Using more than one reverb in a session

Donta Black

Donta Black

Active member
I was always taught to Aux my Reverbs, but sometimes I notices the parameters sometimes aren't so great on particular instruments, a bass kick for example. I always used one Reverb, but im trying to obtain the clearest mix possible. I have a feeling this common sense, just to make another aux that does not respond to bass freq. , what are your procedures?
 
Donta Black said:
I was always taught to Aux my Reverbs, but sometimes I notices the parameters sometimes aren't so great on particular instruments, a bass kick for example. I always used one Reverb, but im trying to obtain the clearest mix possible. I have a feeling this common sense, just to make another aux that does not respond to bass freq. , what are your procedures?
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Reverbs have color, often times warm ones. Limiting all of your mixes down to a single reverb on each mix, makes very little sense.

The clearity of a mix can actually improve by using reverbs. But if you do stuff like mix quietly, play with the wetness and forget the reverb time, add it on a bunch of low frequency sound sources using poor monitoring, sure it's not going to help clear up the mix.

Similarly to comps being quite dominant on the attack portion of the timbre, reverbs are quite dominant on the decay portion of the timbre. A beautiful sounding mix is beautiful because both the attack and the decay are well done. So try to unlearn this idea that reverb is a clearity thief, try to unlearn that having more than a single reverb in a mix eats clearity and try to unlearn that having reverb on the low end muds up the mix. Instead try to find reverbs that add resonance to the sound source when they are added on top of one another. Do not only think of reverbs as sustain, think of them also as context coloration - the sound character of the space the sound source sits in. It is the combination of the sound source and the room the listener perceives.
 
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DarkRed said:
Reverbs have color, often times warm ones. Limiting all of your mixes down to a single reverb on each mix, makes very little sense.

The clearity of a mix can actually improve by using reverbs. But if you do stuff like mix quietly, play with the wetness and forget the reverb time, add it on a bunch of low frequency sound sources using poor monitoring, sure it's not going to help clear up the mix.

Similarly to comps being quite dominant on the attack portion of the timbre, reverbs are quite dominant on the decay portion of the timbre. A beautiful sounding mix is beautiful because both the attack and the decay are well done. So try to unlearn this idea that reverb is a clearity thief, try to unlearn that having more than a single reverb in a mix eats clearity and try to unlearn that having reverb on the low end muds up the mix. Instead try to find reverbs that add resonance to the sound source when they are added on top of one another. Do not only think of reverbs as sustain, think of them also as context coloration - the sound character of the space the sound source sits in. It is the combination of the sound source and the room the listener perceives.
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I like the way you conveyed this message and I surely, will do. I know I have a lot to learn but im excited to nonetheless. Thank you.
 
Donta Black said:
I was always taught to Aux my Reverbs, but sometimes I notices the parameters sometimes aren't so great on particular instruments, a bass kick for example. I always used one Reverb, but im trying to obtain the clearest mix possible. I have a feeling this common sense, just to make another aux that does not respond to bass freq. , what are your procedures?
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Absolutely. Your intuition is correct.

You can make another reverb aux that rolls off the bass on the signal before it hits the reverb.

There are many reasons to use multiple reverbs in a session...

There are many reverbs of all different types. you can use them to color your mix as you creatively see fit.
 
dvyce said:
There are many reverbs of all different types. you can use them to color your mix as you creatively see fit.
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Great comment! I find this is true with all effects, that the various types should be used creatively as you see fit. Having various types of all effects assists in the overall creative process. It's good to try to become structured around the various types of effects, like for instance evaluate what effect types you have, what effect types you need to get more of and during the creative process you might not start selecting particular piece of some effect right away, but first consider the type(s) of the effects based on the understanding about what you want to achieve and what type of effect(s) can achieve that. In fact, in a way it's kind of more important to understand the effect types, than the effects themselves. Well, that's not entirely true, but it definitely helps a lot to be an expert on particular types of each fx. (e.g. plate reverb)

Also wanted to add that in general when you apply reverb fxs, it's very important to feed the reverb the right balanced frequencies, because reverbs can easily amplify noisy frequencies caused by frequency unbalance. What you can do is to push the wetness to the max, then push maximum signal in too, then behind the reverb frequency sweep the mid and side components, isolate the problem frequency areas and fix those with a dynamic EQ. When it's optimal like this, place a limiter behind the reverb, limit fairly hard and fine tune the dynamic EQ settings. Then finally back off on the limitation until the reverb sounds great in mid and side. If you send a group of sound sources into this reverb, go into solo mode and lower the wetness, so that the sound source the reverb makes most noisy in solo dictates the wetness. With wetness I also mean the length of the reverb tail.

I would also say that having a lo-pass and hi-pass filter on the reverb at the end of the chain is most likely a good choice, it helps to silence/un-edge the mix. But stay gentle with it.

Another thing is to be aware of collisions between the natural reverb of the room and your reverb effects. For instance a snare can have quite a lot of room in it all in all from the various microphones (top/bottom/room/overhead) and the compressor release times on these microphones will set the length of those reverb tails. If you then put other reverbs on top or in the mix, they might collide in an unwanted way, therefore it's important to pay attention to the way various rooms/reverbs fit in the mix and that when they combine they cause a nice resonance rather than modulation noise.
 
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I've heard it as one of those "Tips" you see in videos that you should use only 1 reverb because it makes your mix more coherent or glued...

...total nonsense.

It actually contradicts itself if you think about it. If you had all your instruments in a single room playing at once they would all be in different locations relative to both the listener and environment, so they would all have totally different reverb characteristics. So if it's naturalism you want, to actually locate your sounds psycho-acoustically, you should use a different reverb setting on every instrument.
 
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