Big EDM Reverb - Techniques (like Martin Garrix) ???

Cazaa

New member
Hey guys,

i make EDM-music, normally 128BPM. If i use reverb i use it as e send effect.
I read a lot about how to make your reverb huge but without muddy up your mix.
But it doesn't sound like, for example Marting Gariix Stuff ;-)

A good Reference: YouTube

There are two techniques i use:

1: Take a Reverb with a small Pre-Delay and a small Decay (0,8-1,2s) and EQ it.
2: Take a Reverb with a small Pre-Delay and a huge Decay (2-4s), EQ it, and sidechain it to the Leadsound.

The question is, is it not the same if you sidechain your reverb or to have a smaller decay-time???
Do you have any tips to create a good reverb???
 
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There are several things you can do, but the art of good reverb is a lot about room acoustics, warmth and hardware delays reverbs EQs gates expanders compressors stereo processors harmonizers chorus saturation, preferrably with a very resonant in tune input and knowing how to best feed it into the arrangement. It is about resonance combined with low enough noise in the mix combined with the right hardware to make the effects effective enough on the tone.

Overall and especially if you work with software it can be quite tricky to get a good reverb sound because you might not have enough warmth in the input. To make reverb great sounding it helps a lot to feed a warm signal into it. There are various effects that try to come close like for instance the Soundtoys echo boy.

You have to think of not only the reverb effect itself but what type of signal it needs...

In low headroom setups you should be very careful with reverb.

Reverbs tend to shine in contexts that shine.
 
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Hey guys,

i make EDM-music, normally 128BPM. If i use reverb i use it as e send effect.
I read a lot about how to make your reverb huge but without muddy up your mix.
But it doesn't sound like, for example Marting Gariix Stuff ;-)



A good Reference: YouTube

There are two techniques i use:

1: Take a Reverb with a small Pre-Delay and a small Decay (0,8-1,2s) and EQ it.
2: Take a Reverb with a small Pre-Delay and a huge Decay (2-4s), EQ it, and sidechain it to the Leadsound.

The question is, is it not the same if you sidechain your reverb or to have a smaller decay-time???
Do you have any tips to create a good reverb???


Hello there!

I agree with your value of and attention to reverb! It can really take your song to a unique place-- it does wonders for the imagination !

I was first interested in your final question if I understood it correctly, that you were asking if shortening decay time was the same as side chaining to the dry signal/source track? Perhaps it would be important to mention the workings of these two elements and one could then decide on difference and/or similarity

So briefly, and as I understand it, adjusting "decay" is simply deciding how long the reverb's ambiance trails-on after the music signal has concluded running through the reverb device/software. If you dial the decay time longer, you'll hear the ambiance's boundaries extend further and for a longer time (duh, right? lol) , whereas shortening the time length with the decay knob/switch will essentially squeeze down on the outward expression of ambiance resulting in an acute perceived sense of spacial immediacy for the signal.

Okie dokie, so now comparing that manipulation of ambient-expression to "side-chaining verb to the dry source", perhaps a differentiation could be apparent----lets say you would like to trigger a reverb device to produce ambiance (for your lead vocal) when the vocalist projects melody above ___db. This could be desirable if the vocal performance was deliberately louder during specific emotionally-laced moments in a song, this where the reverb offers a emotionally specific 3-d depth or real-life sense of space when expression is a relative full-tilt. The real kicker here imho is how this deliberate artistic sense of space is an ideal vehicle for listener-specific imagination to arise (or "projective apparatus", for thy Freudian Folks :bigeyes: ) as listeners can begin to construct meaning and "visual" context for the space in which this singer could've perhaps existed in during the recording of the song.

I suppose I am offer: these two techniques can be seen as very different operations and arrive at two very different results as well. A bit further, the decay time could perhaps ALWAYS be a parameter option regardless of the use of side-chain or not, as the reverb unit would like have the option whether it is receiving static level sends from the dry source or threshold specific levels.

As Well! I very much find consistent value in the ideas mentioned above by DarkRed in regards to signal going into reverb. For example, one could dial in reverb parameters as close to desirable as possible, then pre-reverb (i.e. one insert slot above/prior to) dynamics could brought to a pleasing steady-state level---this could then give your reverb unit a more consistent source with which to apply the ambient processing. I suppose one could argue consistent dynamics into the ambiance would give you a more accurate output of applied ambient application to the fed-in signal...but hey! does this matter, does this meet your need and/or expectation? Anyhoos! This attention to what you are putting into this process, LIKE MOST THINGS, will undoubtedly in some shape or form determine what comes out the otherside---given the reverb unit is providing the need spacial qualities, I find solace in this notion

I hope all is, and has been, well!

-MadHat
 
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