well, my question is more artistic than technical; in regard to applying FX plugins, like REVERBS, Delyes, Compressors, etc.. Which is better and more porfessional to do, applying the same reverb, deley in each channel/track or varying them in each channel/track, That will also lead me ask whether should I remove the native reverb of any giving VSt when using its sounds/presets so that I makes all my tracks/chanels in the sequencer unified with one reverb, say, Gold Native Master Reverb !

Thanks in advance.

Ahmed.
http://www.mp3.com/ahmed
http://www.mp3.com.au/ahmed

Opinions vary a lot on this one. Some say you should limit yourself to 1 or maybe 2 reverbs in your send channels. The idea is to create as natural and realistic an effect as possible -- when you hear real live music/sound, you just hear the reverb of the environment you're in, not 20 different reverbs simulating diverse spaces.
Others say reverb should be treated as any other effect, and you shouldn't let a concern for artificially-induced "realism" interfere with choosing the most suitable reverb for each instrument, and finding a combination of reverbs that sound good together.
Possibly live acoustic music is best served by the first approach, and maybe abstract electronic music is best served by the second. Or maybe I'm just talking out of my butt.
I guess you were asking about more than just reverb. But that's what came to mind

Just opinions. Like evewrybody else will have their own opinions, I will have mine

I agree with Peel that reverb was originally intended to simulate a natural environment and therefore accoustic instruments and live recordings will be better served with a single or maybe 2 reverbs. Electronic instruments, who knows what is "natural" as there is really no reference field and artistically you can do whatever sounds good. Actually, artistically you can do whatever sounds good for everything, including accoustic instruments. Listening carefully at pro recordings you will often hear the producer / mixing engineer doing tricks with reverbs. Eg. reverb can be increased or decreased on the accoustic guitars throughout a song to make them appear more in the background, depending on the specific part of a song.

If you listen to film music you will often hear lots of reverb in the soundtrack (eg. listen to lord of the rings) even in the open air scenes. Now, what can be more UNnatural than reverb in open air, as there is no room to reflect any reverb. That however does not sound bad. Actually I'm bonkers about the lotr soundtrack and think it is one of the best pieces of music for some long time.

So, do whatever sounds good to you. Artistically you have my permission to experiement.

Quote:

So, do whatever sounds good to you. Artistically you have my permission to experiement.

So does that apply even to using different styles of reverbs in the same mix.

Ahmed.

Hmm, I tend to favour the 1st approach - 1 reverb for the snare, another for the whole drumkit, 1 for the vocals and another one for everything else, but I'm doing mostly guitar/vocals stuff tho. Still reckon that most people use way too much reverb on things though (hmmm, I have this problem with delay I think.... ), I say try to get away with as little and as short as possible - except of course if you are in the cocteau twins.....

I use reverb to process and change the sound, not as a simulation of 'environment'. For that reason I'll often run some tracks through two and three different reverbs.

There are no hard-and-fast rules. Its about the final sound, not the process...

more often than not, I'm limited by processor with reverb. But I make dubby stuff so I tend to use different reverbs for every different layer and more often than not even feeding the reverbs into eachother (automated dynamically not just the whole time). I guess the effect is a bit psycodelic.
One important thing I think whne using many reverbs is to think about the spacing of the sounds when picking out your reverb. You want to try to make as much of the decay of the reverb fit between notes as possible. IN my case though I pick the reverb/delay and remove notes and shorten the decay of the sound

I use one for the snare, another for the vocals, one more for the strings and another for the guitar.

All for placement in the mix.

Probably won't help ya much, but thats how I do it.

It differs so much, otherwise the songs sound the same.

I use reverb very experimental! i spice up different sounds... and sure you can use different brands of reverbs in the same mix.. you will hear when/if it sounds bad...

i often just on-off the reverb(´s) to hear the difference, my opinion is that only the specific sound should take the effect(if something else is not intended) so watch the decay, sometimes alot of non- desired background "swoosh" can be reduced...

and if it´s not reduced it affects the whole mix...

and finally: Reverb = Taste

Quote:

when you hear real live music/sound, you just hear the reverb of the environment you're in, not 20 different reverbs simulating diverse spaces

WRONG

when you are in a room you hear instruments in different places in the room ! the amplitude and character of the instrument determens how loud and long a natural room / hall reverb will sound per sound

also spatial characteristics such as wallshape and materials in the room will

if you want to make a natural sound ; simulate a natural enviroment by analysing sound in natural enviroments.

you will find some sounds have a more audible reverb ans some sounds will have very little reverb
while all playing in the same room

and i do whatever sounds cool with me
which doesn`t natural at all

Ahmed wrote:

So does that apply even to using different styles of reverbs in the same mix. Ahmed.

Sure

As most others have confirmed here, everybody have their own styles. So, you have my permission to 1) copy everybody else's styles and make them your own and 2) experiement and develop your own style and then give it some cool name, like "Ahmbient-verb"

Mixing 2 reverbs won't hurt your synthetic music if you don't forget that the 50/80-150ms part of the reverberation has a major (and negative) influence on intelligibility (speech) or clarity (music).

There's one more way how to adjust the reverb for each instrument. If you lower the amplification of early reflections in the master reverb, you can substitute these by adding some delay effect to each instrument - the WET level of the delay will change the coloration and the instrument will seem to be more distant. The delay effects should not use same delay values and there should be no feedback (unless the delay time is modulated) - causes boost at certain frequencies. Multitap delay may be useful for this purpose.

And another tip.... if you're going down the route of only using one or two reverbs, it helps to use a true stereo one - that will give you a more realistic sound and better placement.

Of course it ain't always straight-forward to implement it. With Cubase, and I assume most other hosts, the aux sends are mono sends/ stereo returns (which is exactly the same as most mixers, until you go up to the real expensive ones), so you have to work around by doing something like using channel sends routed to a group, which has a stereo input reverb as an insert at 100% wet. Or fiddle around using the same reverb on each stereo channel as an insert (not recommended as it's very time consumin and unless you have a monster CPU you have no choice but to render it all to audio).

The benefit of routing to a group(s) is that you can then process your reverb, say, bass cut or mid boost for room emphasis. Which is the same reason you'd often route your FX on a mixing desk back to channels instead of using the send returns - and it gives you some control over reverb volume with the fader rather than fiddling with returns or sends. Also useful for dub etc as you can feedback reverb or delays to themselves.

Ain't no hard and fast rules though.......