I've seen people referencing using early reflections to create a sense of space in a mix. Now that I know one of the reverb plugins I'm using will let me adjust this parameter and mute the tails, etc., I wanted to get some feedback from the fine people on AS about usage of this in a mixing session. If anyone is willing to chime in with their usage of this, experiences, etc. please do!
I'll be experimenting with this over the weekend, and kind of wanted to get some pointers to send me in the right direction with my testing, as well as what to be listening for while making adjustments.
Currently, in the project I'm working on, I use the Brick Drum Room in Altiverb on a send to glue everything together in the same space. I haven't really tinkered with the adjustments too much beyond the default settings. I'm wondering if "just" using the early reflections would serve that purpose better and leave the mix somewhat less cluttered.

 

Slutz post: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-...-question-specifically-early-reflections.html
My own practice: I usually dial 'm down, only use them when I'm building large reverbs that still need texture..

 

@boomoperator, that post is also informative about using predelay in conjunction with early reflections. Great find! It's going to be interesting experimenting with this tonight!

 

Ive never experimented with this either. On a return, I follow my verbs with a gate and automate the gate threshold between min and max (for dubstep style wubs) compression here helps too depending on the style. I only want the tight metallic wide verb while the sounds are playing and use the gate to cut the tails.
I also do the same with delays for vox but the gate is in front of the effect, that way I can automate the min/max and accent certain words with the ping pong taps. Just a different (manual) method.
For both methods you use the release on the gate to make it smoother and not so open and shut.

 

Last edited: Jun 18, 2017

Shamelessly, I will give you a link to my thread I posted a while back. Not much but could be of some help.

https://audiosex.pro/threads/creating-depths-with-reverb.23228/

 

That's an interesting read. Thanks, @ed-enam. That's similar in some ways to what I decided to try.
I've taken a track of mine that I've always felt had decent clarity, and created a far, mid, and close bus, and am experimenting with different predelay, and tail volume settings for different tracks. The results are pretty promising. Clarity seems improved. Maybe it's just easier for the brain to hear where everything is. I suspect I'll have to re-eq certain tracks afterwards.

 

dont be scared to compress and eq your verbs too. (maybe pull a hair of the highs and all sub/low bass out) It evens them out and makes them easier to mix as well, especially when you have a lot of different sends going to them.

 

@subGENRE, that's a great tip, putting a gate on the reverb bus. I know somewhere I can use that, possibly on a delay.
Early reflections might also be a good way to get that width without the long tail. It was interesting experimenting with different settings, but I think I have some more to learn with it. My initial thoughts are it made the song much more pleasant and interesting to listen to after creating the three different reverb busses. The instruments all had their own space.

 

@digitaldragon
Try playing around with nugen stereoizer. I use it all the time for giving my groups (vox, leads, rhythms, drums sans kiks, percs, etc) their own space in the mix. Just in the stereo field tho. Watch a YT vid or read the manual so you know how to tweak it. The presets will get you part of the way there, but youll still want to dial it in exactly for the group/track. I used to use stereo savage a lot too, but the kd version keeps cutting out on me.

 

I went ahead and did two different songs to make sure that this wasn't the audio placebo effect I was hearing. In both cases, this seemed to open the mix up, adding depth and helping clarity in terms of each "space" that the instrument was in. I heard improvement, both in Headphones and on the monitors. I'll be testing "in the truck" today, but expect similar results"
I'll outline exactly what I did. It'd be killer if someone would recreate this in one of their own projects, and report back their results (sanity check for me).
So, create three buses. I labeled mine "Room", "Room Closer", and "Room Closest". I used Altiverb. I used the brick drum room for one song, and one of the studio rooms for the second song. I also used the Abbey Road Reverb Trick on an EQ in each reverb track (prior to the Altiverb plugin) and followed the chain with an instance of Gold using only the "Bus" (this seems to make the reverbs a little "sweeter" and more lush. Here you could do some additional EQ'ing/compressing though if it was needed. I didn't for testing because I wanted "vanilla" results for comparison.
So the settings for the "Room" track, predelay was at 14MS, Tail Volume at 0 db.
"Room Closer", predelay at 11 MS, Tail Volume at -2 db.
"Room Closest", predelay at 9 MS, Tail Volume at -3 db.
Predelay settings were calculated at 1MS~1.2 Feet. Tail Volume settings were along the lines of if something is closer to you, you hear more early reflections, less tail.
Then I sent the furthest instruments to the "Room" bus (drums, bass).
Next I sent the slightly more forward instruments to the "Room Closer" track (rhythm guitars, backing vocals).
And the "in your face" instruments got sent to the "Room Closest" track (lead vocals, lead guitars).
I think all this does is create a subtle psychoacoustic illusion of depth. The send levels are relatively low so the effect is very subtle. I used the same room in all three buses in order to convincingly tie everything into the same space.

 

@subGENRE, I'll have to give that one a spin.
So it's different from eg. Boz Sidewidener? I use that one to give mono tracks some stereo width. Or the spread control within TG12345 (thank you @Von_Steyr for that recommendation!).

 

@digitaldragon Yes, it gives stuff a distinct space in the stereo field. It does a lot more than just panning and spreading. Its magical I tell ya. Really god for uncluttering busy mixes and for each instrument/track have its own space. And this is before you send to the verbs. I use Pro-R for my "spaces"

 

Predelay is always a part of the adjustments of the ER's. You get me there? There is no reflection without predelay because our World is time bound. Maybe i did not get you, because I am not a native english speaker.

And yes. Early reflections give you the psychoacoustic illusion (or better perception) of depth and also of direction (loudness does that too). I use ER's often to get more character and High-End out of dry or boring sounding material. ER's combined with compression and Reverb often make the Secret Sauce where pro's differ from amateurs. It can also give u your own unique sound, because such a chain is pretty much impossible to copy. I find it a really cool thing to take a Reverb into that chain and take out the tail to use only it's ER's to bring some detail into my material

 

Early reflections define the space of the chamber that you are creating, the first reflections off of the walls. The predelay is the time it takes for those reflections to be heard by the microphone or ear.

 

Just my two cents. Here are two articles to be digested slowly, like a good distilled drink. Every time I read them again, there's more to learn:

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/use-reverb-pro-1
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/use-reverb-pro-part-2

There's this plugin I use for a sense of space. It is intended to sit large orchestral libraries in the sound panorama, but I find it to be great for rock recordings where layered multitracking removes their sense of space:

VirtualSoundStage 2.0 http://www.gabriel-heinrich.com/

If anybody else uses it in their work, I'd love to hear some word about it. I don't think I'm hijacking your thread, @digitaldragon. I only have lots of respect and appreciation for you, and I guess it pertains to your subject.

 

Last edited: Jun 20, 2017

@superliquidsunshine, I've been wanting to say "WELCOME BACK!" It's good to see you here again!

Bearing in mind your explanation, it makes sense to me why my experiment seemed to create a better sense of depth. I watched this video:

And he's doing something similar, three different "space creating" buses, one for drums, one for guitar, and another for vocals. He's using delays and tape slap, but the idea is essentially the same.

@mercurysoto, You are definitely on topic. I've got that one installed. I have actually tested with it, and found the results promising with it as well. I guess I was put off by the limited selection of spaces. I wanted more of a tight room sound than it was able to provide. Unless I was too hasty in my evaluation and just didn't find the setting for that. But agreed, it's a great tool, and I used it to get an idea of how depth affects the overall sound of an instrument by pushing a guitar, drum, bass, etc. solo'd, out to different distances and hearing the result. This really helped me out with my eq and compression settings, as well as dialing in the proper amount of reverb.

I guess ultimately, I've taken a step back with the "all in one" solutions like Nectar, CLA Guitars, etc. and try to catch the essence of what they are doing building my own chain. I have learned so much along the way building my own chains, so was trying to implement that method of thought here.

Thank you for the links, I'll be reading those tonight.

I did two more different tracks last night, and this method continues to please my ears.

There's this one:

https://www.auburnsounds.com/products/Panagement.html

But it also seems to include no method to select different spaces. The near/far slider is pretty neat to play with, though. And it can be used for learning to recreate the sound using standard plugins. I think this is one area the pros likely really excel in, recreating depth using standard things. Probably why you don't see very many plugins for this purpose.