Best practices for reverb ducking

[dyross]

Hey folks,

I see reverb ducking discussed around the webs, and the basic idea makes sense to me. That said, whenever I google it for more info, everyone only talks about ducking the heavy vocal reverb out of the way of the vocals, and not much else.

So, for more orchestral / cinematic / orchestral rock settings, how are folks typically thinking about reverb ducking?

My typical setup in my symphonic prog tracks is to have 3 different sizes of "room" reverb (small/close, medium, and large/far) that I send various levels of all instruments to for an "overall room" sound, with a couple of plates for specific purposes (flute, lead guitar, snare, etc.).

Seems clear that the "vocal-like" plate I use for lead instruments could use some ducking under the lead instrument it's sweetening. But what about the room reverbs? I'm going to test it a bit, but wondering if room reverbs ever get ducked in y'alls productions.

Thanks,
David

[RyanM12]

I wouldn’t do that for room reverbs, only longer plates and halls

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I wouldn’t do that for room reverbs, only longer plates and halls

Agree with this. No point on ambience/room sounds.

I'd also add, it's really dependent on how you want to hear the reverb and the instrument itself. If it's a vocal or a lead guitar, synth lead, where there are pauses in the instrument/melody and I want a long decay, that's a good time for ducking. You can duck the reverb to maintain clarity during the performance, but still get the long tail you desire as the instrument/voice rests and the reverb comes up. But that's almost like an effect in and of itself when done heavily, which is usually what I'm going for in those instances. But there'd be no point in adding ducking to an instrument that's constantly playing in the background IMO because then the reverb is just constantly ducking, and at that point, just set a mix level.

Most of the times, if I'm ducking, it's just a tiny bit to get the verb out of the way of the vocal for a bit of clarity. Or in rare cases, that special effect where I really want the verb to bloom on a vocal at the end of a line (and even then, better handled by automation so as not to overdo it). But I'm not using a ducking reverb all the time, and might just compress the audio on a verb send if ducking isn't available. It's a bit of an overrated feature IMO. People made great records with blooming reverbs for years without built in ducking and found other ways to get the same effect where desired.

[MogwaiBoy]

I use it fairly regularly. Rather than limit myself to reverbs with built-in ducking (not that many have it), I'll just do it the classic way of putting a compressor after the reverb on the reverb aux send channel. Usually gives you way more control too.

I agree with not really using it on short room/ambience reverbs - ducking is more useful for dense, longer reverbs that cloud a mix.

[jonaszg8]

Sidechaining. But only on big verbs

[dyross]

Thanks for the feedback, folks - very helpful!

[kevingham]

I concur with the advice about only using it on big/long reverbs. I do it with TDR Nova, so using a dynamic EQ to quickly duck just the peak frequencies that a sound is hitting the reverb rather than wideband compression. It sounds nicer to me as you retain that aura of reverb around that frequency dip while pushing the thickness out the way so your transients can still clearly hit through. And yeah, I only really use it on transient sounds, if your reverb is sounding too dense with tonal content, either turn your reverb down or EQ the density out of the way.

[dyross]

A related question - I've seen some discussion about trying to reduce transients on the reverb sends pre-reverb to avoid noisy reverbs. Are folks doing this?

[zerocrossing]

I used Waves' F6 to selectively duck portions of the spectrum. It works better, IMO.

[MogwaiBoy]

A related question - I've seen some discussion about trying to reduce transients on the reverb sends pre-reverb to avoid noisy reverbs. Are folks doing this?

I've read that somewhere too and thought hmmm, have to try that sometime.

It's often the transients that generate the most audible early reflections, and if you want things to sound cohesively "in the same space" then you need those. But I can see for special cases, like going for a very smooth, stealthy long reverb, it could really work.

Reverbs that let you mix out the early reflections entirely (ie Cinematic Rooms) probably give you a similar result too.

[legendCNCD]

One can set transient attack portion to minus side before the signal reaches reverb with transient designer like elysia nvelope. I've done this just once, so its quite rare for us at least..

Sidechain ducking, yeah alot, and dynamic eqing.