An Introduction to Reverb

Synths are like a good meal - no matter how well made they are, if they're too dry then they won't be quite as satisfying.

So how do you stop your synths from violently poking out of the mix?   Reverb is the answer!   Let's delve into it and find out why...


What is Reverb?

Reverb is caused when a sound is made in an enclosed space - for example, hitting a snare drum in a room.   The sound will echo around the room and the combination of a large number of echoes results in the sound appearing to tail off over time rather than stop abruptly.

Thanks to computers, reverb has become a vital part of the song-making process with digital reverb plug-ins.   There are several different types, but they all emulate the above effect.

What can you do with reverb?

Depending on the characteristics of the room, reverb has different qualities.   Digital reverb plug-ins and hardware emulate this with a variety of parameters - the most common parameters include...

Decay Time / Reverberation time - this is the time it takes for the reverb to decay to 60dB below the volume of the original source sound.

Diffusion - This controls the number of echoes that combine to make the reverb - more echoes make for a constant decaying noise, whereas less echoes result in a more sparse decay of close-together echoes.

Pre delay - This is the length of time before the reverb kicks in.

Room size - This is the size of the virtual room that the sound is in (I know, I was surprised too.)   This should generally be proportional to the decay time, but can create some unusual effects if you vary it.

Dry/Wet - This controls what percentage of the output from the reverb unit has the reverb effect applied and what percentage is the original source sound.

Some useful techniques

1. Ghostly vocals

Add in some reverb with a large decay time to the first word of a vocal line.   Freeze it down, reverse it and put it leading up to the vocal - voila!   A seriously cool effect.

2. Extending a hit

Sometimes sampled hits end that bit too soon - a little bit of reverb with a high diffusion will allow you to use the decay time to define how long it takes to end, even after the original source sample has finished.

3. Big Snares - Gated Reverb

Fancy going back to the 80s?   Just add a massive decay time and a huge room to the reverb on a snare, then use a gate plug in to cut it off after a short-ish time - Big, epic sounding drums are within your grasp!