Reverb - the more I learn, the less I know

Get the book Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools by Roey Izhaki.  The chapter on reverb is worth the price of the book by itself.
 
How do the pros do it?  Well I'm not a pro nor do I have much experience in this area, but I've seen a lot reference to the following.  Put individual reverbs on tracks as appropriate (plate reverb on a solo instrument or vocal, for example).  But put an ambiance reverb (room or hall) on the entire mix to tie it together in a coherent space.
 
But get the Izhaki book.  That will get you started down the right path on reverb, compression and all kinds of other essential techniques of mixing.  I know others here will resoundingly agree.

I generally put the reverbs in the busses.

Brass might use the same reverb (dark plate medium hall) but with different settings from the strings. By having them in 2 different busses, I can easily set that up.... I solo the busses to get the overall sound right for that buss, then after adding them together in the mix I might need to turn them down to avoid the mass confusion that can result from too much reverb.

Play it by ear.

im not sure about an answr to your question..but your thread title sure says it all..because for me its true when it comes to reverberation..ive learned the technics.but in the end my ears are what makes the motor run.

Thanks guys!  Great info here.  I'm going to check out that book for sure.

I should have given more background.  I play/record mostly rock instrumental guitar music.  One of the primary area's where I was confused was on my guitar tones.  I use an AxeFx for all my tones. It has an outstanding reverb, but it's obviously going to be different than my plugins for drums/bass/keys etc.  I was considering if I should record dry and use the same plug for everything post production.  But I guess from what I'm reading here and elsewhere, it's ok to mix different types of reverb as long as they're not stepping on each other.  I've been messing with using a plate on my guitar solo's and a light ambience on the whole mix, which is sounding good to me.  I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track and wasn't breaking any "rules"

Appreciate the feedback once again

dmbaer

 But put an ambiance reverb (room or hall) on the entire mix to tie it together in a coherent space. 
 

Is that one send on the master bus or individual sends on each track with varying degrees?

Although there are no strict rules, I always make it a point to balance the mix without the reverb(s) first...and often in mono.  Then I do panning, and then the reverb.

For most contemporary productions you generally want something that is clearly the "front" part of a mix and at least one thing that is clearly the "back" part of a mix.  Just having one mix element that is 50% wet (reverb)/softer in volume/a touch darker will give a mix a sense of front to back depth.

That's just my workflow

I usually end up using one reverb as I'm typically mixing instruments as a band would record. I think it makes mixes sound cleaner and clearer not having instrumentation attempting to relate to multiple environments. Doing more specialized music such as a lot of synth or effects music can open up to a lot more opportunities to just play with effects and sound design where I might use a few.

In (highly artificial) modern music some of those high end mixer guys will use numerous reverbs. But each one will be typically quite short and EQ'd substantially probably. They will be applied for separation purposes, whereas mostly we'd probably think of reverb as a factor contributing to the gluing together of tracks. By using these short, almost delay-like, reverbs but quite differently processed on different instruments, they are kind of making them stand out.

I would never be so brave to (or really want to I don't think) do that, but some folks do it. At the other end of the spectrum, if you look back at something like Dark Side of the Moon, where they probably had a single real plate reverb for the whole thing, on console send, and everything shared that (other than of course pedal based reverb that Gilmour would use on his guitars.)

And it's used VERY liberally, as you can hear in Money when they turn it off and you are suddenly hearing the completely dry recording. The difference is pretty huge. But, they were also doing quite sparce and slower tempo songs, in which that kind of gorgeous, thick ambience works. You couldn't get away with that on a faster, more dense tune probably and would need to use shorter and less dense reverb.


So, anyway, that was just a convoluted way of saying, whatever works. It's all a matter of taste. You listen to something like Al Green from the 70s and it was bone dry, but somehow doesn't seem empty. OTOH, some stuff from the 80s was so drenched in reverb that you could hardly hear the original sounds. A lot of it just fashion of the times, and you may be able to make your stuff stand out by being a 'reverboclast' and going the other way.

i have come to prefer short delays with repeats over reverb.

to my ears, it's a cleaner effect.

i use waves supertap, 2 tap.

The Sonitus and Cakewalk FXReverb are both fine sounding reverbs and I continue to use them a lot.  However, one should be aware that they are not true-stereo reverb plugins, i.e., they sum the incoming signal to mono.  If your goal is to emulate the spatial characteristics of being in a real room or hall, you should try something else.

Not that I am a reverb guru but there are several steps you have to go through all of which may or may not apply depending on the effect you want to convey.

First there are the basic sonics of the reverb you use. Like microphones and preamps, certain reverbs will or won't match a vocalist. Some are are so broad range you can get away with EQing them for the range that works with the vocal. So basically, try 3 or 4 or 10 until you find one that seems to match your vocal or instrument of choice.

Next you may have to refine your chosen verb with EQ. A lot of ITB plugins are harsh or ringy on the hi end. In a lot of cases there is also too much low midrange which just clouds the mix. A high pass up to even 600Hz and a low pass down to 4k or below are not unusual. If you have a Pultec emulation plug in, drop it behind your EQ to add some rich quality back to the sound. On the artistic side, you can even automate your EQ to change throughout the song or just turn off where you want to emphasize a dry vocal line.

After you are happy with the basic sound of the reverb against the vocal and in line with the rest of the track, you can move on to (possibly) compression which controls any stray transients. This can occur before or after the Pultec but generally after the reverb. This will tend to emphasize low level reverb information and is sometimes, but not always useful.

Another common technique is a delay before or after the reverb. This to get a dreamy like quality to a sound. Also play with the predelay on the reverb itself if it has one.

Another aspect is automation of the reverb signal at strategic moments where the vocal stops and the reverb comes up right behind it to create the illusion that reverb is there all the time. In fact it's only there a few times in the song. This is primarily to prevent the mix from becoming awash in reverb while creating the impression it was there the whole time. Automation can be inline or on the printed version of the reverb.

Other considerations are true stereo vs mono placement using pan. All subject to taste.

Finally there is what I refer to as cloud control. How much of the reverb do you want down the middle of the mix and does it conflict with the primary elements of kick, snare, bass and vocal? Some middle clearing techniques are:
- Mid/Side to move the reverb information to the sides of the mix
- Print, copy and slip one of the prints 4-8ms.

Last step, print the reverb. Two reasons: 1. so you can have a reference baseline in case you go tweaking again you have something to compare your efforts to. 2. You can do a whole host of special effects, automation, etc, to the simple audio track of reverb and reduce your plug ins. Expensive reverbs like the Bricasti have a host of modulations they apply to the reverb which is why they sound expensive. You can experiment with some of your own modulations on the printed track.

Just some ideas I have come across and tried. Reverb is a complete subject of artistic techniques.