Panning reverb

Nola

Nola

Well-known member
hi everyone.

what's the proper way to use reverb on guitars that are panned left and right?
 
And how much reverb you're putting on them. If you've got a fair amount and you leave the reverb centered, then you've lost some of the panning. I'll usually pan the reverb the same as the track is panned - but I seldom hard-pan anything.
 
If it's a stereo reverb, I leave it in the middle and stereo. If it is a mono reverb, I pan it opposite the guitar feeding it.

Most of the time, if I have two guitars panned hard and I choose to put a reverb on them, I just have them feeding one stereo reverb. Half the time, I just feed a little guitars into the drum reverb, just to get everything in the same room.

Of course it all depends what type of song it is and what I'm trying to accomplish.
 
Is there an advantage to using stereo reverb on a single mono source? So far I haven't been using reverb for much besides vocals, which are either panned center (lead) or arranged symmetrically slightly left and right (harmonies). Anyway, I've just left the stereo reverb centered on the assumption that doing so will preserve the panning of the source tracks.
 
Are you using an aux send for the reverb, or are you inserting it on the instrument track?

If you insert it on the instrument track, the reverb will pan with the instrument.

If you use an aux send, the path of the instrument and the reverb are separate, so you can pan either of them independently of each other.
 
A send, always. Let me clarify. Suppose I am sending two mono tracks panned left and right to a single stereo reverb, panned center. The return from the reverb to the master track should preserve the left and right panning of the source tracks, right? Anyway, that's what I've been assuming.
 
Kinda depends what the plugin means by "stereo". A surprising number of these things - both plugs and hardware - are actually mono in and stereo out. A stereo input is summed to mono, then run through two slightly different reverb processes - one for each output. You will definitely lose the original pan positions, but it can and does work reasonably well most of the time.

There are some out there which are basically dual mono - one process for each of L and R. This will preserve your panning, but is still not exactly natural.

There are very few true stereo reverbs out there. These actually have two reverb process for each of the L and R input. Usually have shorter and/or denser and/or louder reflections on the side where the input is, or whatever. It's about the closest you can get to the real deal, but obviously uses twice as many resources.

You can, of course, make a true stereo verb out of two instances of either of the other types. I have very often run two dual-mono reverb busses. One is a bit longer than the other, has it's panning reversed, and is mixed a little quieter, maybe even low passed a little. I send about the same signal to both and it can really sound pretty good.

Nowadays I'm using IRs in ReaVerb, which is mono>stereo, so I have to run two of those with the channels swapped on one.

Then again, sometimes "natural" and "realistic" doesn't mean "sounds right in context". There are no rules. There is no proper. Plug it in, turn it up, play with the knobs until you get something you like. If it sounds go to you in the end, anybody who tells you that you did it wrong is an asshole.
 
thanks everyone. so i can use a mono reverb and then make two fx channels and pan them opposite, or one stereo fx reverb and keep it center?

or i can experiment and do what i want but it might not be natural. is that right?
 
Thanks Ash. Very helpful. I had not realized that ReaVerb sums to mono before splitting the signal to stereo. I'll try the dual reverb trick. Would this be the procedure? 1. Set up two reverb tracks, panned left and right. 2. Set up two separate sends from a mono track, one to each reverb track. 3. Adjust the panning position of the reverb-to-master return by balancing the send levels from the mono tracks to the reverb tracks. Am I on the right...er...track...here?
 
You can do any of those. Each will sound a little different. Go ahead and try each, just to see how they offer a different effect. Once you know what each method does, you can choose the one that is appropriate for what you are trying to accomplish.

That said, the normal mono in->stereo out reverb works well in most cases. In an actual room, if you have a guitar amp on the left, the direct sound of the amp will be on the left, but that sound will excite the whole room. Effectively acting like a mono in->stereo out reverb. (at least until you get into a huge, warehouse type space)
 
Farview said:
You can do any of those. Each will sound a little different. Go ahead and try each, just to see how they offer a different effect. Once you know what each method does, you can choose the one that is appropriate for what you are trying to accomplish.

That said, the normal mono in->stereo out reverb works well in most cases. In an actual room, if you have a guitar amp on the left, the direct sound of the amp will be on the left, but that sound will excite the whole room. Effectively acting like a mono in->stereo out reverb. (at least until you get into a huge, warehouse type space)
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the reason i asked if that when i used mono reverb and panned hard left and right the reverbs sounded weird. they almost sounded like they had artifacts all the sudden and seemed real short.
i had a predelay of like 50 on them too. but i ran both guitars through the same mono reverb so maybe that's why.

i didn't try stereo yet so i will and see if that is more normal sounding.
 
the "sound" of my music doesn't change all too much, so i always send my mono guitar tracks (all of them. heavy, quiet verse, delayed, everything) to a Bus. That bus has EQ, slight comp, and reverb (always a least 30ms pre-delay). in that order. The guitar tracks are panned according to taste.

also ask yourself how your vocal reverb meshes with your guitar verb. too drastic a difference in things like "length" or "distance" might throw the tune off. subjective view, however.
 
Nola said:
the reason i asked if that when i used mono reverb and panned hard left and right the reverbs sounded weird. they almost sounded like they had artifacts all the sudden and seemed real short.
i had a predelay of like 50 on them too. but i ran both guitars through the same mono reverb so maybe that's why.

i didn't try stereo yet so i will and see if that is more normal sounding.
Click to expand...
It probably sounds strange because it creates a completely unnatural effect. Effectively, what you are doing is putting each guitar in a separate, long narrow room, with the guitar amp at one end. Then standing in the middle with the amp on one side and the empty room on the other. That isn't how you listen to a band, or even just two guitar players.

Even on the old Van Halen albums where all the guitar was on the right and only the guitar reverb was on the left, there was still reverb on the right side with the guitar.
 
Robus said:
Thanks Ash. Very helpful. I had not realized that ReaVerb sums to mono before splitting the signal to stereo. I'll try the dual reverb trick. Would this be the procedure? 1. Set up two reverb tracks, panned left and right. 2. Set up two separate sends from a mono track, one to each reverb track. 3. Adjust the panning position of the reverb-to-master return by balancing the send levels from the mono tracks to the reverb tracks. Am I on the right...er...track...here?
Click to expand...
If you stop and think for a moment about how the impulse is recorded, I think you'll see that it kind of can't be any other way. Say you set up a stereo pair of microphones and pop a balloon. The mics don't have any idea where the balloon is in relation to them, just what actually hits their diaphrams. Pop two balloons at once. The mics still don't know what part of what they're hearing come from the one on the left or the one on the right. No way to sort it out.

So instead you have to pop the balloon on the left, capture the response in both mics, then repeat for the balloon on the right. Then when you use the IR, you have to send the things you want to sound like they are coming from where the left balloon was to through the one IR, and other things through the other. Or, if the room is relatively symmetrical or you're just not that worried about it, you use the left one for both, but flip the output channels of the one.

This, of course, doesn't help you realistically simulate positions in between where those two balloons were. You end up with an effect very much like if you mixed the thing (based on your the levels and panning of the sends) into a pair of speakers in the room, with all the "phantom center", not-exactly-realistic positioning information that entails. Frankly, this is going to be true with any true stereo reverb.

There are a very few real ray-tracing room simulators out there where you can actually place a particular source in a particular spot in respect to the "microphones". These require, of course, a separate input for each individual source, require a whole lot of resources, and are generally pretty expensive, though I think either one of the last Cakewalk ProAudio or first Sonar versions had one that didn't work great. It could be done with IRs, but would be tedious, and basically require an instance of ReaVerb for every track, and... I have been tempted to try it with Voxengo's Space Designer, but it's really probably more work than it's worth. Since I started recording, I've had the vision of pumping each track through an actual speaker in an actual room and mixing by moving them around. That would probably be easier. :)

Anyway. You can put ReaVerb on two separate tracks, and use two separate sends, but that gets kind of wonky fast unless you're using post-fader sends rather than messing much with panning on the sends themselves. The procedure for setting it up on one track is actually in the Reaper User Guide as an example of how to use the plugin pins and multi-channel routing and is probably worth working through just for that.
 
Farview said:
If it's a stereo reverb, I leave it in the middle and stereo. If it is a mono reverb, I pan it opposite the guitar feeding it.
Click to expand...

I do this a lot too.
Stereo sources get stereo reverb...and mono I like to pan the the opposite side, though sometimes it could be at some point that is not perfectly opposite. I just play with the panning until I find what I like based on other tracks and reverb choices in the mix.

I also like to send a mono source to one side of a stereo reverb...which will give me a stronger reverb output on one of the sides (L or R)...and I'll pan/flip that to taste. That way the mono dry is where I want it, but the reverb still washes across the L/R image, but with a stronger "bounce" on one side....again, almost always placed to the opposite side.
A lot depends on the brand of reverb unit or plug-in used, and the chosen reverb type...so no real set rules or outcomes.

I probably have like a half-dozen or so reverb presets that I've created...some in my software plug-in reverbs, and some in my outboard hardware units. Mostly it's a lot of plate variations, as I tend to like plate reverbs the most...but also a couple of room and hall choices. Then I also have my prized vintage EMT 240 gold foil plate unit...which only has the option to change the decay time, so not a ton of versatility, but it's got a couple of sweet spots that work exceptionally well on drums.
I always pull from that bunch of choices, and each one tends to be used for specific things. I don't try and reinvent the reverb wheel every time I do a new mix.
 
One cool thing that I've tried is using a stereo widener after my reverb and it adds so much room and helps with the clarity of my mixes.
 
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