How many reverb and delay should I use?

Discussion in 'Mixing and Mastering' started by Niruvana, Nov 23, 2019.

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  1. Niruvana

    Niruvana Kapellmeister

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    My current project has a mono vocal, a stereo choir, a stereo rhythm guitar, a mono bass, a mono kick, a mono snare, a mono hi-hat, a stereo toms, a stereo overhead, a mono lead guitar.
    I'm gonna set up the reverb and delay like below but I'm not sure if it is correct:

    Reverb 1: Mono, plate for vocal and bass
    Reverb 2: Mono, room for snare, hi-hat, and kick
    Reverb 3: Stereo, plate for rhythm guitar
    Reverb 4: Stereo, room for choir and drum bus
    Delay: Stereo for rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and choir

    Every producer has a different opinion about it. Someone says "Use only one or two reverbs" while the other says "Use them as many as you need".
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
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  3. retroboy

    retroboy Producer

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    Simply use whatever sounds good. Trust your ears :)
     
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  4. No Avenger

    No Avenger Moderator Staff Member

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    R1: I would not use mono rev for main voc. Stereo gives it a more space. Mono for bass is good, helps to tighten the center.
    You can also use room or hall for main voc, add a stereo dly, or even replace the rev with dly. Sounds often more transparent.​
    R2: If you use the same mono rev for kick, Sn & HH it can blur the HH's pan 'cause it's normally moved a bit to the sides.
    R3: Ambience, plate, room will all work. You could pan-swap the rev.
    R4: Again ambience, plate room will work. Also hall can be good with choir.
    Delay: Here you can again pan-swap the dly for rhy git and choir although I rarely use dly for choir.
    For solo git I'd use a separate dly, git a bit to one side, dly a bit to the other.​
     
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  5. AlmostNormal

    AlmostNormal Member

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    I guess there are no exact rules, but techniques like sidechain the reverb, gate reverb, etc. I mean you should use reverb when you feel something needs it's own space, or it needs to sound like it's coming from far away...
    BUT what I think it does help, is to shape the reverbs, and think what you want to make it stand out.

    Take this song for example:


    There are 3 things where I can really hear the reverb (it's easier if you mute the mid channel and only listen to the sides)
    1. The snare - All the drums have reverb, but it's focused on the Snare around 200Hz;
    2. The lead guitar - It's seems to be focused around 1kHz up to 2kHz;
    3. The lead vocal - Here something really interesting, the reverb of the vocal sounds like there's a hole where the guitar reverb is. The focus here is around 500Hz and around 2.5kHz.
    But it's not like they put a 24db slope lowpass filter on the drums, or a Band stop/Notch filter in the vocals (I would guess there is ~-6db here), it's just enough until it doesn't sound like a mess.

    And again, this is not a rule, this is just one way to do this.
     
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  6. WhiteMidnightProductions

    WhiteMidnightProductions Ultrasonic

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    Definitely what @AlmostNormal said. If you know how to process the reverb then how many or how little you use doesn't matter. Also, no one's said anything about the reverb on bass thing. I will. Super short decay times. Filter the subs out of the reverb. I don't ever put reverb on bass. Cello, sure. Bass? Some would consider that blasphemy.
     
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  7. scottfreems

    scottfreems Noisemaker

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    I typically send to a bus and use a short reverb with a pre-delay as an early reflection to blend in, then, should I feel it necessary, I'll do the same with something like a delay on another bus.
     
  8. Pinkman

    Pinkman Audiosexual

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    Use one good reverb (there are lots) on a return channel and setup sends on all your tracks. Now just adjust the levels to taste.
    With delay, I've found that different delay times can add to the sound/rhythmic structure so again set up delays on return channels but maybe, this time, more than one.

    There's nothing stopping you from using two different delay send/returns on the same track. Heavens, you can send the return to a seperate delay or even feedback to itself and go from dub to droney.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
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  9. korte1975

    korte1975 Guest

    use 3 auxes/sends/fx channels with 3 different reverbs. ambience/room/hall. saturate/eq and comp them. i usually get away with a 3/4 ping pong delay
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 7, 2019
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  10. tommyzai

    tommyzai Platinum Record

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    Keep it simple.
     
  11. JohnEncore

    JohnEncore Ultrasonic

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    Major rule is: there's none. My personal major rule is: Do not try to sound like anyone else.
     
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  12. Trurl

    Trurl Audiosexual

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    ALL OF THEM. USE ALL OF THEM.
     
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  13. Pinkman

    Pinkman Audiosexual

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    All is one and one is all
     
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  14. ThrashHead

    ThrashHead Platinum Record

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    Always use 26 reverbs.
     
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  15. garfinkle

    garfinkle Platinum Record

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    6.

    You need to use 6.

    No more, no less.
     
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  16. garfinkle

    garfinkle Platinum Record

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    6.

    You need to use 6.

    No more, no less.
     
  17. Niruvana

    Niruvana Kapellmeister

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    Can you give me an example? Like NoAvenger did.
    Thanks!
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2019
  18. Trurl

    Trurl Audiosexual

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    You should use 6 on tracks, 6 on the subs and 6 on the master bus. Only in this way will Satan bless your music and give you fame and riches.
     
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  19. ryck

    ryck Guest

    You must use what you need. Every song is a world. One thing I did that worked for me. It was sleeping with the lights off and LISTENING, this is the main problem of a lot. They don't listen, they just add or copy, I've fallen for that too. Music is creativity and you have to create your own environment. Get inside the song
     
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  20. aleksalt

    aleksalt Producer

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    All the advices I saw here are like: "make it right and don't make wrong"
    But the reverb is one of the trickiest things in production!
    It could make a sound bigger than it is, and in the same time to move it to listener as close, so you can literally touch it.

    As a reference about reverb I like to listen to some sample packs from different sites, and what I like is:
    it seems that there is no reverb at all, but it exists, making the sound bigger.

    I created a special folder with tips&tricks about reverb, kinda cheatsheet, and time to time look over there to find something suitable...I don't see in this thread anything to put in that folder

    Next: about reverb plugins, now most of them have standard knobs/buttons for settings (predelay, decay, diffusion etc),
    but with the same settings all of them sound different!
     
  21. U-Kadian

    U-Kadian Kapellmeister

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    Remember to Delay the Delay -by pan - and Reverb the reverb -and para comp of course.. then you're good to go :guru:
     
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