reginaldStjohn
msmcleod
I don't get how using AUX tracks will result in a different pre-delay on a single reverb?
As I understand it, the pre-delay is the delay before the reverb kicks in. Surely this is a property of the reverb plugin itself? I can't see how this could be done without having separate reverb instances, each with their own pre-delaysetting.
I think what the original poster is trying to do is delay each track's send to the reverb so that the reverb starts at a slightly different time for each source. If they set a single reverb to have a pre-delay of 0 sec then each source will sound as if it has a different pre-delay. This is one queue to the ear and brain of where the sound source is in relation to the environment..
That's what I suspected.
So a reverb pre-delay is the amount of time between the original dry sound, and the audible onset of early reflections and reverb tail.
This to my mind is not delaying the signal, then sending to reverb; it's a period where the reverb effect is muted, then the wet mix appears.
To satisfy my curiosity, I set up two busses:
BUS D -> Aux 1 [ Sonitus Reverb, Pre-delay of 250ms 100% wet ] 50% send to Aux 1
BUS E -> Aux 2 [Sonitus Delay with Single delay of 250ms (100% wet) -> Sonitus Reverb no pre-delay, 100% wet] 50% send to Aux 2
I then got a piano sound and compared the sound to outputting to BUS D vs BUS E.
Although the sound was similar, there was one noticeable difference: the piano's attack transients were present in the reverb for BUS E, but not BUS D.
This leads me to conclude that the reverb's pre-delay is actually a delay before the reverb wet signal kicks in (i.e. it mutes the effect for the pre-delay time), rather than delaying the signal and applying the reverb.
If however, I add another bus / aux, this time with no delay and no pre-delay on the reverb, the reverb tail dies 250ms sooner. So at least in the case of the Sonitus reverb, adding a pre-delay of 250ms extends the effective reverb decay time by 250ms.
To prove this, I extended the delay time of the "no pre-delay" reverb by approx 250ms... and all the busses' reverbs then decayed at the same time.
So the conclusion is (at least with Sonitus reverb), that delay + reverb is not the same as reverb with pre-delay.