Reverb?

I have Sonar Producer 8.5.
 
I am trying to finish up a mix of a recording with a quartet: flute, accordion, guitar and bass.  All the instruments are recorded separately so there is no bleeding between the tracks.
 
My mix sounds flat. A friend of mine pointed out that the reverb was in mono but he could not direct me how to make the reverb stereo.
 
Can someone direct me how to apply reverb to a final mix to gain the illusion of space around the instruments?
 
Sincerely,
 
Jonny

None of the reverbs included with Sonar are true-stereo reverbs (stereo in/stereo out).  The signal is summed to mono within the plugin(s) and a "stereo" output is generated by the reverb.  Depending on how you use reverb, true-stereo may or may not be a big deal.  For orchestral mixes or anything else where the panning placement is critical, you really should use a true-stereo reverb plugin.  I've been getting fantastic results with 2C Audio's Breeze reverb.

Cheers,
Jonas

I would use an effects/sub bus for reverb and use send on each track.

So insert reverb plugin on effects bus, and set possible settings as 100% wet, no direct/dry signal.

The mix of dry and wet signal is made through sending more or less signal to effects bus. So you can individually place each track in the created room.

In this way you get a consistent ambient sound and save an awful lot of cpu not inserting stuff on every track unless necessary.

It seems a little difficult at first maybe, but you will soon get into this way of working.

And remember that there is a mono/stereo setting on each track that is to be set at stereo even if a mono track, meaning you will send same signal twice to plugins that can handle stereo.

Yes to putting a send on each channel.  Perfect space is the best reverb for acoustics - my opinion.  Something short should "gell" all the instruments into the same space.

Not knowing the structure of the song, I would start with the bass centered.  the guitar (if rhthym) and accordian (if rhythm) should have the channel tools on each track to put them into a specific space - LR.  That will keep the stereo output on each channel from spreading to each master output.  Channel tools is the answer to that panning problem.  Don't be afraid to go really wide with it.  The flute (I imagine) is a lead instrument and should probably go in the middle.  You might actually want to put a separate reverb on it - depending.

So, guitar L, bass and flute up the middle, accordian to the R.  The L/R placement will depend upon how much rhthym the instruments are part of.  If the mix sounds unfocused, simply move the L/R instruments more to the center.  If it sounds crowded and conjested, short of re-writing the parts widen them.  A little compression on the tracks, too, can "set" the instruments volume wise after using automation.  Finally, if one of the side instruments takes a solo, simply slow pan it to the center, just like a performer will step out front to take theirs.  It will have a little more volume, too, coming from both speakers.

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