of my go to before (Breverb 2 though? Maybe it's been updated... I'll look into that) and PerfectSpace was always interesting but I figure since it's 32 bit and Rematrix was supposedly the 64bit replacement I'd give it a shot. I like it a lot actually (the controls on it are very good and the sound seems great on my prelim tests) but I should do a head to head comparison of everything.
 
I always forget about the BlueTubes stuff and I'm glad you reminded me. I kind of wanted to try some of the BT stuff on the vocals because they were recorded well and I think just need some old timey softening/punching up and my past experiments with the BT effects seemed to provide that with little effort. I also want to add some separate verb to the vox so maybe I test out the OilCan (not expecting that to work all that well for this but maybe) or whatever else is in that kit. I think I'm going to need a separate vocal verb bus. Maybe even two because there are the main vox then a mountain of background doubles that are a little more robotic and need to be separated from the mains.
 
My test with Sonitus did not work out all that great for my main verb bus. I didn't screw with it much but I definitely got the impression that it's probably better as a track effect instead of trying to create a "room" for everything. I'm sure it can do that too but probably not as well or as easily as the convo verbs.
 
One thing I am kind of struggling with is how exactly the bus needs to be set up and how the sends are hitting it. It was kind of adding too much volume as if it's just a sub buss instead of an effects bus. I've got the verb set totally wet but I was getting a bit of that "it sounds better because it's LOUDER" thing going on instead of just because the effect is there.
 
I've balanced that out so when I a/b there is no level increase but I've had to really muck with things to acheive that balance without losing the effect. Also my sends are cranked pretty high.
 
Whatever... I just need to review some edu material on the topic I think. It does sound good though and this could be simply because it's a short verb on a thick mix.
 
Mostly just rambling as I tweak. Helps me think and scheme. Might shake loose some useful comments too.
 
I do think by doing this today I may have stepped myself much closer to finishing this mix. I had been trying to screw with my sim settings but that was only making things worse so I moved on to verb... which is solving the issues I wanted fix with the sims. Funny that.
 
Cheeers and thanks!!!

Oops... I guess inserting sends sets them to Post fader by default.
 
I don't want that for a Reverb bus... do I?
 
Pretty sure I don't.

I like to have 3 or 4 different reverb buses set up, sometimes even more. Remember you don't have to use all of them at any one time and you can even automate certain instruments in and out of the reverb - you can create quite a startling, dynamic effect by having an instrument reverbed for one section of the song and then suddenly as dry as a bone for a different section so that it pops right out at you. 
 
Types of reverb I like to have set up:
 
1) A large hall reverb for depth
2) A medium room or chamber reverb, sometimes just mixing a little into everything for "glue"
3) A short room or "ambiance" reverb, great when you want quite dry sounding drums but not too dry 
4) Some plates - sometimes both stereo and mono. I sometimes set up 3 mono plates - hard left, hard right and center.
 
Don't forget mono plates, great for guitar and vocals. Sometimes you don't want any stereo reverbs at all - they can after all create muddiness and clutter if used too much. An LCR mix with nothing but mono reverbs can sound really clean and tight. You don't have to have an instrument's reverb panned in the same position in the instrument - experiment with panning a left-panned instrument's reverb hard right, and vice versa. 
 
I like to set up low pass and high pass filters on the reverb buses, before the signal hits the reverb. This is essential if you don't want your reverb muddying the mix too much or making sound too bright and shimmery. You can cut out quite a lot of the lows and highs for this purpose - I typically high pass as high as 500Hz, and low pass as low as 8-10kHz. Makes for a much cleaner mix. However, if I'm going for a deep hall reverb to give atmosphere to a solo synth part or something (like an intro or outro especially in ambient or "trip hop" styles), then I'll sometimes leave the lows in the reverb and just let it get as muddy as it wants. 
 
Also remember that you can totally get away without using reverb at all, substituting a few well placed delays instead. Delays create the illusion of space with far less clutter than reverb. 
 
Experiment with effects on your reverb too. If a reverb is clashing too much with other instruments, cut some frequencies out just like you'd do with normal frequency clashes. In the case of stereo reverbs, remember that you don't have to leave them at full width. Use a stereo narrowing tool (e.g. Channel Tools) to narrow the field so that your hard panned instruments sound clearer. Also think about using a stereo tool to take some of the center out to leave room for your central parts (vocal, kick, snare etc).
 
You can get quite creative with reverb - unless you're going for a live feel (e.g. classical/jazz etc) then you don't necessarily need to aim for an "all in the same room" effect. I guess the whole beauty of music production is that you have way more creative options for sound shaping than you do in a live setting - might as well make use of them. I've experimented with all sorts of stuff on reverb buses - adding distortion, flange, chorus, tremolo and hard compression. You can get some pretty interesting sounds!

I like the way Mike Senior approaches reverb in his book, with different reverbs set up for:
 
1 - Size
2 - Blend
3 - Spread
4 - Tone
5 - Sustain
 
I find that 1 & 2 are usually enough for my needs.

tlw
Lots of good advice in this thread.

One thing I'll add is that even if you are using reverb "just" to get everything to sound coherent like it was all recorded in the same room it's a bad idea to put much or any reverb on the kick drum and bass. They can lose punch, muddy up and smear very quickly unless dry or very nearly so.

Gently high-passing your room reverb around 100Hz can be a good idea for the same reason, as can low passing it if it gets harsh and metallic.

Very good advice.  

I've been working very hard on all this today and yes indeed this is all great advice. I've been veering off into dealing with some other issues in the mix that needed sorting (like vocal EQ/Comp) but have been messing with my newly created verb busses. Currently just a "Main" overall verb bus and now one specifically for all the vocals because I really want them "outside the bandroom" (like a pop song I guess... except over top of a metal track). That's all working rather well.
 
tlw... Thanks specifically for the heads up about keeping the bass and kick out of the verb. I had already been keeping the bass out of it but I figured the kick should be in there since you'd hear those naturally in a room but yeah... I want it clear and cutting so no verb on the kick. The virtual "room" mic from the sampler can deal with that but maybe I'll even yank it out of there if it sounds better.
 
All the ideas and concepts so far are great. I will probably try a few wetter effect style reverb delays for specific things on this but mostly I just wanted the yelling, pounding and shredding to step back a few feet from listerner's perspective.
 
One thing that is annoying me though and I could use a bit of help with is how to Solo specific instuments properly with and without reverb (and not hear all the verb coming from the other instruments).
 
Let me explain...
 
Using sends on everything and sending them to a reverb bus of course results in you being able to hear all that stuff in the reverb bus. It also makes it so that when you solo a track you hear that soloed track AND whatever busses have sends going to them. Ya? I'm sure everyone is familiar with this.
 
Is there any way I can make it so
 
a) when I solo a track I ONLY hear that track and none of my busses being fed by sends? Currently I have to solo the track then mute my reverb busses. It's a bit annoying and screws up the a/b effect. As I add more verb/delay/compression/etc busses with sends this will obviously become a much more annoying problem.
 
b) when I solo a track that has a send feeding a bus (like a reverb bus) that I can hear ONLY that track in the bus (so all other tracks feeding the bus aren't heard in the bus) on top of the actual track? So let's say Tracks 1, 2 and 3 all have sends going to bus A. When I solo track 1 I want the send signal from Tracks 2 and 3 silenced in the bus while the send from track 1 remains audible along with the main output of track one.
 
Hard to explain but essentially I'd just like to be able to solo a track and turn the effect bus on/off and only hear the effect being applied to that specific track. Currently I hear the effect on all the tracks that are being sent to it which isn't helpful.
 
Make sense?
 
Anyway... thanks doods. Keep 'em coming. Great thread.
 

streckfus

sharke
Don't forget mono plates, great for guitar and vocals. Sometimes you don't want any stereo reverbs at all - they can after all create muddiness and clutter if used too much. An LCR mix with nothing but mono reverbs can sound really clean and tight. You don't have to have an instrument's reverb panned in the same position in the instrument - experiment with panning a left-panned instrument's reverb hard right, and vice versa. 
 

But in order to do this, you'd need to set the reverbs up as inserts on mono tracks, not as a send, right?  To my knowledge all buses in Sonar are stereo, so if you send a mono track to a stereo bus with a reverb, the dry signal will still be mono but the wet reverb will be stereo, right?  Or do you just use the interleave button on the reverb bus to keep it mono?

I just set the interleave on the bus to mono. Then I pan it either left, right and center.

Yes, high-passing a reverb and sending the bass to it works fine. As for the high-pass frequency and slope, that's a matter of an "artistic decision" really. A complex mix with lots of different components is likely to need different treatment to a vocals/guitar/bass/drums blues band or a string quartet.

It really depends on (a) the result you're after and (b) the track/mix in question.

Personally I distinguish between reverb applied to specific instruments/sounds for effect (e.g. spring reverb on a guitar amp or a prominent reverb added to synth swooshes) and a more general "glueing" reverb. The latter being the kind of reverb you get when you record a bunch of instruments/singers in a room, whether that room is a studio, concert hall or a cathedral.

There's more than one way of getting good results is what it comes down to. In some ways working with VSTis or synths is like working with the 70s/80s style almost anechoic "dead" recording rooms. All reverb gets added artificially, but fortunately modern reverbs are far better at sounding convincing than the hardware digital reverbs of 30 years ago. And we can have as many instances of a reverb processor as our cpu and RAM can stand at no extra cost.

Update: After letting my ears rest and comparing my test exports of "before and after" some of the verb futzing I did I definitely think whatever I did is working well. I did a few other things too but yeah... steady on ole chap.
 
;-)
 
Also watched a semi decent vid about verb on youtube this morning which was kind of helpful. I gotta laugh at some of the vids about audio production though when the sound on the vid is absulute garbage it fluctuates to the point you either can't hear what's going on or you getting blasted out by the announcer/examples. lulz

more delay.
less verb.
 

 Hi guys, I recently did a series on my 3 reverb set up, it's the same as Fab Duponts but I show how I set it up.
You can check out the 3 vids here www.youtube.com/andrewbyrnemixing