Hello fellow audiosex users,

A very long time ago someone told me it isn't the greatest idea to add distortion after the reverb. But now I see a lot of producers (example: Martin Garrix in his showcase of Animals) that he uses distortion after the reverb.
I always wanted to create this kind of "in your face" sound with the big reverbs (which you very often hear in hardstyle and other dance genre's). But I never managed to get how to push it like that. It might be using the combination of reverb / distortion / compression, but they still manage to push it further.

Now I am very curious about the opinions on this topic, and maybe someone is willing to share some of their expertise.

 

:dancing:

 

It depends on Your perception of "In Your face"...
Big reverbs are not the best solution to get the "In Your face" sound ?!?
...than, adding distortion after a reverb will usually result in a big mess.

Of course, each of us have his own idea of how a distortion or reverb should sound, so feel free to experiment

 

i love that interview with martin garrix,
where everything is sylenth presets or straight from a vengeance pack and he has no idea how to explain anything

inb4 anyone says im jelly.

 

In hardstyle is usually common in kick sound design to use the dist. after the reverb to increase the power of distortion.
Learned this one from Audiofreq

Nothing but the truth

 

Layering midi notes and using proper distortion on the lead or bass could get you the results your after. It Always depends upon the sound you're after.

Sometimes Distortion -> Reverb would result in a very good way, With the desired amount of Distortion to the sound and the Reverb following

you could (Low cut the unwanted frequencies on the Reverb) and with pre-delay synced, You're done.

When the sound is good = Less work is needed.

 

@ Dash,

Here, I can only be agreed with 'Rhodes' :

Reverbs (big or smaller), from a general point of view, are rather used (and were created !) to add some kinds of ambiences, deepness, spaciness,... , to any Audio Material (Single Instrument, particular Group of Instruments, Full Mixes,... ), certainly not *no* to sound like : 'In Your Face, Baby !!!'

But I must confess that I'm from the 'Old School' ! *yes* , so maybe the 'New Generation', and particularly some 'DJs', use the Reverbs in different manners...

 

I gave some examples of genre's where distortion is used a lot of the time. Initially the reverb in for example hardstyle is too much, but they seem to control it very well. The effect of this is that it sounds so spacious and big (almost dreamy). I guess its a volume thing as well together with the distortion and using the reverb as a send with some compression and eq.

 

Reverb after distortion, not before. (if youre thinking like guitar amp distortion and not gentle saturation)

One of my favourite techniques is distorting 808s then using heavy reverb, I call it the Optimus Prime stomp.

 

I use different tools/ways to get good rev.
Low cut + high shelf after re-verb
Then a compressor (SC/normal) or and LFOtool

But definitely re-verb after distortion.
Good luck try some stuff out do what u like.
Im not a PRO ;)

 

Maybe to complement:
Send is not necessary, is see some pro's (hardstyle) using it also on the bus maybe like between 20 and 30 % wet.
I do it also sometimes