Why a Reverb Bus?

mjbphotos

Moderator
OK, I have just a started using Reaper, after using a stand-alone Boss recorder to do my mixing.
I tried setting up a Reverb Bus track but the output sounded terrible - all the instrument sounds jumbled like you were listening to a band in the back of large hall with no acoustic treatment. Obviously I can change my 'room' setting, but this is not the effect I wanted.
I deleted the bus track and set individual reverb on the tracks and like the effect much better.
So, why use a Reverb Bus?
 
Never used one myself, but it might be useful for applying 'verb to a stereo recording of say a choir or orchestra. I am guessing that you have to tweek it for good results.
 
OK, I have just a started using Reaper, after using a stand-alone Boss recorder to do my mixing.
I tried setting up a Reverb Bus track but the output sounded terrible - all the instrument sounds jumbled like you were listening to a band in the back of large hall with no acoustic treatment. Obviously I can change my 'room' setting, but this is not the effect I wanted.
I deleted the bus track and set individual reverb on the tracks and like the effect much better.
So, why use a Reverb Bus?

Why? To save processing power. To get everything in the same space. You were close to what you want to do, you just did it wrong. Adjust the wet mix, pre/post fader, and/or mix the reverb track and original track to taste. There's a variety of ways to do it right. Read the manual and don't just give up on it. Reaper is one of the best DAW's out there for routing and grouping tracks.
 
To get the best result from a reverb bus:

insert reverb plugin on a track and set it to 100% wet.

send each recorded track (on which you want to apply reverb) to the reverb track, and adjust the send level to get the right amount of reverb you want for each track.

You can also control the reverb level from the reverb track globally by using the fader, or by adjusting the separate receives.
 
To get the best result from a reverb bus:

insert reverb plugin on a track and set it to 100% wet.

send each recorded track (on which you want to apply reverb) to the reverb track, and adjust the send level to get the right amount of reverb you want for each track.

You can also control the reverb level from the reverb track globally by using the fader, or by adjusting the separate receives.

This is pretty much how I do it too. There are a couple of answers to your question. If you want several instruments to sound like they're in the same space, you can set up one reverb on a bus and send those instruments to it. That way, if you make adjustments to the reverb the adjustments affect all the instruments. And like Greg said, it will save you processing power.

What it sound like you're hearing is a reverb setting that's too wet. That's where gekko zzed said to adjust the send level to the bus to get the amount of reverb that you want. The signal that you send to the bus will be mixed with the dry signal to get the sound you want. The less signal you send to the bus, the dryer the reverb will be. And vice versa.
 
This is pretty much what gekko said, but in Reaper one way to do it is drag the I/O (little green box above the fx) from each track into the I/O for the reverb bus. A little I/O volume knob will appear on the individual tracks this is where you can adjust how much of the dry track will be sent to the wet reverb bus. Or, in the I/O box on the bus, there will be a volume slider for each track, that will do the same thing. And as stated, you can control the entire reverb bus with the bus fader. Make sure all tracks are still going to the monitors and not just the bus, that way you have wet (bus) and dry (individual tracks).
 
And I see nobody mentioned that a Reverb Car is way to small to hold all the Reverb. It had to be a bus...
 
Are you using a post-fader aux send (or whatever they call it in Reaper) or assigning the channel output to the reverb bus? You want to do the former, not the latter.
 
Yeah, forgot to mention that. You'll probably want to click the "post fader" box (i think it'll be in the I/O on the reverb bus).
 
I send all my guitar tracks to a bus with reverb on it.I apply a small amount of verb and mix the bus with the individual dry tracks.I don't like a lot of reverb personally.
 
Me neither. I like reverb until you can hear it, then I back it off a little. If I can notice the reverb, then it's too much.
 
I think I had it as 'pre-fader', but I guess I'm used to adjusting each track's depth (not just amount) of reverb separately. If I send it post-fader does the reverb for a particular track stay panned the same as the track itself? That was the first thing I noticed is that the reverb bus put all the tracks across the field.
 
To get the best result from a reverb bus:

insert reverb plugin on a track and set it to 100% wet.

send each recorded track (on which you want to apply reverb) to the reverb track, and adjust the send level to get the right amount of reverb you want for each track.

You can also control the reverb level from the reverb track globally by using the fader, or by adjusting the separate receives.
This says it all pretty much.

As a practical use of controlling the reverb think in terms of a production where you want to set up the music with reverb but in between songs you have a speaker. You don't want all the verb when listening to someone talk but if you have it set up as gecko zzed states all you need to do is mute the reverb channel.

It's good to have an effects channel set up too so you can have universal flexibility with your other effects.

In a live situation it's warranted because you don't want all this stuff going to your monitors.
 
I think I had it as 'pre-fader', but I guess I'm used to adjusting each track's depth (not just amount) of reverb separately. If I send it post-fader does the reverb for a particular track stay panned the same as the track itself? That was the first thing I noticed is that the reverb bus put all the tracks across the field.

The panning of the reverb is determined by the plugin itself, and by the panning on the reverb track. but, yes, the reverb track usually puts all the tracks across the field. However, if you think about it, this is the way that reverb works generally. If someone plays a guitar in a hall, you as a listener will get hear the primary sound of the guitar, but the hall reverb will come at you from everywhere.
 
Ended up using separate Reverb for each instrument track and a bus for the vocal tracks. I had 17 individual tracks to start out with, added 3 Group tracks and the reverb bus, for a total of 21 tracks, and had 20 FXs being used - my CPU usage was close to 70% - yikes!
 
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