How to make a song END on reverb (and what software)

modtech

New member
Hello everyone! I'm brand new here. I did a little searching through the forums to try to find the answer to my question, but I may not really be typing the right phrase.

What I am trying to figure out how to do is how to take an existing audio track (music) and CUT it somewhere in the middle, and then make that final note REVERB OUT. So it sounds natural, as if the song was supposed to end right there.

I once found a brilliant tutorial on how to do this using Adobe Audition. I used it several times and it worked great. However, I no longer pay Adobe for their subscription. I have tried SEVERAL other programs to try to accomplish this, but have yet to figure out a way to make it sound nice.

So the help I'm looking for is twofold:

1. What SOFTWARE do you recommend to use to do basic edits like this? I don't do a TON of sound editing, except inside my video creation software (DaVinci Resolve). This is not for music recording. Just for some simple edits, but of course I need to have the ability to add this reverb effect I'm looking for. I am willing to BUY some software to accomplish this, but I don't want to spend hundreds since my use is limited.
2. What is the basic method to achieve the reverb ending to a song (mid song) with the recommended software?


Thank you so much for any who can help with this!!

-Tim
 
Difficult to answer because it depends on what you choose - but any of the applications that edit audio and have a reverb plugin or function will do it. Some have the plug ins arranged via sends, so you do the end, and just before this point you automate the send from zero to where you want it, and it works. Others add the reverb to the clip as a whole - so you simply cut the clip at the bit near the end, and then apply the reverb to the tiny end part of the clip. If it can do reverb, it can do this effect.
 
Hmm, ok. Well, one of the main problems I run into when I try this is that the song ends abruptly MID-reverb effect. I tried it in DaVinci Resolve (in the Fairlight tab) and that was what I got. One cool thing I always liked about Adobe Audition was that you could insert SILENCE at the end of a song. Then when I applied the reverb, it would extend out into the silence and sound natural. Can you maybe recommend a few different programs I could try that might be comparable to Audition? (Preferably software that is under $100 and comes with a 14 or 30 day trial so I can test it first.)
 
Reaper can do that.

You can load the song into Reaper, add a reverb, put an envelope on it so that it only applies the reverb to the very end of the song.

Then when you render the track, just click the 'tail' button in the render dialog box and put in how long you want to render beyond the end of the song. For example, I've got 1000 milliseconds of tail. That's so that the render doesn't finish at exactly the point where the track finishes. Alternatively, you can select an area to render that includes the track and a bit beyond the track to capture the reverb tail.
 
Hmm, ok. Well, one of the main problems I run into when I try this is that the song ends abruptly MID-reverb effect. I tried it in DaVinci Resolve (in the Fairlight tab) and that was what I got. One cool thing I always liked about Adobe Audition was that you could insert SILENCE at the end of a song. Then when I applied the reverb, it would extend out into the silence and sound natural. Can you maybe recommend a few different programs I could try that might be comparable to Audition? (Preferably software that is under $100 and comes with a 14 or 30 day trial so I can test it first.)

It sounds like you're using a video editor for audio production. I'm not familiar with Resolve's details but most video editors have relatively limited audio production facilities. One exception is Vegas Pro, which started out as an audio program and added video, so it's much more capable in that realm. It's what I use for all my audio and video mixing projects and it would have no problem doing what you want to do. That said, I'm surprised there isn't some way to extend the project in Resolve. Maybe add some video to the end.
 
I think I understand the problem, and everyone has different ways to do it, based on their workflow/DAW/experience. But, the main thing is that you might be missing is the need to include the reverb tail when you bounce the audio from the DAW, as already mentioned, e.g., by [MENTION=45599]gecko zzed[/MENTION].

In Logic, I would use a SEND, set to PRE (Fader) and put the reverb on that send's aux. You could automate the turning on/off or fade-in/out of the reverb independently of the fader on the source.
 
To be honest, I'd be very surprised if any of the popular products didn't enable this.

I don't use it normally, but I just tried Audacity - it's free and easily downloadable. Cut a track, added a few seconds of silence then selected the very end bit of music, extended the selection into the empty silence and picked reverb from the effects menu and a big room with lots of space. Worked fine - and free!
 
I'd be surprised if Resolve didn't allow you to do this. If it stops suddenly at the end of your audio could you add another track containing silent audio in order to extend the tail?

However, if you are used to using Audition, you will probably find that Reaper is fairly easy to understand. I made the transition from Audition to Reaper over 10 years ago now (though I still use Audition for some things).
 
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