Long, cavernous reverb is a wonderful thing. Bone dry, in-your-face sounds are wonderful, too. Knowing when and how to use either, and the many gradations in between, to your creative benefit is an even more wonderful thing.
It's crazy that just yesterday my untrained self was looking up if every voice should be sent through their own reverb or all mixed down into one. I'm very glad you monitor my Google searches and created this video reply in such a timely manner!
It really does depend on what you're after. A single reverb on a return track or bus that all your instruments run into is a very simple way to make your music sound 'natural'- i.e. make all the instruments sound like they are all creating sound in the same room. It's certainly not the only way to go but it is by far the easiest way to approach reverb in the mix
Hi Jameson, I really like your videos, not many people give compositional advice, and in such a clear way. A suggestion for improvement, you often tell about the changes to do, but I think it would make things much clearer and fun to follow along with if you show these improvements on a track. For example in this video if you took one of your old tracks and showed how some concise steps would clean it up and then A/B it. All the best from a fan!
Adding on to the idea of using a reverb as a send to get everything to sound like it's in the same room, using multiple copies of the same reverb, but with different pre-delay and mix levels can help place instruments at different depths within the same room.
If you think on a more modular fashion you only need the one reverb to have different pre delays. Either by using something modular or using a standard mixer arrangement by using delays on sends and then sending the delay returns 100% into the reverb return.
David Byrne talks a lot about the way in which a physical space provided to a musician often times shapes the kind of music produced, very worth looking into if you're a huge nerd.
I love that organists are functionally playing the building as an instrument.... It was realizing this fact, that made me start to feel less that artificial reverb on synths was a crutch
It is also true that most people that worked with sound and mixing bitd was professionals. I have mixed and produced with one reverb (two at most for special cases) for as long as I can remember. I aint a pro, but it's fairly obvious that it's wrong to insert a reverb on single tracks just by using the observation you made here hehe.
Many thanks, my mixes are too perfect and well made. I needed a way to ruin them and make them sound like something made by a human (not a god) and you helped me a lot with that. I appreciate it.
Vangelis used A LOT of Lexicon 224 Reverb for his Blade Runner Soundtrack. And it sounds AMAZING. Because he knew exactly how to use it and how to integrate it into the mix. And of course, the Lexicon 224 is just legendary because it never ruins your mix. Try it by yourself, there are many great emulations out here. ReLab is awesome. As for the Blackhole.... it sound great on single sounds but it will ruin your entire mix.
A single reverb on a send for (nearly) everything to run through has to be a journey of discovery that every producer goes through at some point. Appreciate your content this year Jameson. These little nuggets of knowledge have helped me get better at writing and how I approach my compositions.
Thx for that video. It's something that, while already knowing, I still struggle with, and a factor that differentiates so much of the bad ambient from the good that's floating around. I'd argue people see ambient as easy cause you can get there by your initial case (lots of reverb on everything), but they always lack the clarity and intent of good ambient music.
I've just started making ambient music. My first composition is an 8 track thing made with a synth where I had a basic idea, listened to it, then had another idea etc, until I got to 8 tracks and played altogether there was something there but everything was a little bit off. The timing was off, there was a tonne of boominess in the bottom end etc. I know nothing about composing music and am still learning my DAW at this point. That's how beginner level I am. The most startling difference I made was taking an EQ plugin and just narrowing the frequency range of each of the parts. That one thing alone made everything sit together much better, I got clean air and enough space so that each part can be heard. I have applied reverb, but only on the 2 most important parts and I used the same reverb setting for both. Nothing else really needed it. Just EQ and the volume control seems to do an awful lot in making something coherent. Thanks for this wonderful advice.
When I started (only recently)...I drowned everything in reverb with Valhalla Supermassive. Each subsequent song I've made has had a little less until there's almost none and it's really helped with clarity in my layering. But I still think there's a place for it here and there.
I advocate a single reverb 98% of the time. Although you can adjust the decay of the same type of reverb on different instruments and, used tastefully, it will still feel cohesive. As though some instruments are 'accessing' different, more cavernous areas of what remains, the same space. If you're using a boutique pedal/unit, you can run individual "passes" on different instruments or groups of similar instruments, then adjust how those "passes" are mixed with the dry tracks. In this process you decide where instruments exist in the virtual space. If you do this, I suggest using a VST until you're almost done with your mix, so you're really happy with what you're doing before you create what are now sound files instead of a "live" processed effect. Being thoughtful of how many "passes" you're doing, how loud you'll likely mix them will help keep them tame. As suggested, things can get muddy if you're not careful. Great video, as always. Cheers.
Blackhole because you got sucked in and couldn't get back out I remember taking a peek at music "from the time fifths were considered dissonance" and realized those monophonic or near monophonic sounds are awesome in big reverb
+ Abbey Road trick: EQ before sending and EQ the reverb as well to filter out the mud. Another experience - try to use delay (or better delays) instead of a reverb and you will be surprised that sometimes works it even better
I couldn't work without reverb I have since ditched VST stuff and instead I use a Lexicon MPX 500, which I bought over 20 years ago, and I thought I should make use of it I honestly don't know what I am doing but I now add an EQ before the send to the MPX 500 so that I can apply some low cut I am not trying to achieve any realistic space and am happy to stick purely to being sort of "creative" but everything gets sent to it, so, in that way at least, it is a "single space" but, what is it about reverb? why is it so damn addictive?
Reverb recontextualizes the instruments, forcing your hippocampus to imagine the virtual space. At least, that's my theory. It tickles the 'grid' and 'place' cells in that particular part of the brain and gets you more engaged with the sounds.
Funny you should also mention guitars after that pipe organ point. Electric guitar can be similar to that pipe-organ analogy; namely the solo lead guitar with: boost >> amp with gain >> cab >> delay + splash of reverb (that typical 80s guitar hero sound). Common advice is to practice guitar on a dry+clean amp so that "you can judge the playing without the effects covering up the mistakes. However, I believe that the vast majority of that "covering up" is actually the delay and reverb. Practicing that solo on a harsh *distorted* tone with NO time based effects/reverb is very unforgiving if you have poor string muting, etc -- the distortion amplifies the mistakes as well as everything else. Thanks for this helpful reminder... which is unusual coming from someone of the 'ambient' spectrum. I also use that "send" advice... ... primarily because my computers are usually mediocre for specs.
It also applies well to synths. Switched my beloved and long time owned prophet rev-2 to a single jack a year ago after spending good time with the p5 which is mono. I'll never switch back. Mixing has become dramatically much easier. It even feels more powerful and present, less blurry and spectrum eater, as the sound is now focused and gets more clarity overall. I realized very soon after the switch the spread pot is a trap 90% of time. Post processing gives me any stereo field I could be missing sometimes
I have both jacks of my Rev2 going into the mixer but if I keep the pan knobs in the same position as each other, no stereo field. I agree that it can sound very nice in mono.
Well, I ended up getting Eventide "Space" pedal which sounded awesome. It does have a Black Hole preset. Now, I didn't try to send "everything through it, especially not drums but I still consider that pedal to be totally unique among algorithmic reverbs. I always took it with me to indoor live gigs. Synths sound awesome through it, and Black Hole preset with its alien strangeness still has a special place in my heart. All of my synths do go through various reverbs, I find the trick is whether to turn any of them on and by how much. But when I do certain types of drones, - the entire thing is often put through just one type of reverb, and honestly, it sounds way better that way.
Your mention of altering your organ playing style based on room size reminds me of a guitar truism: play the effects. It rarely makes sense to record dry and effect later, and your video is a good reminder that this applies to reverb as well as more tone-centric tools.
On the creative side, particularly if you are using analog/organic instruments, putting your instrument through a rather short all-wet reverb is one way of making your guitar or piano not sound like a guitar or piano. When I started making ambient music in the 90s without synths or samplers, that was how I created new sounds. Back then, I was using an old rack-mount reverb and a 4-track Tascam, so I had to bounce everything multiple times. I’d bounce a long forward reverb track, reverse my tape and bounce a long backward reverb track, reverse it again and bounce a medium length forward reverb of the backward reverb track, and reverse it again and bounce a medium length backward reverb of the forward reverb track. Only keep the reverb on the reverb, and use the two remaining tracks for something else. For the reverb tracks, I’d do everything with a rather hard pans, and I’d get these amazing rotating notes and chords slowly emerging from one another while spinning around my head. I miss the old days sometimes. Part of the fun of ambient music and massive reverbs is hearing one chord slowly arise out of another, competing and maybe conflicting for a bit while they are similar volume… like abstract expressionist painters did with paint: let the sound just be sound… let go of the desire to make it into something else…
Great video. I learned this back in the day because I had to conserve CPU/Ram and one thing that helped was to stop using multiple instances of the same plugin and use it single instance in a bus instead. Something else that comes to mind: The album antichamber by yannis kyriakides. It struck me by switching abruptly from reverb'd to dry, which I found to be a very cool idea.
Love it! I think what often trips me up is thinking about an instrument in isolation, effects and all, when I need to think about it as a player in the larger “orchestra” of whatever track I am creating. It’s so difficult to EQ out really lovely low end from a synth, or reduce or even take out some reverb sends in the interest of overall clarity in the track, but sometimes it has to happen!
Part of the reason I think my mixes got better when I started using more hardware synths is a would turn a filter knob further into extremes than I would an eq plugin or something with visual feedback. Once I started cutting mercilessly just to see what would happen, I started to notice a big difference both in and out of the box.
@@JamesonNathanJones Yes! I watched a video a couple months back on NIN production and the guy talked about EQing the lows completely out of the guitars. There would be all these guitars and they were basically high-passed with SO much distortion. My brain was like, "no! that will sound terrible! The low end it the best part. I hate hi-pass!" But I tried it and sure enough, that's the trademark NIN guitar sound. It's awful on it's own. But mixed in with everything else it sounds amazing. I feel like there is just such a different approach when you are playing one synth with an effects pedal vs. trying to actually compose a track. The latter is what I am mostly interested in, so I am learning all I can to "play the studio as an instrument" like the man says.
My reverb bus always has a Trackspacer plugin on it, which has its sidechain fed from the vocal bus. You can do the same thing with Fabfilter or any other multichannel dynamic EQ/compressor that can be sidechained. That way it pushes the frequencies of the reverb out of the way of the vocals when there are vocals present, and prevents the mud.
This is one of the first things i learnt when i looked into recording guitars and drums, having one room reverb for everything, but i wasn't sure if this applies to electronic music as well.
I’ve noticed that a lot of bedroom pop producers often choose some very weak sounds and swamp every layer in this fog of reverb obscuring any punchiness or energy, unlike all the classic hits from the same genre. In fact it’s so common I think it’s almost become a style or genre of its own 🫤
I'm guilty of the same thing. It was actually the Producer/DJ Rinzen who turned me on to Blackhole. I put it on everything. Music libraries that I submit my music to would always return my tracks saying that my samples sound old. I found out it was all that reverb.
Placement in a reverb "area" is a consideration. Imagine the tracks are sound sources in a room. The fainter sources are far, so they get more reverb. The louder sources are near, so less reverb.
Common, Blackhole is not just a reverb, it is much more than that, I am more than sure that you already know that. You may find a better example than blackhole. I was also hooked by the sound of Blackhole in the beginnings, I rarely use it now, because in my view Blackhole is almost an instrument lacking the sound generative part.
thanks for making this - I have the feeling this video was just made for me, and be it reverb or distortion/saturation all of them have the same effect of making the track muddy. if not used in moderation
Do you have any advice on the logistics of using the mono reverb approach when on guitars when you want to pan the reverb opposite hard panned guitars (so the left guitar has reverb on the right, and vice versa)? Would you put two reverb on two separate sends panned opposite the guitar which is being sent to it? Or use a stereo reverb and use a plugin two reverse the stereo field? Also, you mentioned having one single space to mix into, which makes sense. But how do you approach that with multiple instruments whilst keeping the reverb mono? An identical instance of reverb on each track? Or is there any special technique to do it using sends to keep them mono?
nice insights. I do have an eventide space pedal with the blackhole algorithm but because I play all hardware ,and I'm mostly an improviser, automatically I record the way you described. I'll record a 100% wet reverb track that includes a submix of a few synths and each synth dry in separate tracks. then I might mix the dry synths differently from the reverb submix but my mixes are usually simple and quick to make, I don't have to control many different instances of reverb. also, my daw template has a dry return track for the synths and an fx return track for the effects. that way I have a global wet/dry control of the mix, before they go into the master bus. another thing I noticed is that ideally I have to control my instinct and really lower the reverb track, because otherwise the next day a finished mix might sound too wet on phones.
I love reverb, and my main trick is just to turn up the wetness of it and get it sounding good with more reverb. If a lot of reverb sounds really bad, a lesser amount of reverb will sound bad but just less bad.
Yes. This is the correct way to use Reverb. Reverb is a "space" and as such we only need 1 unit (1 room). The instruments should share that same space. Fortunately, the new technologies even allow us to control the "amount" of reverb of each instrument, thanks to the "sent to" volume knob, but the timbre and charisma of the reverv (space), that should not change, because after all it is the same space (reverb). Stay safe.
Sadly, there are tons of tutorial videos on YT with titles like "How to make ambient music" and then there's Valhalla Supermassive on insert 100% wet. That's it!
I like a lot of space/reverb in the mix. However I DO NOT LIKE most reverb units - the ones that go wwwhhhaaaaahhhhssss in particular. Instead, I use really sparse echo-based spaces that I design for the piece itself on the Send. :-)
Why not have a duplicate instance of your instrument minus the reverb so you get the presence and clarity for fast notes from that version and the reverb from the other?
My favourite pipe organ performance - Glenn Gould Kunst Der fuge… no cathedral reverb. Dry as a bone. You can hear every note. I am not Glenn Gould . I use reverb.
For more details on the composition concepts that have helped me the most over the years, here's a free eBook➡bit.ly/FREEcompositionguide
"Reverb is the sustain pedal of sound designers" - Gandhi
I think you'll find that was actually Michael Mertens of Propaghandi.
I call BS. It was Abe Lincoln
Long, cavernous reverb is a wonderful thing.
Bone dry, in-your-face sounds are wonderful, too.
Knowing when and how to use either, and the many gradations in between, to your creative benefit is an even more wonderful thing.
Well-placed contrast is a hell of a drug
"Guess what! I've got a fever, and the only prescription... is MORE REVERB"
This cleared my skin, clipped my nails, washed my hair and whitened my teeth. Thank you. Off to play my moog.
It's crazy that just yesterday my untrained self was looking up if every voice should be sent through their own reverb or all mixed down into one. I'm very glad you monitor my Google searches and created this video reply in such a timely manner!
It really does depend on what you're after. A single reverb on a return track or bus that all your instruments run into is a very simple way to make your music sound 'natural'- i.e. make all the instruments sound like they are all creating sound in the same room. It's certainly not the only way to go but it is by far the easiest way to approach reverb in the mix
Hi Jameson, I really like your videos, not many people give compositional advice, and in such a clear way.
A suggestion for improvement, you often tell about the changes to do, but I think it would make things much clearer and fun to follow along with if you show these improvements on a track. For example in this video if you took one of your old tracks and showed how some concise steps would clean it up and then A/B it.
All the best from a fan!
Reverb IS my music. I dont play very well, so I need reverb. 😂
Good pointers though. Thanks.
May I remind you that a big jumbled mess due to reverb is actually a genre of music and some of us love it
Adding on to the idea of using a reverb as a send to get everything to sound like it's in the same room, using multiple copies of the same reverb, but with different pre-delay and mix levels can help place instruments at different depths within the same room.
if you do three, and pan them hard , thats also cool. I think waves has a reverb plugin that does that, chris lord or something its called.
If you think on a more modular fashion you only need the one reverb to have different pre delays. Either by using something modular or using a standard mixer arrangement by using delays on sends and then sending the delay returns 100% into the reverb return.
The more reverb, the better.
YES YEs Yes yes sss ss s…..
Reverb at 11
I just now got this comment because of all the reverb😅
David Byrne talks a lot about the way in which a physical space provided to a musician often times shapes the kind of music produced, very worth looking into if you're a huge nerd.
This is what road musicians battle on a nightly basis
I love that organists are functionally playing the building as an instrument....
It was realizing this fact, that made me start to feel less that artificial reverb on synths was a crutch
Composition is the best arranging tool, arrangement is the best mixing tool, mixing is the best mastering tool, etc. ❤
My name is Derek Power and I have a reverb problem. And I love it =D
Same
Back in the day, when we only had one reverb, this issue didn't arise! :-)
It is also true that most people that worked with sound and mixing bitd was professionals. I have mixed and produced with one reverb (two at most for special cases) for as long as I can remember. I aint a pro, but it's fairly obvious that it's wrong to insert a reverb on single tracks just by using the observation you made here hehe.
I love how you dont say, "See you next time!" Very refreshing.
Me (who’s been writing atmospheric black metal the past few months): ohhh… gotcha.. I’ll stop using reverb for every instrument I guess..
As a lifelong classical pianist with a penchant for Chopin Nocturnes as well as electronic music, I think this is the best channel on RUclips.
The ONLY guy on this planet that really understood reverb and delay was Vangelis 😜 (just kidding of course but there is a minor truth in that....)
I'm not sure why but the mixed track example you used at 6:42 really did not sound to my ears
Many thanks, my mixes are too perfect and well made. I needed a way to ruin them and make them sound like something made by a human (not a god) and you helped me a lot with that. I appreciate it.
reverb is life...
Vangelis used A LOT of Lexicon 224 Reverb for his Blade Runner Soundtrack. And it sounds AMAZING. Because he knew exactly how to use it and how to integrate it into the mix. And of course, the Lexicon 224 is just legendary because it never ruins your mix. Try it by yourself, there are many great emulations out here. ReLab is awesome. As for the Blackhole.... it sound great on single sounds but it will ruin your entire mix.
With all due respect, Blackhole is a freaking legend. Based on a legend. :) If you ruin entire mixes with Blackhole - you are using it wrong. Many do.
A single reverb on a send for (nearly) everything to run through has to be a journey of discovery that every producer goes through at some point.
Appreciate your content this year Jameson. These little nuggets of knowledge have helped me get better at writing and how I approach my compositions.
Thx for that video. It's something that, while already knowing, I still struggle with, and a factor that differentiates so much of the bad ambient from the good that's floating around. I'd argue people see ambient as easy cause you can get there by your initial case (lots of reverb on everything), but they always lack the clarity and intent of good ambient music.
I've just started making ambient music. My first composition is an 8 track thing made with a synth where I had a basic idea, listened to it, then had another idea etc, until I got to 8 tracks and played altogether there was something there but everything was a little bit off. The timing was off, there was a tonne of boominess in the bottom end etc. I know nothing about composing music and am still learning my DAW at this point. That's how beginner level I am. The most startling difference I made was taking an EQ plugin and just narrowing the frequency range of each of the parts. That one thing alone made everything sit together much better, I got clean air and enough space so that each part can be heard. I have applied reverb, but only on the 2 most important parts and I used the same reverb setting for both. Nothing else really needed it. Just EQ and the volume control seems to do an awful lot in making something coherent. Thanks for this wonderful advice.
When I started (only recently)...I drowned everything in reverb with Valhalla Supermassive. Each subsequent song I've made has had a little less until there's almost none and it's really helped with clarity in my layering. But I still think there's a place for it here and there.
my favorite reverb is Blackhole, the new Immersive version is even more impressive
I advocate a single reverb 98% of the time. Although you can adjust the decay of the same type of reverb on different instruments and, used tastefully, it will still feel cohesive. As though some instruments are 'accessing' different, more cavernous areas of what remains, the same space.
If you're using a boutique pedal/unit, you can run individual "passes" on different instruments or groups of similar instruments, then adjust how those "passes" are mixed with the dry tracks. In this process you decide where instruments exist in the virtual space. If you do this, I suggest using a VST until you're almost done with your mix, so you're really happy with what you're doing before you create what are now sound files instead of a "live" processed effect. Being thoughtful of how many "passes" you're doing, how loud you'll likely mix them will help keep them tame. As suggested, things can get muddy if you're not careful.
Great video, as always. Cheers.
Blackhole because you got sucked in and couldn't get back out
I remember taking a peek at music "from the time fifths were considered dissonance" and realized those monophonic or near monophonic sounds are awesome in big reverb
I use a long reverb on ONE track. Preferably a root note that i can play around. Really sets the mood.
+ Abbey Road trick: EQ before sending and EQ the reverb as well to filter out the mud. Another experience - try to use delay (or better delays) instead of a reverb and you will be surprised that sometimes works it even better
Absolutely
I couldn't work without reverb
I have since ditched VST stuff and instead I use a Lexicon MPX 500, which I bought over 20 years ago, and I thought I should make use of it
I honestly don't know what I am doing but I now add an EQ before the send to the MPX 500 so that I can apply some low cut
I am not trying to achieve any realistic space and am happy to stick purely to being sort of "creative"
but everything gets sent to it, so, in that way at least, it is a "single space"
but, what is it about reverb?
why is it so damn addictive?
Reverb recontextualizes the instruments, forcing your hippocampus to imagine the virtual space. At least, that's my theory. It tickles the 'grid' and 'place' cells in that particular part of the brain and gets you more engaged with the sounds.
@@nanocyde_artist an interesting theory 🙂
Reverb effects kinda try to mimic the ambience of spaces, so adding some reverb to dry / dead recordings, sounds more 'natural'
Really needed to hear this advice, I use waaaay too much reverb
Funny you should also mention guitars after that pipe organ point. Electric guitar can be similar to that pipe-organ analogy; namely the solo lead guitar with: boost >> amp with gain >> cab >> delay + splash of reverb (that typical 80s guitar hero sound). Common advice is to practice guitar on a dry+clean amp so that "you can judge the playing without the effects covering up the mistakes. However, I believe that the vast majority of that "covering up" is actually the delay and reverb. Practicing that solo on a harsh *distorted* tone with NO time based effects/reverb is very unforgiving if you have poor string muting, etc -- the distortion amplifies the mistakes as well as everything else.
Thanks for this helpful reminder... which is unusual coming from someone of the 'ambient' spectrum. I also use that "send" advice... ... primarily because my computers are usually mediocre for specs.
It also applies well to synths. Switched my beloved and long time owned prophet rev-2 to a single jack a year ago after spending good time with the p5 which is mono. I'll never switch back. Mixing has become dramatically much easier. It even feels more powerful and present, less blurry and spectrum eater, as the sound is now focused and gets more clarity overall. I realized very soon after the switch the spread pot is a trap 90% of time. Post processing gives me any stereo field I could be missing sometimes
I have both jacks of my Rev2 going into the mixer but if I keep the pan knobs in the same position as each other, no stereo field. I agree that it can sound very nice in mono.
Well, I ended up getting Eventide "Space" pedal which sounded awesome. It does have a Black Hole preset. Now, I didn't try to send "everything through it, especially not drums but I still consider that pedal to be totally unique among algorithmic reverbs. I always took it with me to indoor live gigs. Synths sound awesome through it, and Black Hole preset with its alien strangeness still has a special place in my heart. All of my synths do go through various reverbs, I find the trick is whether to turn any of them on and by how much. But when I do certain types of drones, - the entire thing is often put through just one type of reverb, and honestly, it sounds way better that way.
'Regularly' is one of the many words I can't say.
Your mention of altering your organ playing style based on room size reminds me of a guitar truism: play the effects. It rarely makes sense to record dry and effect later, and your video is a good reminder that this applies to reverb as well as more tone-centric tools.
Very true. Applies to synths as well. Good point.
On the creative side, particularly if you are using analog/organic instruments, putting your instrument through a rather short all-wet reverb is one way of making your guitar or piano not sound like a guitar or piano. When I started making ambient music in the 90s without synths or samplers, that was how I created new sounds.
Back then, I was using an old rack-mount reverb and a 4-track Tascam, so I had to bounce everything multiple times. I’d bounce a long forward reverb track, reverse my tape and bounce a long backward reverb track, reverse it again and bounce a medium length forward reverb of the backward reverb track, and reverse it again and bounce a medium length backward reverb of the forward reverb track. Only keep the reverb on the reverb, and use the two remaining tracks for something else.
For the reverb tracks, I’d do everything with a rather hard pans, and I’d get these amazing rotating notes and chords slowly emerging from one another while spinning around my head.
I miss the old days sometimes.
Part of the fun of ambient music and massive reverbs is hearing one chord slowly arise out of another, competing and maybe conflicting for a bit while they are similar volume… like abstract expressionist painters did with paint: let the sound just be sound… let go of the desire to make it into something else…
Wow, your technique sounds promising, do you have any audio examples / tracks?
@ I don’t keep any of my 90s music online, but if you give me 48 hours, I can post a couple examples of the technique and send you some links.
@@thejontaocan you link it here?
Great video. I learned this back in the day because I had to conserve CPU/Ram and one thing that helped was to stop using multiple instances of the same plugin and use it single instance in a bus instead. Something else that comes to mind: The album antichamber by yannis kyriakides. It struck me by switching abruptly from reverb'd to dry, which I found to be a very cool idea.
Love it! I think what often trips me up is thinking about an instrument in isolation, effects and all, when I need to think about it as a player in the larger “orchestra” of whatever track I am creating. It’s so difficult to EQ out really lovely low end from a synth, or reduce or even take out some reverb sends in the interest of overall clarity in the track, but sometimes it has to happen!
Part of the reason I think my mixes got better when I started using more hardware synths is a would turn a filter knob further into extremes than I would an eq plugin or something with visual feedback. Once I started cutting mercilessly just to see what would happen, I started to notice a big difference both in and out of the box.
@@JamesonNathanJones Yes! I watched a video a couple months back on NIN production and the guy talked about EQing the lows completely out of the guitars. There would be all these guitars and they were basically high-passed with SO much distortion. My brain was like, "no! that will sound terrible! The low end it the best part. I hate hi-pass!" But I tried it and sure enough, that's the trademark NIN guitar sound. It's awful on it's own. But mixed in with everything else it sounds amazing.
I feel like there is just such a different approach when you are playing one synth with an effects pedal vs. trying to actually compose a track. The latter is what I am mostly interested in, so I am learning all I can to "play the studio as an instrument" like the man says.
I always turn my reverb to eleven - can’t help myself :)
But seriously, I agree.
Hehe right. And it is with great sorrow that send level is going more and more down as u create. :P
My reverb bus always has a Trackspacer plugin on it, which has its sidechain fed from the vocal bus. You can do the same thing with Fabfilter or any other multichannel dynamic EQ/compressor that can be sidechained. That way it pushes the frequencies of the reverb out of the way of the vocals when there are vocals present, and prevents the mud.
Absolutely. Great tip.
Super tip! Thanks! No mish mash mixes in Ambient Music
Thank you for this, I forgot that concept after changing Platform and DAW.
This is one of the first things i learnt when i looked into recording guitars and drums, having one room reverb for everything, but i wasn't sure if this applies to electronic music as well.
Finally. It's said - reverb is not a must 😁 so it excuses me never using it, almost LOL .... now I wait for the part 2 "pads are unnecessary" 🤪
Mono a Mono!
Very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!
I’ve noticed that a lot of bedroom pop producers often choose some very weak sounds and swamp every layer in this fog of reverb obscuring any punchiness or energy, unlike all the classic hits from the same genre. In fact it’s so common I think it’s almost become a style or genre of its own 🫤
I'm guilty of the same thing. It was actually the Producer/DJ Rinzen who turned me on to Blackhole. I put it on everything. Music libraries that I submit my music to would always return my tracks saying that my samples sound old. I found out it was all that reverb.
Great observations you made in this video. Much appreciated!
It’s hall of the mountain king, not dampened studio of the music producer :)
Back in the day, one reverb for the track, one for the vocal, and one for anything else... also optional.
Placement in a reverb "area" is a consideration. Imagine the tracks are sound sources in a room. The fainter sources are far, so they get more reverb. The louder sources are near, so less reverb.
Common, Blackhole is not just a reverb, it is much more than that, I am more than sure that you already know that. You may find a better example than blackhole. I was also hooked by the sound of Blackhole in the beginnings, I rarely use it now, because in my view Blackhole is almost an instrument lacking the sound generative part.
thanks for making this - I have the feeling this video was just made for me, and be it reverb or distortion/saturation all of them have the same effect of making the track muddy. if not used in moderation
So my question has always been; if the sound itself has reverb, should you reduce/eliminate that insert in favor of the send?
Reverb is nice if you use it with smart mind.
I put reverb on the master
I do it all the time. It can be a really nice effect.
*furious pedal dialing, shoe gazing, and dream popping is heard...
Thank you very much🙏
Just like any special effect, it no longer becomes special if it is overused
I can't mix for shit. But that... I knew from the beginning.
Great video, thanks 😊
Do you have any advice on the logistics of using the mono reverb approach when on guitars when you want to pan the reverb opposite hard panned guitars (so the left guitar has reverb on the right, and vice versa)? Would you put two reverb on two separate sends panned opposite the guitar which is being sent to it? Or use a stereo reverb and use a plugin two reverse the stereo field?
Also, you mentioned having one single space to mix into, which makes sense. But how do you approach that with multiple instruments whilst keeping the reverb mono? An identical instance of reverb on each track? Or is there any special technique to do it using sends to keep them mono?
Thanks Jameson, great insights. I appreciate it.
Yes, Patrick, reverb is an instrument.
What happens if music ruins your reverb?
nice insights. I do have an eventide space pedal with the blackhole algorithm but because I play all hardware ,and I'm mostly an improviser, automatically I record the way you described. I'll record a 100% wet reverb track that includes a submix of a few synths and each synth dry in separate tracks. then I might mix the dry synths differently from the reverb submix but my mixes are usually simple and quick to make, I don't have to control many different instances of reverb. also, my daw template has a dry return track for the synths and an fx return track for the effects. that way I have a global wet/dry control of the mix, before they go into the master bus. another thing I noticed is that ideally I have to control my instinct and really lower the reverb track, because otherwise the next day a finished mix might sound too wet on phones.
Best tips, ever. Luv U. U open my mind. Thanks you.
If it’s a particularly wet space, we need a towel.
You should always know where your towel is.
If you use the appropriate re-verb, you will achieve re-noun.
“More reverb.” - Socrates
Always put reverb in parallel
My organ hasn't sat in a physical space since 2019
This is absolutely true.
Amazin video bro
I love reverb, and my main trick is just to turn up the wetness of it and get it sounding good with more reverb. If a lot of reverb sounds really bad, a lesser amount of reverb will sound bad but just less bad.
often times when I feel like a sound could have some reverb it's just because I should use a better sound in the first place
Harold Budd’s catalog begs to differ
THIS MEANS WAR!!!!!!!!!!!
😂
BUT, less reverb means more room for delaaaaay
One more reverb King to add: Brian Eno.🙂
This pops up just as I'm thinking of dropping $$ on a Meris Mercury X ;)
Yes. This is the correct way to use Reverb.
Reverb is a "space" and as such we only need 1 unit (1 room). The instruments should share that same space. Fortunately, the new technologies even allow us to control the "amount" of reverb of each instrument, thanks to the "sent to" volume knob, but the timbre and charisma of the reverv (space), that should not change, because after all it is the same space (reverb). Stay safe.
Stay safe . . . from what?
What's the track at the end?
i tuned out when the rambling about organs started
LOL ok
If reverb is soup... what's organ meat soup?
Sadly, there are tons of tutorial videos on YT with titles like "How to make ambient music" and then there's Valhalla Supermassive on insert 100% wet. That's it!
Have you played in a cathedral? What’s it like I wonder?
I like a lot of space/reverb in the mix. However I DO NOT LIKE most reverb units - the ones that go wwwhhhaaaaahhhhssss in particular. Instead, I use really sparse echo-based spaces that I design for the piece itself on the Send.
:-)
Tony Anderson has left the chat
Why not have a duplicate instance of your instrument minus the reverb so you get the presence and clarity for fast notes from that version and the reverb from the other?
Only 21 seconds in and I’m pretty sure you’re quoting me about Blackhole reverb. Not certain, but yeah that’s me.
Oh, I thought you were going to talk about buying used gear online
I think what you’re saying is “it all depends on the application and context”.
My favourite pipe organ performance - Glenn Gould Kunst Der fuge… no cathedral reverb. Dry as a bone. You can hear every note.
I am not Glenn Gould . I use reverb.
What about delay though?
Crank it up, too!
Yes
Say more!!