It’s not unusual to see comments along the lines of ‘I don’t like reverb’ online. It has to be said these tend to be from less experienced users though there are well known examples of very successful mixers who aren’t fans of the ‘verb. If you’re using reverb in a way which draws attention to it then that is often a sign that you’re not using it as well as you might. Nearly every mix uses reverb. Most of them don’t sound ‘reverby’. If yours do then this article might help.

Why Do Some People Dislike Reverb Anyway?

I love reverb but I understand using it has consequences. However, if the only artificial reverb I’d ever heard was that made by the spring reverb on a typical guitar amp, I’d probably avoid it too (don’t laugh, some of us are old enough to remember the days when affordable reverb was a Great British Spring (basically a drainpipe with sockets in the end) or this cheap Realistic unit. Some reverbs emulate believable spaces, some create pleasing reverb effects and some are attention grabbing, characterful or coloured. There’s no such thing as bad reverb, spring reverb is a great example here, but there is such a thing as the wrong reverb.

So, if you aren’t happy with the results you’re getting, how should you approach using reverb to avoid a splashy smoosh and instead pull your mix together in that way well deployed reverb can when used appropriately? Here are some tips on getting your use of reverb right and some common pitfalls to avoid.

What Are You Trying To Achieve Using Reverb?

If you’ve ever been to a gig where the insecure singer has their vocal buried under a blanket of reverb you’ll know that putting on a ton of reverb doesn’t make a poor singer sound better, just further away… It illustrates the point that reverb can place a sound in a perceived space. Using more of it on one instrument than another can push the one with reverb back in the mix and the drier one forwards. Used carefully reverb can make things sound bigger and, depending on the reverb, lusher. However, for every positive there is a corresponding negative. Reverb can make things sound distant and muddled. It can accentuate undesirable aspects of the sound and it can distract the listener’s attention from the performance.

Unhelpfully, a professional reverb plugin can be a scary place for a novice. It does not follow that the more controls you are presented with, the better the results will be. Unlike processors such as EQ and compression, where the most appropriate settings are completely source-dependent making presets largely irrelevant, reverb is an example where presets can be very useful indeed. Decay time, HF roll and predelay are probably all you need to get a good result.

So if it’s so simple, why do many people get it wrong? Here are five potential pitfalls and some suggestions on how best to avoid them.

Too Many Types

Before worrying about setting up the parameters associated with using a reverb, first consider the reverb you’re using. Not the particular plugin but the algorithm. While every DAW comes with all the processing you need for mixing music (and there is increasingly little reason to suggest that your choice of third party plugins is much more than preference when it comes to everyday processing), reverb is something of an exception. The reverbs which come with the major DAWs are perfectly respectable but a premium reverb from the likes of LiquidSonics or Valhalla sound noticeably better.

Once you have your best reverb open in the session (on an aux track being fed from sends please…) which type or ‘algorithm’ do you choose? In a poll of the Production Expert community asking which type the community used the most it was the plate which came out top. Possibly not a surprise because as the plate is a generic reverb effect which doesn’t place the sound in a particular space it is a good choice for making sounds prettier without putting them in a particular environment. Here are some audio examples of a vocal with different reverb types applied:

Halls sound luxurious but often aren’t the best choice for busy music. Rooms are often first choice for percussive material. Chambers are often overlooked but can sound excellent on vocals and then there are ‘speciality’ reverbs like non linear and gated reverbs, shimmer verbs or ambiences which can sound very dry indeed. Which you choose is of course up to you but if you are using a reverb which suggests a specific space, it is probably a good idea to use it across multiple tracks to bring those sounds together sonically.

It has to be said that if the brightness and decay time of different reverb types are matched, the differences become less obvious, we associate halls with longer reverb times than rooms after all. The most convincing results can be found using the different algorithms with their expected decay times. If you want a sub 1 second reverb you’ll probably want a room, if you want a 3 second reverb you might want a hall. Very long small rooms exist and chambers are an excellent example of that, and plates can be any length, though mine are almost always between 1 and 2 seconds. Here are some examples of an electric guitar through four different Lexicon reverb algorithms with their decay times and perceived brightness matched. They sound different but superficially the difference isn’t striking.

If you are finding it difficult to hear the difference that’s probably because the most important characteristics of a reverb are the level, the length, the predelay and the brightness. The other stuff matters but those things really matter.

How many different reverbs should you use in a typical mix? Of course there are always exceptions, this isn’t a rule but three is a typical answer. I’d suggest two and whatever ‘speciality’ reverbs you might feel necessary. If you have a short, bright reverb for percussive sounds and a longer darker reverb for vocals and backline you’ll probably have what you need. If you want a third reverb it might well be on a single source and in that case using reverb as an insert is probably more convenient than setting up another send/return loop.

Too Much

When setting up reverb it can be tempting to use too much. But how much is that? You want to be able to hear it or what’s the point in using it in the first place - right? Start by making sure you aren’t in solo. If you like to use solo when selecting your reverb then fair enough, but what it sounds like in solo isn’t relevant to the mix. Listen in context with the rest of the mix and always judge the correct amount by turning up the reverb. Not down. Dial it in until you can hear it and then back it off just a bit. That should get you into the right ball park. Of course if you have a clear reason to go really heavy on the reverb then great but as a rule of thumb this works every time for me.

Too Long

How long the decay time of your reverb should be depends on the song and the arrangement but it broadly holds true that for slower songs with sparser arrangements, a longer reverb can be successfully used than would work in a busier or faster arrangement. Exactly how long is of course down to taste but there is no requirement that reverb tails should match the tempo the way some mixers match release times of compressors to the tempo of songs. Reverb is usually supposed to tie notes together. However don’t think that you can only have one decay time per reverb. DAW automation exists and lengthening and shortening the reverb tail from section to section is common practice.

Too Bright

Bright reverb sounds great. Dial up a Bright Plate setting and run an unfiltered sawtooth bass through it and if you needed convincing you will be. But that tishy cloud of audio fairy dust doesn’t sound as appealing when it’s catching and exaggerating every ‘s’ and ‘t’ on your vocal. Impressive and distracting are different sides of the same coin. The first thing to consider is whether or not you need such a bright reverb. Often shorter reverbs are left bright to add density and energy to a drum room reverb, for example. Longer reverbs often work better darker. In nature, the large volumes of air in the large spaces usually associated with long reverbs absorb high frequencies fastest leading to a darkening of the tail. The small size and highly reflective nature of reverb chambers results in a distinctive long yet bright tone so there aren’t any rules but the short and bright and long and dark is definitely a thing.

You can dial back the HF using the filters you’ll find in most reverb plugins but a great way to keep your reverb bright but avoid the distracting ‘ess’ problem is to use a de-esser on the send and before the reverb to keep those sounds out of the reverb in the first place.

Too Much Bass

While too much brightness on your reverb usually makes itself obvious, too much low frequency information in your reverb can creep up on you. A build up of lows in your reverb will result in a muddy mix which lacks definition. However if you leave the low end completely dry you can end up with a mix which sounds unnatural.

Reverb places sounds in a space and by bringing them together using reverb, if one of them is completely dry it sounds unnatural. Used wisely this can be a very cool effect. Drop a bone dry acapella vocal into a gap in a big, reverby arrangement and it will definitely grab the attention of the listener. However if you envelop your drums in a great sounding reverb and leave the kick bone dry it will sound like a kick from a different kit. Listen to True by Spandau Ballet. You’ll hear what I mean…

You might have heard that you don’t put reverb on bass or bass instruments. This can be true but it’s more helpful to think about controlling bass energy going into reverbs. This is easy to do by using high pass filters, but leave the bottom end intact on the dry path, you’re only keeping bass out of the reverb, not off the track altogether.

So, in summary, when using reverb, as with anything else you do when mixing, be clear what you are trying to achieve. Know why you are using reverb. Are you using it to bring groups of instruments together? Are you trying to bring elements forward but moving others back using reverb? Are you trying to add cohesion across the mix? Putting reverb on things to ‘make them sound better’ rarely works. Just watch some karaoke! Most importantly of all, once you have set up your reverb across as much of the mix as you are using it on, turn down the reverb returns. Does it sound better with less?