The Basics of Reverb

Reverb is one of the three essential processes in mixing music.

Alongside compression and EQ, it’s a crucial tool for achieving a balanced and musical
mix.

What is reverb?

Reverb is short for reverberation. It refers to the lingering decay of a sound as it bounces
off surfaces in an acoustic space.

In music production, reverb is an audio effect that generates artificial ambience to

simulate the kind that might occur in a natural environment.

Audio engineers and producers use reverb devices in place of acoustic reverb to have
greater control over the sonic properties of the ambience.
This allows them to ensure that the length, quality and blend of room reflections is
sonically pleasing and appropriate for the mix.

Why is reverb used in mixing?

Reverb is used in mixing to situate a sound within the artificial space of a mix.
Reverb is used in mixing to situate a sound within the artificial space of a mix.
Ambience helps sound captured by a microphone feel more natural to the listener.
It also enhances the blending of different instruments by creating the illusion of a
shared acoustic environment.
With all those benefits, you might be wondering why engineers don’t just record the
sound with natural reverberation to begin with.
In some cases they do, but it often doesn’t give the best results for a number of reasons.
Before the introduction of artificial reverberation, the only way to create reverb was by
recording it acoustically.
This meant capturing a sound source in a large environment with naturally reflective
surfaces.
There are a few downsides to this method. First off, qualities like the time and timbre of
the reverberation can’t be easily changed in a single room.
But more importantly, large reflective spaces make it difficult to capture the sound
without sonic coloration from the room.
When sound waves emanate from the source and reflect off the walls, floor and ceiling,
the reflections blend the direct sound when they reach the microphone.
In some cases the direct sound and its reflections can reinforce each other. But they can
also create what’s known as destructive interference by canceling each other out.
This colors the sound and gives engineers less control, making it difficult to balance in a
mix.
The solution? Controllable ambience with predictable qualities that engineers can adjust
to meet their needs in the mix.
That’s where reverb comes in!
How to use reverb in your music production
Using reverb well is an art form.
But that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to get started. After all, your DAW probably comes
with a built-in reverb plugin you can start using right away.
How to set up reverb in your DAW

1. Create an aux send and aux return channel to run your reverb in parallel. This
lets you blend in the effect signal without changing the level of the unaffected
sound.
2. Insert the reverb on the aux return channel and set its mix control to 100% wet.
3. Send sources to the reverb channel by increasing their send level
4. Tweak the reverb parameters to dial in your desired sound.

How to dial in your reverb in the mix

common controls you’ll find on reverb plugins a

Decay time

Decay time sets the overall duration of the reverb tail. Longer settings produce a spacier
trailing decay that gradually fades into the background.
Decay time sets the overall duration of the reverb tail.
Long decay times are generally associated with larger acoustic spaces like cathedrals or
concert halls. Try these if you’re looking for an expansive ambient reverb.
Shorter settings produce closer, more abrupt reflections that can simulate a small or
enclosed acoustic space like a tiled bathroom.

Pre-delay

Pre-delay introduces a short delay before the reverb signal begins its decay cycle.
It’s used to give the dry signal some space before the reverb kicks in. This is especially
useful for dense reverbs that build up quickly.
If the reverb signal feels too present on the onset of notes or hits, try increasing the
pre-delay time before reaching for the decay time or wet/dry balance.
Damping

Acoustic spaces react in different ways to the frequency content present in a sound.
For example, the brightness, darkness and weight of acoustic reflections is affected by
the materials of the surfaces and the geometry of the room.
This absorption of high and low frequencies in acoustic reflections is called damping.
By altering your reverb plugin’s damping controls, you can affect the tonal balance of
the reverb signal.
Try high damping values in the low frequencies and low ones in the high frequencies for
reverbs with a short decay time to emulate a compact space.
Try a high damping value in the high frequencies of a long reverb to emulate a spacious
cathedral.

Modulation

Modulation is one of the unique sonic possibilities that came with the development of
algorithmic reverb.
Inside the algorithm, acoustic reflections are represented by delay lines. That means it’s
possible to vary their delay time with an LFO.
The result is a modulated effect that sounds a bit like chorus or vibrato on the
reverberation.
It makes the reverb tail feel extra lush and dreamy and it’s often used in genres that rely
on heavy ambience.

Hot tip

It’s easy to go overboard when you first get started with reverb. It can be tempting to use
settings that are too wet or too long when you’re not being careful. In many mixing
situations, less is often more when it comes to reverb. Your reverb should be audible but
not overbearing and certainly not contributing to muddiness or harshness in the mix.
Sophisticated reverb plugins often contain many more controls than the few I’ve listed
here.
Types of reverb

Chamber

The earliest reverberation devices used physical spaces to create ambience.

Called echo chambers, these were entire rooms dedicated to artificial reverberation.
They worked by placing a speaker at one end and a microphone at the other.
The earliest reverberation devices used physical spaces to create ambience.
The engineer would play the recorded sound back through the speaker and capture
resulting reverberation with the microphone.
Real chamber reverb is impractical for the majority of studios because it requires so
much space.
But it had a unique sound that’s associated with early hit recordings.
Luckily for modern producers there are plenty of great chamber reverb plugins available
today:

● UAD Capitol Chambers

● Abbey Road Chambers
● Softube Atlantis Chambers

Plate

The next innovation in artificial ambience was plate reverb.

It works by using a transducer to send na audio signal through a large plate of metal.
On the other end, another transducer picks up the vibrations in the metal and converts
them back to a sound signal.
The result is a dense yet smooth reverberation that builds up quickly but doesn’t get in
the way of the dry signal.
Producers often use plate reverb on vocals, drums and guitars that need smooth
ambience to sit in the mix.

● Arturia Rev Plate

● Valhalla Plate
● Dragonfly Plate
Spring

Like plate reverb, spring reverb uses the physical behavior of a material to simulate
ambience.
Known as electromechanical reverb, plate and spring both use transducers and metal to
achieve their sound.
Compared to a massive plate of sheet metal, a spring tank is relatively compact. But the
coiled spring produces a different quality of sound that’s slightly less realistic than that
of a plate.
Even so, spring reverb is an essential sound in music production due to its association
with classic amplifiers and effects units from the 60s and 70s.
Spring reverb has a short and cloudy decay with a characteristic “drip” sound when
pushed hard.
Try spring reverb plugins such as the three listed below:

● Eventide Spring
● U-he Twangström
● Audiothing Springs

Drums

Drums and other percussive sounds typically sound more realistic with small to
mid-sized rooms (shorter reverb tails, shorter pre-delay), or plate programs. A longer
pre-delay can create the impression of a “phantom” doubled attack, while a longer
reverb decay can affect directionality and clarity. Too much high-frequency content can
create a harsh, brittle sound, particularly on snare drums. Lower density settings can
also sound coarse and unnatural on drums. Higher densities and warmer reverbs will
generally deliver better results.

Acoustic Instruments

Acoustic instruments like strings, woodwinds and some vocals can benefit from larger
room and hall settings and longer pre-delay times, which can help smooth and add
depth. Those larger spaces can also be useful in widening a stereo image. Overused, a
large room sound can “blur” an instrument’s attack and create a “swimmy” sounding
mix that lacks definition and directionality. One trick for helping to define, rather than
blur, the imaging in your mix, is to use reverb in combination with delay. Pan the
original sound slightly to one side. Delay the reverb return slightly, anywhere from 3 to
10 ms, and pan it to the opposite side. This works particularly well to help separate
sounds in similar tonal ranges, like multiple stacked guitar tracks.

Vocals

Vocals can be particularly susceptible to losing definition with larger room settings.
Especially with shorter pre-delay times, the reverb can “step on” the vocal, robbing
intelligibility. Using a longer pre-delay before the actual reverb kicks in allows the
vocal’s clarity and impact to cut through, but gives it a natural “tail” that rings out
without blurring. Background vocals are somewhat less critical in this respect, and can
often benefit from a larger room setting, which can smooth and blend multiple parts.
Be Creative
We’ve spent most of this column talking about the best ways to use reverb naturally.
And for the most part, that’s a good idea. In fact, in most instances, the best use of
reverb is to create a mix where its use is pretty much indiscernible.But as with most
effects, experimentation can lead to some great surprises, so don’t be afraid to bend the
rules. Try combining a couple of different instances of the same reverb with slightly
different parameters and panning them left and right. Or try adding a subtle chorus or
distortion to a reverb. Again, subtlety is key here – a little bit of something unusual,
buried deeply in the mix, might be just the thing to give your mix that special
“something.”