I have some problems understanding the use of reverb-
Let me explain how I do it:
I'm working in Sonar2 and, in order to apply reverb, I use ONE plugin (such as Ambience) as a sendFX in a AUX bus. So, I send a different amount of every track to the reverb, in order to give the right depth (back to front) to the instruments.
In this way, all channels have the same reverb settings- only different sends: is this a good way of applying reverb, or should I use different setings for every track? Or perhaps even different plugins, say for drums, or vocals, etc?
Another confusion to me is the panning of the reverb: If, say, I have a guitar at 50% left, where should I send the reverb? At the opposite position (50% right)? At the center? At the same (50%left)? And why?
I'd appreciate any help on this. Any reliable sources in the Internet for the understanding/appliance of reverb?
Thanx,
Yannis
REVERB: some HELP, please!
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- KVRist
- 287 posts since 30 Dec, 2004 from Austin, Tejas - What do you want on YOUR breakfast taco?
Let me start by saying there is no RIGHT way to do reverb, only the way you're doing it. That said, I am one of those people that likes my reverbs particular ways, depending on the reverb in use. Legacy reverbs, aka old school, like plates, & springs, I like to use the bus method, simply because that's what my ear is used to, after so many years of hearing it that way. Modeled room reverbs, on the other hand, seem to me best used in small quantities over a whole mix. When I get into reverbs that are more digitial sounding, that's when I like to mix it up, this reverb here, this one there. As far as reverbs being associated with any one instrument, spring reverb sounds most natural to me on guitar and seventies sytle analog (subtractive) synths. Panning, again is an personal choice, although you'll mostly hear people leave it centered, but spread across the stereo field. It wasn't always that way, if you listen to the Beatles, or the Doors, for that matter, a lot of times the reverb for an instrument was hard panned one way, while the natural sound was hard panned the other. Mess around with it. Grab a fader, grab a knob, you'll find what you personally like....yavli wrote:I have some problems understanding the use of reverb-
Let me explain how I do it:
I'm working in Sonar2 and, in order to apply reverb, I use ONE plugin (such as Ambience) as a sendFX in a AUX bus. So, I send a different amount of every track to the reverb, in order to give the right depth (back to front) to the instruments.
In this way, all channels have the same reverb settings- only different sends: is this a good way of applying reverb, or should I use different setings for every track? Or perhaps even different plugins, say for drums, or vocals, etc?
Another confusion to me is the panning of the reverb: If, say, I have a guitar at 50% left, where should I send the reverb? At the opposite position (50% right)? At the center? At the same (50%left)? And why?
I'd appreciate any help on this. Any reliable sources in the Internet for the understanding/appliance of reverb?
Thanx,
Yannis
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- KVRian
- 644 posts since 6 Apr, 2004
Wow, I always thought it's a natural reverb that comes from different mics. (Everything was recorded so hard panned those days)tkmattson wrote:It wasn't always that way, if you listen to the Beatles, or the Doors, for that matter, a lot of times the reverb for an instrument was hard panned one way, while the natural sound was hard panned the other. Mess around with it.
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- KVRist
- 98 posts since 9 Jan, 2005
It totally depends on what you like. That's what I love about music, there's no right or wrong! One of the best things I learned from these forums is tweak the reverb until you can hear that it's there, then back off it a bit. Reverb is one of those effects best used sparingly. Now delay on the other hand...
Sniffing corks hurts my brain
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- KVRist
- 287 posts since 30 Dec, 2004 from Austin, Tejas - What do you want on YOUR breakfast taco?
It's fun, well, sort of, to listen to only one side (left or right) of the Beatles stuff, especially the earlier stuff (62-66). It's amazing what's not there, and what after hearing it SOOOO many times, how you'll make up in your head the rest. Perhaps the most amazing engineering / producing book is the Mark Lewisohn book "The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes". It talks about the birth of SOOO many things we take for granted today, including flanging, and weird things like suspending John Lennon in the air, while he swang back and forth singing into the Telefunken (Neumann for the kiddies) U87. Um, and it talks about reverb too. Sorry for the Hijack....justified wrote:Wow, I always thought it's a natural reverb that comes from different mics. (Everything was recorded so hard panned those days)tkmattson wrote:It wasn't always that way, if you listen to the Beatles, or the Doors, for that matter, a lot of times the reverb for an instrument was hard panned one way, while the natural sound was hard panned the other. Mess around with it.
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- KVRist
- 291 posts since 25 Dec, 2003 from Bay Area, CA, USA
A great way to add depth to your mix with reverb is to create a mono send with reverb using only early reflections. Sending various amounts of channels to this aux can do an excellent job of creating depth while using a minimal amount of "mix space".
For anytime I need a longer or FX-type reverb, I always return it in mono and pan it either behind the source, or between the source and hard to the side. Say there is a synth at 9o'clock, I would pan the reverb at 8 to 8 30. Of course there are no rules here, and it may sound good to pan the reverb to the opposite side.
It might be wise to use one reverb send for early reflections and then something like a plate for percussion/vocals/guitars or a hall to send only a few choice instruments to, that need to be pushed to the back some. When drenching a background track in reverb, play around with the predelay settings until you find the right balance of apparent distance and seperation from the reverb tail. Using predelay is a great way to ensure greater clarity.
Overall I think it is best to use reverb sparingly and to go crazy using carefully timed delays (5-30ms) for adding some space, and longer tempo-synchd delays for adding depth to vocals, pads, keys, etc. Using a long reverb on only one or two instruments can be a good way of creating contrast of space.
Also remember that you ought to EQ your reverb returns. I usually EQ them after I have all the tracks running at once, tweaking the settings until I find spots for the verb to be heard clearly (or sometimes I want to bury it for a more subtle effect). Adding treble to a reverb will make it stand out more, while cutting the tops will help it blend in better. This applies to delays also. Also experiement with sending a delay into a hall or plate reverb for vocal or pad tracks.
For anytime I need a longer or FX-type reverb, I always return it in mono and pan it either behind the source, or between the source and hard to the side. Say there is a synth at 9o'clock, I would pan the reverb at 8 to 8 30. Of course there are no rules here, and it may sound good to pan the reverb to the opposite side.
It might be wise to use one reverb send for early reflections and then something like a plate for percussion/vocals/guitars or a hall to send only a few choice instruments to, that need to be pushed to the back some. When drenching a background track in reverb, play around with the predelay settings until you find the right balance of apparent distance and seperation from the reverb tail. Using predelay is a great way to ensure greater clarity.
Overall I think it is best to use reverb sparingly and to go crazy using carefully timed delays (5-30ms) for adding some space, and longer tempo-synchd delays for adding depth to vocals, pads, keys, etc. Using a long reverb on only one or two instruments can be a good way of creating contrast of space.
Also remember that you ought to EQ your reverb returns. I usually EQ them after I have all the tracks running at once, tweaking the settings until I find spots for the verb to be heard clearly (or sometimes I want to bury it for a more subtle effect). Adding treble to a reverb will make it stand out more, while cutting the tops will help it blend in better. This applies to delays also. Also experiement with sending a delay into a hall or plate reverb for vocal or pad tracks.
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- KVRAF
- 8705 posts since 24 May, 2002 from Tutukaka, New Zealand
So, as you see, there are a thousand different ways to do it.
You may read or hear about a generalised way of using reverb, but often that is not an actual rule...it is simply the way people got accustomed to doing it with desks and h/w reverb units...you were a little more limited in how you used reverb. Unless you had countless units, you pretty well had to use them as sends. And panning wasn't such an issue as most desks had mono sends/stereo returns.
Now that you actually have easy access to so many channels, and you're only limited to how many instances of reverbs by your CPU, there are very few restrictions any more. And even if you run out of CPU, it is so much easier to render down to audio (you could do that with an 8-track tape, but you didn't have 78 channels to play with).
So you aren't stuck to any rules at all - the only rule is that if it sounds good, then it works.
Personally I rarely use reverb on sends nowadays, though I used to. I'll more often use it as inserts and render, then I can automatically have the panning the same as the dry channel panning (not that that is the right way to do it at all...just how I like it).
I will often use reverb on drums over the whole drum track as an insert - again, so that each drum has it's reverb panned appropriately. Which means I have to either take out the kick and reroute, or Eq out the bass on the verb and various other tricks...can get quite complicated actually. But it also depends on what I'm doing. I'll only do that if I particularly want a drumloop-ish type feel - even if I've synthesised and programmed the whole beat. otrher times I might only use verb on snares or not at all. I might use early reflections only on the hats, with the full reverb on the rest.
I might use 3 or 4 very very carefully chosen reverbs, or only one, or none. If I use none, then I'm more likely to use reverb over the final mix.
Pretty well the only thing I don't do with reverb is to pan it differently to its source instruments...I just don't like that effect.
So....do any or all of what everybody has mentioned, or did it entirely differently - doesn't matter. The only rule is rule number one and number two.
1. If it sounds good, you did it right.
2. If your audience think it sounds bad, you did it wrong - refer to rule 1.
You may read or hear about a generalised way of using reverb, but often that is not an actual rule...it is simply the way people got accustomed to doing it with desks and h/w reverb units...you were a little more limited in how you used reverb. Unless you had countless units, you pretty well had to use them as sends. And panning wasn't such an issue as most desks had mono sends/stereo returns.
Now that you actually have easy access to so many channels, and you're only limited to how many instances of reverbs by your CPU, there are very few restrictions any more. And even if you run out of CPU, it is so much easier to render down to audio (you could do that with an 8-track tape, but you didn't have 78 channels to play with).
So you aren't stuck to any rules at all - the only rule is that if it sounds good, then it works.
Personally I rarely use reverb on sends nowadays, though I used to. I'll more often use it as inserts and render, then I can automatically have the panning the same as the dry channel panning (not that that is the right way to do it at all...just how I like it).
I will often use reverb on drums over the whole drum track as an insert - again, so that each drum has it's reverb panned appropriately. Which means I have to either take out the kick and reroute, or Eq out the bass on the verb and various other tricks...can get quite complicated actually. But it also depends on what I'm doing. I'll only do that if I particularly want a drumloop-ish type feel - even if I've synthesised and programmed the whole beat. otrher times I might only use verb on snares or not at all. I might use early reflections only on the hats, with the full reverb on the rest.
I might use 3 or 4 very very carefully chosen reverbs, or only one, or none. If I use none, then I'm more likely to use reverb over the final mix.
Pretty well the only thing I don't do with reverb is to pan it differently to its source instruments...I just don't like that effect.
So....do any or all of what everybody has mentioned, or did it entirely differently - doesn't matter. The only rule is rule number one and number two.
1. If it sounds good, you did it right.
2. If your audience think it sounds bad, you did it wrong - refer to rule 1.