Merry Christmas Yall! Hope Santa got you that 10000$ piece of gear you wished for ;)

When it comes to reverb on a return, I don't understand what I'm supposed to do to when mixing it (especially with mid/side eq). Reverb creates a lot of width & side energy which sound good, but muddy the mix. Do I want to pull the sides down and boost mids, or vice-versa?

I want to objectively mix the reverb send, but I don't know what the objectives should be. Would appreciate any tips, articles, direction.

 

You can lowcut and highcut and dip the 2-3k area with an EQ, on the send BEFORE you hit the reverb. Basically "The Abbey Road Reverb Trick".
Don't neccessarily EQ the reverb return. Experiment which you like the best, or if it's a combination of both. Try (very hard) de-esser BEFORE the reverb for example.

If a reverb is too wide (more Sides channel than the Mid/mono channel), you can simply narrow it down by panning Left and Right more towards the center (=down the Sides and up the Mid/mono).
Sides will cancel out to silence when summed to mono.

"Mud" is usually around 300Hz, where there is strong probabliity of build-up - especially when starting out. Dipping or (low)cutting at 300 reduces the risk of masking/overlapping.

Also try ducking/compressing the reverbs and delays, with the source on the key/sidechain input.

 

Last edited: Dec 28, 2022

short answer : eq the reverb: always

lowcut/highcut so that the reverb doesnt takeway or mask the "sound"
i always eq before it hits the reverb and also after to keep everything in control

 

I always do this at the start of the chain to filter out what I don't want being processed.

It's always after I apply fx and get crazy is when I look at the spectrum at the end and I have energy in the areas I didn't bring in. That's when I'm conflicted. It sounds good, but its probably clashing when they all sum together. And if I end up eqing out everything I added, then what was the point of adding all the fx lol.

I'll give those methods you mentioned a try next time. Thanks!

 

What they said. Also, there are a few other things you can do with reverb like ducking, automating, or straight up trying another reverb (after all, there's a reason why there are so many reverbs on the market). You also have (usually) a lot of common parameters you can tweak to shape the reverb to your liking and avoid nasty stuff. Doesn't have to be all EQ, though you might need some of it anyway.

Also also, there's a chance you might be sending too many things to a reverb and the overall arrangement of the song doesn't like it.

 

So that's where I am. I don't know how to check for masking signals with reverb sends, like I don't know what would be a problem on the spectrum, or to my ears. Maybe there's an article, or a book, or a guide somewhere I can read to get a better understanding.

 

reverb is resources expensive. I always try to get the best possible sound from a short and a medium distance reverb for the entire project. and then maybe one or two more if realllly needed. after this, you need to understand the signal flow of your daw's channel strip. you could be subtractively or additively eqing and compressing and saturating all in the same 1 bounce/pass.

your main two reverbs are often compromise so you are not loading these reverb processors all over the place. you are better with more instances of any other processor type.

 

No.
Eq the reverb if it needs it. It's entirely a question of the context it's in.

 

First, as always, shout to @reliefsan for still rocking that pimp-ass avatar. It always gives me chuckle.

And I'm in agreement. It's not "against the rules to EQ after a reverb, but I prefer placing an EQ before the reverb on the Send. Also, I avoid tighter Qs, set my low/high pass filters to 6/12dB, and use EQs with large, soft curves. My new favorite for this is Kazrog's True 252, which is a plugin that I can only describe as magically delicious. Seriously, when it dropped I made the mistake of demoing it right away since I'm a big fan of Kazrog, and I ended up throwing money at it that should have been spent on groceries. Big facts.
As for mid/side, and anything that runs into deeper mix-like-this territory, it's all really on a per-mix basis. I know it sounds like a bullshit answer, but use your ears to catch the mud. I often solo just the instruments that are heavily occupying the lower-mids and then switch the solo on the reverb send on and off to try and get a better feel for how much of the mud is actually due to the reverb, and how much might actually be present (and need to be removed,) on those instrument channels before touching the EQ on the send... if that makes sense.

If you're interested...

https://kazrog.com/collections/frontpage/products/true-252

 

As always there is no right answer cause it depends on the material. I for one got better at mixing when I stopped thinking like a scientist and more like an artist ( that is not at all, and go for feeling rather than numbers)

 

Cut the lows (*all* the lows, with 24 dB/octave hi-pass at 200 hz if you have to, not just mid or side), make it quieter (16-20 dB down from unity). Probably also make it shorter.
If you use it for sense of space, that is. If you use reverb for sound design, then use it as an insert, set up the mix the way you want you want and just mix the sound like you would mix a synth with a long release and a lot of width.
Muddy lows aren't as big of an issue with single sounds, but look for reverb plugins/gear that lets you attenuate low frequencies (either as damping or just a plain filter outside of feedback path) of wet signal, just in case.