Reverb avoidance and mono reverbs

[chagzuki]

Back in the early 2000s my production skills had developed around a need to avoid plugin reverbs; they were certainly generally bad at that time. I've been settling back in to music production over the last few months and am very much enjoying the sonic improvement in many areas, particularly in reverbs.
I have a piece I'm working on at the moment and will be going through a stage of deciphering how much my older understanding of production was a result of the limitations of plugins at the time, specifically when it comes to clarity in mixes. I was in the habit of strategically using mono reverbs and eq to control the proximity of elements in the soundstage, rather than stereo reverbs. I'm not sure yet the extent to which I'll need to approach things that way now, as reverbs seem to much better preserve a sense of 'openess' which doesn't clog up the soundstage. So whilst I experiment with that I'm curious to hear other people's approaches: does anyone here really use mono reverbs, and does anyone here find reverbs in general to create problems of clarity in mixes?

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

In my experience, reverb is much like any other effect: the key is knowing when and how to use it. I do love my reverbs, but I strive to use them in moderation. Generally, how I approach using reverb (or any other effect for that matter) is through thinking whether it serves the song or not. A reverb certainly can't be slapped onto every track in a mix, and even if you do, it can harm the mix more than it benefits it. Like I said, knowing when and how to use a reverb is key.

As for mono vs. stereo reverbs, both have their use cases.

[chagzuki]

The point of mono reverbs is generally to maintain stereo separation between elements. Of course there's also the option of very narrow stereo width positioned within the stereo field such as to keep it separate from other elements. I've been thinking a bit about reverb algorithms and the idea of 'openness'... I'm not a programmer and I have no idea how many paradigms there are within the area of reverb design, but I wonder how 'openness' is achieved via the way an algorithm fills the stereo field. I don't have many reverb plugins right now as I'm still slowly making decisions about what plugins to purchase after a long period away, but of the ones I have including those included in Falcon, I don't see much control over general density, and I wonder just how not-dense or open a reverb could be, via non-naturalistic types of modelling... something along the lines of preserving shifting 'holes' in the field of reverberation... a bit like waves in water. That's extremely abstract and I have no idea if it makes any sense.

[Dirtgrain]

A reverb certainly can't be slapped onto every track in a mix, and even if you do, it can harm the mix more than it benefits it. Like I said, knowing when and how to use a reverb is key.

I imagine this is where it can help to have somebody else help with mixing and mastering. Sometimes spending so much time on a song can make me somehow deaf to the accumulating reverbs.

[chagzuki]

Coincidently straight after posting this an email from Tracktion appeared with their plugins on offer, including Reverber8, which happens to have a density parameter plus a curious isometric visualization of what it's doing. I wonder, how 'open' can it be via the density control.

[vurt]

A reverb certainly can't be slapped onto every track in a mix, and even if you do, it can harm the mix more than it benefits it. Like I said, knowing when and how to use a reverb is key.

I imagine this is where it can help to have somebody else help with mixing and mastering. Sometimes spending so much time on a song can make me somehow deaf to the accumulating reverbs.

you can never have enough reverb

http://www.viablehybrid.com/vurt/testtu ... ogogia.mp3

[chagzuki]

I haven't really played with Valhalla Supermassive yet, but first experiments show that since it's a kind of delay acting as a reverb, it seems to be functioning as a stereo mono reverb, i.e. it can preserve the stereo position of the source via delay feedback whilst sounding like a reverb.

[Kinh]

Wha-you ramblin' on about mate?

[chagzuki]

Reverb.

[chagzuki]

Oh, and production techniques.

[chagzuki]

For instance, say you have a supersaw, 8 voices spread from far left to right in the stereo field. In order to generate a sense of spaciousness either delay or reverb is necessary. Combined with the other elements in the mix that leaves limited empty space from which parts can retain a sense of crispness and clarity: clarity in a mix comes from the space around the sonic elements. A delay can create a type of spaciousness whereby the echos form a sort of tail which retains the stereo positioning of the source, i.e. all unison voices plus delay could be pinpointed in a spatial position, whereas a reverb might blur things to a degree whereby the aural cues for spatiality are diminished. But there's also the option of a type of reverb which acts like a mono reverb but in stereo, and this avoids the rhythmic/mechanical echo of a delay. So you could hook up the source L and R channels to instances of the same reverb and output those as distinct L / R channels, and thus you have a reverb which like a delay preserves the stereo position of the source, in the reverb tails. And you could also do creative things with that with additional effects. I'm still figuring out whether those sorts of tricks are still useful in 2020 or whether reverb algorithms are good enough that for the most part it's not necessary.

[legendCNCD]

One can use short "ambience" reverbs with predelay to make listener feel theres reverb&space included.

In order not to clog high or lowpass your reverbs, and sometimes cut the prominent areas from reverb which the original sound inhabits.

[chagzuki]

In order not to clog high or lowpass your reverbs, and sometimes cut the prominent areas from reverb which the original sound inhabits.

I was thinking about this after Izotope just released a reverb with 'de-masking'. I haven't looked into exactly what that plugin does, but it seems to me a reverb could include not just auto-ducking like Toraverb does, but rather a selective EQ ducking in the way that Elevayta Space Boy did as an EQ plugin, and also with stereo width control for the ducking. Effectively then the reverb would carve a space for the source out from the reverb body in both the spectral and stereo space.

[legendCNCD]

In order not to clog high or lowpass your reverbs, and sometimes cut the prominent areas from reverb which the original sound inhabits.

I was thinking about this after Izotope just released a reverb with 'de-masking'. I haven't looked into exactly what that plugin does, but it seems to me a reverb could include not just auto-ducking like Toraverb does, but rather a selective EQ ducking in the way that Elevayta Space Boy did as an EQ plugin, and also with stereo width control for the ducking. Effectively then the reverb would carve a space for the source out from the reverb body in both the spectral and stereo space.

Been using also TDR Nova GE and Soothe 2 for this too but its very rare for me to do anything else except either/both passes and some de-harsh EQ.

[Aiynzahev]

To answer your question, yes reverb can definitely muddy up a mix. The trick I think is to mix and match effects where they sound best. Even so these days I try to be as minimal with reverb as I can get away with. Instead I'll use short delays, subtle chorus etc to get a sense of space, or as you said try to narrow the width or even mono some reverbs.

Ducking is great but I find it creates the allusion of a squashed mix, which I don't always like. Sometimes it's cool though but I wouldn't do it by default. The other problem with reverb and delays is whether you're mixing into compression & limiting, because once you start to squeeze the mix on the master it's going to bring up all the tails.

I will say some dark tape delays can sometimes be a better choice than reverb. Somehow delays sound more focused and has a lot of character. I mean they literally are more focused as reverb is delays in a diffusion network right?\

Now not intending to plug anything here, I did a little demo with the Erebus a while back which has a fantastic dirty delay built in, I was able to make a really cool reverb with that that somehow has a lot of interesting texture to it, something just better than a clean reverb in this case, at least to my ears. You can hear it here at the 3:12 mark:

https://youtu.be/2gNNd2Mn7Ro?t=191