Creating Space with Reverbs

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Good morning children! Today, we're going to talk about reverbs.

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I see two main uses for reverbs.

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First one, the most obvious maybe, the ones you can hear...

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long reverbs, plated, gated reverbs, reversed reverbs...

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the kind of effects you have on my voice right now, which is really annoying and we're gonna turn off, because it sounds like 1984 and it's not what we're going to discuss today. Thank you.

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And then, there's the other kind the kind you can't tell it's there, the more natural kind.

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It's there, but you can't tell, like right now.

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But if I turn it off... Oh! Now you can tell that obviously, there was reverb before.

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I have to turn it back on, like this, for you to notice...

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that there was a reverb, but it's more of a space.

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Off feels pretty dry. Let me show you how we do this.

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As a concrete example of what I just discussed I'm gonna play you a piece of music. This is of the Sara Lieb record.

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It's produced by Matt Pierson, and mixed by "moi." Here's what to listen for.

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Try and focus on the space around the instruments the depth, front to back, and the height of the mix.

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At first, when the reverbs are on you hear them as reverbs. Can you spot them? Use the time when I turn them off to get a feel for them When they're gone, do you miss them? Does it sound good? Is it still a record? When I turn them back on, can you spot them better? Can you now hear what they were doing before I turned them off? That's a good first level listening. Let's start there.

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It's a pretty fun contrast between with reverb, and without reverb.

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There are 3 different reverbs, but it doesn't sound wet.

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It sounds in situation and natural, which is what we're working on today.

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When I turn the reverbs off what you're hearing is the natural sound of the room.

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It's a pretty big room, but it still sounds dry because everything is pretty closed-miked to get good separation since everybody is in the room with very few gobos.

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For example, if I play the bass there's a lot of piano and drums in the bass microphone.

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Now, it sounds good enough, it's not going to ruin the record but I couldn't put the microphone this far away from the bass because it would get so much bleed it would ruin the sound of the record so I had to put it this close.

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The problem is that, well... it sounds this close! And I don't want to be this close to a bass, ever.

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The point of this first reverb I'm gonna show you is to do this.

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Not to do this...

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To do this.

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Try and move the instruments back a little bit.

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Very useful in this case, and also on vocals when they've been recorded this close to the microphone.

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I called this first track the Office and it sounds just like that.

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So it's a very short reverb, or early reflections.

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I'm using the Oxford, because it has a very strong Early Reflections section.

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Let's listen to the bass, with and without then I'll explain what it's about.

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This is flat.

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When I turn the Office off on the bass, it goes "whooik!" It gets really close, because it's closed-miked.

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The Office makes it feel like it's in a bigger room because I'm using early reflections, which are the tone of our rooms.

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You can tell the sound of a room from the tone of its early reflections.

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There are small delays that are so quick that you don't really hear them as delays, but as the tone of the room.

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That's what I'm using the Office for.

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To achieve this sound, either you use the Oxford and the Early Reflections section or you can do it with any decent reverb that has a very short setting.

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As you may see here, I'm actually EQ'ing it.

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You could do that with an external EQ if your reverb doesn't have a built-in EQ.

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Why am I EQ'ing it? Well, I'm high-passing it so that the bottom of the mix doesn't get muddy if I put bass or bass drum in it.

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Yes, I do put bass drums in my Office.

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I'm low-passing it to keep the high end clean in the same manner.

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I don't want it to shine, I don't want it to show, I just want it to do this.

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The middle-cut here is to make sure the reverb sounds dull and does not attract attention to itself.

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I don't want to hear this stuff, I just want to feel it.

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Any decent reverb would let you do this: short, clean, and out of the way.

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The second reverb in our trio lets me create depth in the mix.

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We've seen distance with the Office Now we're here, we're gonna create depth behind that instrument.

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It lets you elongate the instrument make it not so dry, and also create space between the instrument and the back of the mix.

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I usually use a Plate.

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Some people use Chambers, especially Lexicon fans I like plates. This is the UAD Plate.

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Now, length and color are up to you, it's a taste thing.

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But this is what it does.

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These are my overheads, with the Plate on it, nothing but the Plate.

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No Office.

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First, with.

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You can really hear the Plate creating a sense of distance between the snare and the back of the mix.

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When I cut it out, all you hear is one lone little snare in the middle of the sound field.

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Don't worry if you don't have the UAD Plate emulation there are many plug-ins out there that sound good and do the same thing, more or less.

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Here's what you need to make absolutely sure of.

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First, make sure it's not too bright because it will attract attention to itself which is the opposite of what we're looking for.

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Second, make sure it's not too fat.

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If it's too fat, it's gonna muddy up your mix.

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Third, make sure the length of the plate is appropriate for your track.

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For a fast track, use a shorter plate so it doesn't bleed all over from hit to hit.

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If you have a slow track, make sure it's long enough that you don't hear it cut off between hits too much.

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Not that complicated. It doesn't have to be that precise, it's loose.

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This is what you need...

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sauce in between the hits, so they don't feel so dry and you get that back wall sense.

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The third reverb in my trio is the Hall.

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I use a Hall to create height because my brain, and probably yours too, are preconditioned like Pavlov's dog.

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We've been in halls, and we remember that when it sounded like that there probably was a really high ceiling above our heads.

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We are simple human beings after all. Let me show you.

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I'm using the Oxford reverb because I know it very well and I have a preset I've been using forever and I'm way too lazy to create another preset in a different reverb since this one works for me just fine.

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You can do the exact same thing with any reverb that has...

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a very nice Hall, which is most of them and enough control to high-pass the bottom of it.

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This is what I'm doing here, I'm removing the bottom.

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Why am I doing that? I feel it gives more of a sense of height if I dont hear the lows, and just the highs.

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Here's the piano track, with just a Hall...

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No Plate, no Office.

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On first, off then.

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You noticed that it doesn't give a tail as much as the Plate did.

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It really gives height.

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To summarize what we've seen so far you have the Office that creates distance between you and the instrument.

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You have the Plate that creates distance between the instrument and the back wall and some sauce.

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And then the Hall that creates height above the instruments.

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The combination of the three is how you create a natural sounding environment. Let me show you.

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Am I going to use all three reverbs on every track? No! I'm gonna make smart choices based on the actual recording.

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For example, on the bass drum...

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am I going to put a distance between the bass drum and the back wall? Probably not, it's going to be messy.

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Do I want the bass drum to sound a little further away? Yes, I do, because it's a jazz record and I'm not gonna sit right in front of the bass drum.

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So if I solo the bass drum...

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and I listen to it dry...

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It could use a little distance.

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Here's the same thing with my Office.

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Without.

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With.

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Same thing with the snare.

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I like the way the snare is plus it bleeds like crazy in the overheads that's the whole point of overheads.

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So I'm just gonna give it a little distance.

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This is without.

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With.

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Without.

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With.

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If I add the overheads...

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on the overheads, what I'm doing is I'm adding the Plate to create that for the whole set and then the Hall to create some height.

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Without.

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The whole set, but without the reverb on the overheads.

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Same thing with the Plate added.

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It could use a little less...

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This is nice! And then, add the Hall.

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So we went from here on the drum set...

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To here.

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Just a little touch of some reverbs here and there.

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The bass, we remember we used a lot of Office on because it was so upfront.

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I used a little bit of Plate, I don't know if I like it.

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Let's check it out.

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I hear it, it's intrusive. Let's try less.

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Even less.

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Now, this is with no reverb whatsoever on the bass Way too close, right? Add the Office...

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That works! A little bit of Plate, just a tiny bit, just to say we did it.

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Then, what's the lead there? The piano! First, completely dry.

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Sounds a little vulgar. Let's put some distance between him and me.

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So, let's start here.

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Too much, obviously.

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If you don't know when to stop when it's too much or not enough here's how to think about it, until you form your own taste.

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Start with nothing... Push it up...

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When you start hearing it, back it off a half dB.

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That's a good safe start.

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Back to the piano. This sounds good! It's lacking some magic, so I'm gonna put some Hall on it.

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Too much...

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I like this, but you don't know until you listen to it in the sauce of the whole mix. Check it out! It could use more...

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As always, there's no perfect amount of reverb or even, there's no right amount of reverb.

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It doesn't exist, because it's all up to taste.

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Are you making a vintage record? Or, a modern record? Are you making a weird sounding record? I don't know! Your taste will vary.

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But these are good techniques to be able to have...

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some natural sounding environments and play with them.

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What I'd like to do now is play you the track and mute each and every reverb, one by one so you see what they all do in the context of a mix...

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so you realize it's really difficult to do something like this with just one reverb.

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The whole point is that the combination of the three reverbs lets you create a natural sounding environment, without sounding wet.

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Check it out! I made a 4-bar loop, so that I can have 2 bars with and 2 bars without...

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and do that again a couple of times.

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First thing I'm gonna do is turn the Office on and off.

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Pay attention to the presence of the drums and to the presence of the bass. Check it out.

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First, with.

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Pretty cool, right? Within the mix, even though everything else stays the same the drums and the bass go "hoo, hoo, hoo".

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Nice! Let's do the same thing, I turn the Office back on.

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Let's do the same thing with the Plate.

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I don't think I need to tell you what to listen for, it'll be obvious.

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Right? When I turn it off, everything feels pretty flat and cardboard-like and dry and kind of like vulgar a little bit.

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Let's move on to the Hall.

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The sky kind of falls on our heads, every time I turn this one off, right? It feels small, and heavy, and a little bit claustrophobic.

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All the height is gone.

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Each and every one of these reverbs are crucial and bring one element to the sauce of the three.

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Now, I'm going to play the same loop with all the reverbs, and then without any reverb at the beginning, so we get a sense for the journey we've come through using these three tricks. Check it out! This kind of reverb work is fun to do and it will set you apart from other producers and mixers because it's subtle and requires practice.

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Speaking of which, please download the samples and try at home it won't hurt a bit.

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Also, if you're having a hard time hearing the differences go see the How to Listen video and then come back and listen to this one with your eyes closed.

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Et voilà!