One of the most difficult plug ins to master is also one of the most useful when it comes to pro sounding mixes.
Reverb is vital when making your mix mesh - from adding that missing something to vocals to bringing the percussion together.
Here are 5 tips on using reverb to make your mixes better...
Reverb and vocals can be the perfect match or mortal enemies - make sure you don't add too much of the stuff and drown your vocalist in a sea of what they've just said. A small decay, maybe under 1 second should be sufficient for most music. Make sure you're adding it in the mix, rather than soloing out the vocal track - you need to hear if it's muddying up the rest of the music!
Ever wonder why some reverb presets have it set to a 100% wet signal? Most sequencers will give you the option to send your vocals to another channel, where you can apply effects to your heart's content, then mix that with the original channel! Great for adding reverb without having to worry about that balance between retaining the original clarity of the vocals and getting the sweet reverby sound.
While a lot of producers will advocate de-essing, some more minimalist genres can really benefit from adding a reverb with a high pass filter on it, so it only accentuates the highest notes and the s's and t's. This can also be applied to piano with great effect, so those highest notes really bring the goosebumps up on your arms!
When trying to get percussion that doesn't sound too unnatural, sending the drum bus with all the percussion to a channel with some high pass filtered reverb (try above 1khz to reduce the muddiness from reverbifying (I hear making up words is all the rage) the low end frequencies) can be a brilliant way to make samples sound more natural and live.
This is a great technique for making some vocals really build up and stand out - add a bunch of reverb to a vocal, freeze it down to an audio track, reverse it, then put it leading up to the original vocal. This gives a great ghostly build to the vocal which sounds seriously good in the right context! Experiment with filtering to get even more unusual effects - a low pass filtered reverse reverb can sound like a bassy rumble leading up to the lyric, for example!
