Reverb Settings
We are used to hearing our music played indoors in buildings with acoustic properties. The natural reverberation affects all the sounds in a building. Every sound has the same reverb.
Pop production tends to use a variety of reverbs within the same mix; each instrument can have a different amount of Read more
Too much Reverb…?
Well, one thing I experienced over the years is that too much reverb can really destroy your mixes. All the time you spend optimizing and tweaking the frequency ranges of the different instruments can be in vain if you clutter your mixes with reverb. I’m not saying, don’t use it, but I want to point out a few things to try.
Firstly:
Set up a few reverbs in advance as a session template on your auxiliary busses. A short one which simulates a small room from about 0.5 – 0.8 seconds works great to give your drums a bit depth and space.
Secondly:
A dedicated snare verb of your choice would be the next step. This one creates the actual illusion of the drum space. If the snare is reverberated the brain thinks the entire kit is reverberated too and is sharing the same acoustical space. Thus, you don’t need much reverb on the rest of the kit and you can use a shorter one to keep your mixes clean.
Thirdly:
Any additional reverbs should be your FX for Vocals, Guitar etc..
Now get mixing. In case the song requires 2 or more different snare reverb characteristics do so but keep using the short room verb which you set up in the beginning for the rest of the kit like the toms, high hat and the overheads. This will maintain clarity and sonic precision even though your brain thinks the entire kit is reverberated greatly.
You could even add the guitars and bass a little bit to that short room in case you DI’ed or close miked. This gives the illusion of the “band” in the same acoustical space and glues your mix together.
The other advantage of that approach is that you save CPU or DSP power for much more important things like Dynamics, EQ’ing and other FX. You can also keep the buffer size down to have the smallest possible latency in case you want integrate hardware gear simultaneously or still have to put down some tracks.
Regards Alex
