The other day, I was checking out tutorials on YouTube about creating spaces using Reverb, but I ended up diving into a tutorial on Puremix.com. In this tutorial, they were talking about the 3 Reverb technique, which involves using a short Room Reverb to place elements like kick, bass, and other tracks you want close. Then, apply a Plate Reverb, tweaking pre-delay and decay for depth. Finally, they use a Hall Reverb to add height and place elements in the distance. Fab Dupont, in the Puremix tutorial, explained that it's not necessary to send all tracks to each Reverb.

However, I've noticed some engineers applying a similar technique to vocals, using two or three Reverbs to create a more realistic space for the same element. Do you guys use any similar method? I've seen other engineers sending all tracks to a Room Reverb to give cohesion to the elements, and then applying other Reverbs to position elements in different spaces. Honestly, this topic confuses me a bit, and I'd like to know how you handle Reverbs in your mixes based on the type of track you're working on.

 

Fab is GOATed. The main trick is to include a unification super short reflective reverb even a little bit on kicks and basses. He has been doing it for years and it's slick way to make samples relate to live material. Here is a screen shot of the setting he uses for this Reverb, which he calls Le Office. He made this in Sonnex Reverb.

 

Yes I do, the combination of reverbs give a solid panorama, better image and instrument separation when multiple instruments shared them. It takes few years for me to get it right to where I like it today. Doesnt mean one can't achieve it just using 1 reverb, it's just when you been mixing, playing with reverb for a long time, you tend to notice some extra details here and there, sometimes it's a weakness, sometimes it's a good thing, so you'd want to adjust them accordingly, or bring it some other reverb to compliment and further shape the whole soundscape. I have around 30 reverbs (mostly IRs in LS Reverberate already combined) plus few cool plugins in my template, all of them return to 5 stereo return channels.

I think the first step towards everything is moving away from the mindset of "adding reverb", that way one can get into more specific way of using reverberation. Think of it as "adding tails", "adding sustain", "push the track behind", "the main room", "the dirty room" "soften the transient", "thicken the midrange", "adding texture" each of that is doing different job. In combination you can create "a room that soften the transient, and push things behind a bit" that more suitable for high percussive elements. Each reverb has their own envelope (ie. Non Lin) that you can take advantage of it by combining with others that compliment it. Plate reverb for it natural character can used to add midrange texture and thicken the song a bit, so for thin type of female vocals it could be useful. To think of reverb as "room" "hall" "ambient" sometimes limit you to think that reverb is used just to add tails to sound. It doesn't have to be that way. Add long pre-delay to vocal plate will make the tail delayed and sound beautiful but the beginning of it will disconnect a bit so you squeeze in some slap delay that sent to a short room in between should fill the gap.

Realistic space using reverb is okay but I think it's an old idea, maybe suitable for jazz, old music, nowadays it's way more awesome to create your own artificial space, it doesnt have to be other planet, but some other place, other than in a studio, or room if you know what I mean. Most great songs for the past 10 years doesn't really have that realistic feelings no more IMO. That has to do with how Music Video is considered important element of the song. Unless you are aiming to make the mix sounds realistic in a room which is a different story.

If you haven't dig CLA, you can check his old MWTM videos where he talks about how he create the soundscape by combining reverb. There are few series of videos on Youtube in Waves channel where he talks about it too. Hard to understand at first, but once you get the idea of each of the character and texture of the reverb he used, you'll get the idea. Had to warn you it's annoying to listen to the man talks too sometimes, but can't deny he's a master at it. It took me a long time to understand the concept but I think what I use today is all based on how CLA use it.

Here's one of them.

 

The reason for the 3 reverb "method" if you want to call it that, is because human hearing really only can discern 2 or 3 layers of depth. Much more than that, and you are wasting cpu by using more plugins.

I always start with 2 channels of reverbs, one small and one large room. I use sends from the audio channels to those so I am not listening to a completely dry mix, it drives me nuts to listen 100% dry. That is from the start of the project, and just basic Logic reverbs ChromaVerb and Space Designer; because I do not want really cpu-heavy reverbs on anything. I start thinking about different reverbs way later; around the same time as starting to add automation. I see people in video tutorials start adding reverbs with just a few channels of audio all the time. To me that is pointless because I am certainly going to change it over and over.

 

I'm a big believer in the benefits of using short reverb (or early reflections) to create a sense of 3D depth. I'm almost certain that it's the thing that separates the vets from the amateurs. My problem is knowing how much or little to apply, and how to translate what's in my head into the parameters. It's a complicated concept and there's no right or wrong way, like anything it just requires trial and error / practice / experience

The thing with (short) reverb is that it's not only good for front-back depth, but it can also add a sense of warmth/fullness that most people are trying to get with compression and saturation, which is a great cure for overly digitized sounding mixes. Took me a while to realize that. It really fills the gaps, essentially acting as a subtle doubler. The old pros who say things like "you can do a full mix with just compression and EQ" are running everything through analog gear, so the depth/fullness is already inherent, not to mention the instruments being tracked in nice rooms with expensive mics and knowledgeable mic placement

 

I often do that, yes, or a variation of it. Usually it's just a combination of a very short room reverb and a longer hall reverb but often I find that it's actually better just to do a short slapback echo instead of a reverb and then a long reverb. BTW Eventide's T-verb is a variation of this exact thing only instead of running reverbs in parallel it uses gating to switch from one reverb to another depending on how loudly you're singing. Or at least that was the original intent when Tony Visconti did it with David Bowie but you can do a lot of things with it. You can configure it to have both verbs at the same time, it's a simple solution.

 

sure! i often do similar. be wary of reverb though, remember less is more. its easy to get carried away and wash your mix out.

 

Isn't mixing multiple reverbs just going to sound like shit because you're trying to mash two different spaces into sounding like one?

 

No, not if used parallel and if you have your own experience with being able to repete this process.

But it's not necessary. Only one single reverb is required. Not a specific plate, or room, or hall or whatever type for whatever distance. Distance is adjusted with the mix, pre delay and reverb length parameter. So three parameters are required: Reverb length, pre delay and a reverb gain/mixknob.

Thats enough. The rest is being able to clearly hear the reverb. And this is the main problem for most people because most people do not have an even nearly adequate listening environment. So everything sounds "muddy".

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2024

Thanks for sharing, works very nicely.

 

Here's one in a single plugin, that does also 3 different reverbs at the same time, T-Verb Premium.

 

I've never used three verbs on a single source or buss, but I generally use two which could be a short plate or slapback (which is more for flavor than affect) into a larger space like a hall or room depending on the instruments involved. The third verb migh come into play on the master for glue, though depending on what I'm going for.

 

Just yesterday I saw this (short...) video in which it explains the use of the 3 Verb formula. It gets a little lost but it's also instructive regarding our perception of reverberation.

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It's just another technique- yeah it can sound great and it's worth exploring but great albums like Sgt. Pepper, Zeppelin IV and Dark Side of the Moon were all made with just a single plate reverb for everything- you don't need it.
Try it and if it's working on your song great, otherwise don't lose sleep.

 

A cool trick to do if you want to go wild with reverbs but don't want it washing everything away:

Put a gate or compressor that has sidechain inputs onto the return channel BEFORE the reverb, and set it to be fed by itself, pre-fx.

Then you tune the threshold on it to your liking. This basically causes the reverbs to be dialed down (rather than just ducked) whenever the instruments you're sending into it are themselves active and loud, but the "inbetween-spaces" will open up more to allow your reverb to come through.

 

"Just one Plate Reverb" added to the recorded tracks in great studio rooms to get other character and color to the sound. The tracks already had a natural small, medium and big rooms inside the record. So you probably need it if you weren't in Abbey Road or similar.