BIG question on REVERB.

itzdlo

itzdlo

ayodlo
Ive been told numerous times that reverb is huge in tracks and that it helps to shape the "Body" of your music and so on and ive been reading and researching on reverb on youtube here and just in google and i don't really understand what it does. To me it just sounds like some kind of echo effect. I don't understand how this can be as important as people are making it seem to be. I understand EQ and Compression and other things and can see why these are important, but im not really getting Reverb. Am I missing something? Or should I just look into it further? I know it can be used in various situations I just dont see its primary purpose. If that makes sense.
 
Reverb is the sound of the instrument bouncing off the walls of the room and coming back to the ear. It's what you hear in real life. You have to be careful with it in a real mix o lots of instruments but it's a vital tool in recreating real sound. Anything too clean sounds 'fake' to the ear so producers add reverb to simulate a more realistic sense of sound as if the listener was right in the room with the artists.
 
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Thats the explanation I was looking for. So its basically it adds a realistic feel to the instrument. Weather it be strings, synth, or drums? What do you mean you have to be careful?
BTW thanks for the response.
 
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Careful in the sense that it's pretty easy to make everything really smooth by drowning it in reverb - which usually leads to the track in question sounding like a shapeless floating mass (but it's smooth :D). Ie. it's easy to overuse.

Good article in SOS: Use Reverb Like A Pro.
 
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed.
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Reverb is not to be confused with echo or delay, which repeat the exact same sound at decaying velocities and certain points of time after the begginning of the original sound.

If you don't understand, just add a reverb plugin onto a sound and do the same with a delay plugin and see the difference.

As for it's role in music, it really depends on what kind of music it is. Certain forms of music use big reverbs to make an almost 'epic' feel. Some forms of dance music are saturated with reverb to create the illusion of a big stadium or rave.

There are no rules with reverb, and I'm surprised you're having trouble grasping it. But anyway, I hope the above helps.
 
DJ Synner said:
There are no rules with reverb, and I'm surprised you're having trouble grasping it. But anyway, I hope the above helps.
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Agreed, but if you're trying to create a realistic space, the laws of physics come in handy...but generally I just tend to go by "feel".
 
I've always had issues with it too. I listen to other songs (of all genres) and specifically in the hip hop production i can hear that VERY little reverb is put on drums....but it just gives the track a necessary feel. Doing drum patterns without it most times just sounds like a sequence of sounds, rather than a flowing arrangement of percussion.

What i don't get is the controls on a few reverb plugins i see. I.E. high cut/low cut, etc.


Even on the MPC....i load the reverb fx and i just can't get it not to sound so.....fake. Wish I could get it though, so I wouldn't have to rely on anyone else :confused:
 
I agree with all the above...Reverb can change the sound of a song or instrument dramatically....my primary use of it is on instruments so u wont here the sound cutoff on the last note, it shud flow with the rest of the song or instruments.
 
BxJaze said:
What i don't get is the controls on a few reverb plugins i see. I.E. high cut/low cut, etc.


Even on the MPC....i load the reverb fx and i just can't get it not to sound so.....fake. Wish I could get it though, so I wouldn't have to rely on anyone else :confused:
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Just research the controls/terms you don't understand and play around to hear what each does to the sound. High and Low cut are filters that eq the reverb tail and can be very important to getting away from a "fake" sound to something more natural. For example if you want to apply reverb to a beat or drum kit you usually roll off all the lows to avoid resonance from the kick. Unless you want that boomy sound of course. Then only the high end hits the reverb :) I almost always EQ my reverb sends to shape the sound I want. Then again some reverbs just don't sound good on anything....
 
There can also be pre-reverb filters/EQ - which control what gets reverberated in the first place, and then these post-reverb filters that affect the tail, as mentioned above.
 
This is a key quote from that Sound on Sound article:

'the primary objective of reverbs and delays is to reconnect tracks that have no inherent connection by giving them some shared acoustic characteristics'
 
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...but of course there's a purely artistic function for them as well, as opposed to creating a "natural space". Delays especially have a big function in just making rhythms more interesting, and I often - depending on what type of music I'm making, of course - have pretty huge reverbs on just single elements.
 
Reverb is one of the most abused effects by beginners along with compressors....a rule of thumb starting out is to set it to where you think it sounds good...then reduce the wetness by 15% of where you think it should be.
 
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