Reverb on entire drum kit?

[Gernburgs]

Trying to achieve a better spaciousness to my mixing. Sometimes I feel like my drums are too present or forward in the mix, which is not always a bad thing, but when I hear a song on the radio, the vocals are furthest forward and the beat or production is all moved back a touch. Do producers put a light reverb on the entire drum kit to achieve this effect?

How many different reverbs would one generally use in a song? Sometimes I feel like I have 5 different reverb effects in a track, do I need to pair them down or use fewer more universally?

[BERFAB]

I'm not sure what the pros do.

Most of my drum plugs have overheads and a room setting to adjust for various room ambience. In addition to that, what I do, if you're taking a poll, is add two additional reverbs.

I put one on the snare, probably because I'm an 80's guy and always liked the sound of the gated snare. But I don't gate it, and I don't keep it very wet.

The 2nd reverb is on the whole kit. Not a lot--I'll take a hall reverb and maybe bring it to 7% or so--just to give the whole kit some cohesiveness in addition to the individual drum treatments.

[fese]

Reverb on a whole drum kit, sure, why not. Preferably not with a too long decay time (say a quarter note) or an ambience with mostly early reflections. And not much predelay. But very important: put an EQ before the reverb on the send bus and do some severe hi/lopass filters (500Hz and 7kHz for a starting point). And maybe even an EQ after the reverb, cutting some mids if necessary.
Now put a compressor after that and compress the reverb signal to taste and you get some kind of room mike simulation.

For the vocals up front/music in the back I'd say that levels are the most important factor, but some EQ in the hi end or some reverb also can help send something to the background.

Number of reverbs: personally I rarely use more than 2 or 3 reverbs, but often use delay sends routed into those reverbs for additional space creation. But if extra reverbs are needed for special FX, why not?

[BERFAB]

Delay is a whole different conversation. I was never really a fan of this until I started fiddling around with the RP-Delay. Some of the stereo presets on that thing really open up a drumkit. And, depending on how wet you like it, it is very easy to turn a simple four-on-the-floor into a full on beat-fest.

[The Chase]

Drums pretty much always have reverb on them, and typically it is placed early in the effects chain (especially before compression).

[pixel85]

Depends on the genre. Most of the times volume fader is your best friend. Just move it down.
Taking down hi freqs (not all, just eq them a bit) will move drums backward.

[NystagmusE]

Trying to achieve a better spaciousness to my mixing. Sometimes I feel like my drums are too present or forward in the mix, which is not always a bad thing, but when I hear a song on the radio, the vocals are furthest forward and the beat or production is all moved back a touch. Do producers put a light reverb on the entire drum kit to achieve this effect?

You don't have to conform to syndicated radio conventions, especially if your tune doesn't even have any vocals. And no, reverb would not be how they achieve the separation between the vocals and the rest of the production. It's achieved by having the vocal tracks up higher in relative volume, nothing more, nothing less.

If you want to experiment with reverbs to try and get different sounds, by all means experiment. But realise that it's not a factor in vocals being pushed excessively up front in commercial radio productions. And remember that some people might not even like that type of sound. I know I don't.

[Mister Natural]

. . . except for the kick

[PatchAdamz]

Sure, you can do verb on the entire drums BUT ideally you would use different spaces on each drum.
For example, you might want to keep the kick relatively dry with a fast or no pre-release and a quick decay.

Also, you might want a brighter verb such as a plate on the snare to allow tonal contrast between the kick and snare.

These are just a couple examples, using different reverbs on each drums can allow for more control over the space, tonality and perceived dynamics of the kit.

[mmGhost]

genre dependent, for sure. Do whatever sounds good, but imho "obvious" reverb on the kik is a no no, but music is art so knock yourself out.

If you want to move the kit back in the mix, low-pass the kit a bit, as mentioned by one person. I've also used compressors late in the game if the kit is too punchy during the mix-down just to shave the attack off some.

[ramseysounds]

I usually set up a different reverb for vocals, synths, pads and drums, so a maximum of 4. Route each sound (assuming all are individually tracked) to a send and dial in as much or as little you think sounds good. I always low cut each reverb fx channel sweeping up from 80Hz until it sounds how you want.
Variation is your friend.
Good luck.

[PatchAdamz]

genre dependent, for sure. Do whatever sounds good, but imho "obvious" reverb on the kik is a no no,

True, it is genre dependent.

Verb on the kick is commonly done in soundtrack and ambient production.
BUT, the music is generally slower which allow the verb to decay before the next kick hits.

[zethus909]

"everb on the kik is a no no, "

not if youre making deep techno, reverbd kick is good there

[The Chase]

Reverberating kicks makes them sound huge and is common. You just don't reverberate the bass frequencies.

[Sparky77]

Reverb on the Kick is great.
Remember, reverb doesn't always have to be a long hall.

Small, short reverbs make the world go round.