If I'm mixing a song without groups, its easy to use one Reverb, and use sends from the various tracks.
 
If I'm mixing a song WIT groups - lets say 4 groups:  Keys, Guitars, Pads/Strings, and Perucssion.    Do I need to have one reverb instance for each Group, or can I still work with one reverb for the whole song?
 
Example
Omnishere pad, violin and cello, 3 tracks all routed to Pads/Strings Group, and the Pads/Strings group is routed to Master.
Do I make one reverb that is routed to the Pads/Strings group, and use this reverb for all the Pads/Strings tracks?
 
Similarly, all the drums and percussion parts go to the Percussion group, and I need a seperate reverb for that group, routed to the Percussion group.
 
Or, can I use one reverb that goes to the Master, and all Pads/Strings and Percussion go to this reverb.
 
I imagine that is using the latter way, if I turn down for exmapl the Pads/Strings bus, then I will not actually be turning down the reverb for the Pads/Strings, as its going stright to the Master?
 
 

I personally work with just one reverb instance for a whole song.
 
I'm not using as many groups as you, but one, or four, it's generally the same, to me anyway 
 
I create a bus for reverb only (I might stick some EQ on there too perhaps).
 
I then generally create a track for each element, say pads, bass, synth lead, guitar etc. and each of those will have its output set to the master bus, with a send to the reverb bus (post effects bin). I adjust the send levels to taste and the pan to the same as the track pan.
 
If I'm in the mood I will create a drum bus and I'll set up my drum VSTi so that each of its elements (kick, snare, hats etc.) have a track each. Then each of those tracks output to the drum bus, not the master. I adjust the levels of each drum element on their individual track fader, but I set the pan in the drum VSTi.
 
The drum bus outputs to the master bus, with a send to the reverb bus. On the drum bus I will definitely have some EQ and perhaps some compression, but I am currently experimenting with parallel compression, so I have another send from the drum bus to yet another bus purely for compression purposes.
 
 
So, I guess the short answer is, yes, you can, in my opinion, have just one reverb for a whole project.
 
 
I'm sure many will disagree 
 
cheers
 
andy

Convention is to use 1 or 2 reverbs (1 short, 1 long) for everything. Partly, that's just a holdover from the days when studios typically only owned one reverb unit. But it also helps create the illusion that all the instruments are being played in the same space.

bitflipper
But it also helps create the illusion that all the instruments are being played in the same space.

Hi Dave, yeah, this is the main reason I just have the one reverb nowadays.
 
I should have mentioned that I set the reverb plug to an all wet setting, so that none of the dry signal gets through to the master bus from the reverb bus. Does anyone else do this? Or is it just me being a bit strange. It's not something I read somewhere... I just reasoned, in my own head, that if there is already a dry signal going directly to the master bus, why route any more through?

Synkrotron, actually I think that's typical to set the reverb on the reverb bus to 100% wet.  That way you control the mix level of the reverb with the bus fader and you control the inputs to the reverb bus with each particular track send.

I too usually stick with one or two reverb buses; typically one for vocals and another for everything else.  I don't usually create sends from the instrument buses (vox, guitars, drums, etc.), only from individual tracks.
 
I think the vast majority of reverbs are set up as 100% wet effects on an effects bus, but QL Spaces in particular is designed to be an insert effect, and I've found that it does actually work better that way.  That one I'll toss on an instrument/vox bus.

dwardzala
Synkrotron, actually I think that's typical to set the reverb on the reverb bus to 100% wet.  That way you control the mix level of the reverb with the bus fader and you control the inputs to the reverb bus with each particular track send.

Great stuff  I'm on the right track there then 

If you use a buss, then you are sort of obliged to put the effect in that buss's bin. 
Say you have 4 guitar parts that you send to a guitar buss. 
If you put the reverb on each track, then you turn the guitar bus down you'll end up with a wetter reverb because you are not turning down the amount coming from each track.  Try muting the Guitar buss.. see.. you still hear the wet reverb. So the reverb would have to go on the buss to behave as expected.
 
I've always stayed with using one reverb  for vocals and guitars etc. 
But I often use a "room" reverb on snare and toms. 

Thanks for the replies.     
 
The main reseason I'm querying the "one reverb" set up is that if I want to bring down the level of one of the group busses, eg take the drums down a few db, it will not affect the reverb at all, so the balance will be off.   If each of the drums have reverb on a send that is not connected to the group bus directly, then totally bringing down the drums bus level to 0, you can still hear the reverb of the drums.  If I use a different reverb instance for each group channel then bringing down the level of the bus will also bring down proportinately the level of its reverb.
 
Example routing - if there is only one Reverb instance, shared by all instruments, then its total output will be hearing the reverb of all instrumnets.
Drum A--- send --- Reverb Bus --- Reverb output to Master
Drum B --- send --- Reverb Bus --- Reverb output to Master
Drum A --- routed to Drums Bus --- output to Master
Drum B --- routed to Drums Bus --- output to Master
 
I can use the exact same reverb, just different instances, so keeping things in the same space.
 
I just would like to know if I understood this correctly.    

I dunno... Might be a case of six and two threes...
 
I agree, that you can take the drum bus right down, and still hear reverb of the drums, which sounds a bit weird I guess. I don't think I have ever had a situation where I have removed drums from a song via a drum bus fader though, so this situation wouldn't exist for me personally.
 
For me, at least, just the one reverb instance is my preferred method because if I tweak its settings, I haven't got to remember to tweak any other instances of the same reverb elsewhere.
 
As ever... There's more than one way of skinning the proverbial cat 
 
I look forward to more input from our resident experts (which I am not, I hasten to add...)