About panning reverb...

[jeffmaher]

So i started out always panning reverb tracks to the same locations as the tracks they reverb for. Seemed logical.
Then I tried some experiments panning verb opposite the location of the parent track to see if I could get some swingin' FX. [didn't work, a lot]

My last mix, I placed every verb track dead center, regardless of the pans of their parent tracks.

I noticed that the center-panned verb tracks...altogether, smade the mix sound way better than the first two options. A nice realistic ambience.

So have I stumbled onto a piece of boilerplate knowledge in mixing that I never read about? That verbs tend to make mixes sound gooder when they're all centered...instead of panned to the locations of their parent trax???

Why might that be?

What do you do?

I know it's a matter of what I like..but I'm wondering about what real engineers do.

 

[RAMI]

You seem to have tried everything but the most common: Using a STEREO reverb in STEREO.

 

[jeffmaher]

If I pan a stereo verb track right or left, it's still a stereo track. Right? What are you talking about?

 

[Golden]

I was listening to Pink Floyd's Animals album the other day (with headphones)... the very first song PIGS, I hear Roger Waters' voice with a reverb being panned into the left speaker... sounds pretty cool...

That's how I've been doing it... It just feels the most natural for me when I'm mixing.

I like the way it slides across the stereo...

 

[Daisy]

That verbs tend to make mixes sound gooder when they're all centered...

Yes, you have.

And congratulations.

At some point in time, most of us reach a stage where someone pulls us aside and explains this secret to us.

That reverbs are "gooder" when they're centered.

And for you to have stumbled upon this ... without anyone having told you about it. All by yourself ... well, it's quite simply mind-numbing.

.

 

[jeffmaher]

Yeah, Golden...that was the thing I was trying...get that slide across the field. Mebbe it only works well if you do it with one track. i was trying it with two. Just sounded confusing.

Daisy, I dedicated myself to plunging into recording...following the advice I read here: do it, and do, it, and do it. It seems to work. And I know I'm making progress, cuz I need to go back and remix and remaster everything I thought was great a month..or six months ago. I can hear why it sucks. And if there's any hope for me, I'll be pinching my nose at what I did this morning....a week from today.

I did a search for this info before I posted...nothin'. I'm kinda surprised...in that it's common knowledge, apparently....that none of the reading material I have ever touched on it. I guess I wanted to find out if I was imagining that centered verbs sounded better, or if they really did sound better; and it's common practice to middle 'em. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[RAMI]

If I pan a stereo verb track right or left, it's still a stereo track. Right? What are you talking about?

I'm talking about using it in STEREO. As in Left and Right. Not panning to one side. You're treating your reverb like it's a mono sound by pulling all the way right/left, or all the way in the middle. I'm not saying that's wrong, I was simply pointing out that you seem to have tried everything but the most obvious, which is to leave it stereo, which is left AND right...not left OR right.

Clearer???

 

[jeffmaher]

Ah...I must be misusing terms....
When I said panning, I didn't mean full left or right. For example, I meant that if had piano panned 30% right, I was inclined to pan the FX track for that piano track 30% right also.

Thinking about it now, it dawns on me why this is not the way to go. The parent track is the source of the sound. Reverb's source is the imaginary room. If I'm listening to music in a hall, there is only one source for reflections...the boundaries of the hall. Having variously panned verbs is like having multiple 'ghost' walls on every side.....un-natural...confusing to the brain....

I gotta start listening to rooms. I just printed out Ford Van's audio primer. He mentions that. Synthesis.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Rami is absolutely right about the stereo reverb aspect of it. The OP makes no mention of whether his verb is mono or stereo, but I'd suspect it is a stereo return.

There is no "secret" or any one best panning scheme for reverb in general. There is two main questions to ask when deciding what to do with reverb: What purpose or effect are you looking to create? and what will your arrangement/mix allow you to get away with?

If you're looking to just add a special effect sound to your guitar or to try to recreate the sound of an amp reverb (maybe even re-amping), or if you are trying to place the instrument towards the rear of the mix - i.e. make it sound distant - then panning to match the track often makes the most sense.

If you're looking to place the band in a room, then a stereo reverb or room modeler panned center often is the go-to choice. Then there is the additional question of whether you want to verb individual instruments or the entire mix. Both choices can be valid.

If you're looking to give a thin-sounding mix a fuller sound, or to add some verb to a pretty dense mix with a lot of stuff going on already, especially down the center, then it can make sense to pan your verb to fill holes in the pan space rather than stack it on top of existing instruments.

There are exceptions to each of these, there are no unbreakable rules. However, they are some basics that often make sense for getting your sound from A to B. But the key is that, like with almost everything else in this racket, there is no one answer or "secret". Rather it all depends upon figuring out where your mix is at, deciding where you want it to go, and then figuring out what it'll take to get it from here to there.

G.

 

[jeffmaher]

Thanks, Glen.

I reckon I have a way to go before my senses are all wired up to be able to fill holes with reverb. A lot of brain-train to exprience; but I'm getting some things in your post to focus on. I appreciate the description.

I have a plug-in Lexicon program on my Sonar that I use to verb-up.

 

[cusebassman]

I would imagine that Rami means that when you send a stereo signal to a stereo reverb unit (or plugin), the amount of panning is accounted for in the reverb unit, and as such, will return a stereo reverb sound that also has panning taken into consideration... so if you have, say, a guitar panned 30 degrees to the left, and you pass the L&R to a stereo 'verb, you will get back a reverb sound that sounds 30 degrees panned to the left.

I also would imagine that for general reverb (i.e. not a guitar or specific instrument effect as SouthSide said, but in use as general ambience), keeping it centered is akin to thinking of your piece of music being played, as a whole, in an actual room. Even though the bass player is on one side, the rhythm guitar player on the other, the natural reflections of a good room would wind up giving you a wash of reverb that sounds centered and balanced, from the prespective of an audience. While sitting in the middle of an auditorium listening to a large band on stage, you wouldn't hear the reverb from instruments on one side of the stage only in that respective ear.

 

[Robert D]

Thinking about it now, it dawns on me why this is not the way to go. The parent track is the source of the sound. Reverb's source is the imaginary room. If I'm listening to music in a hall, there is only one source for reflections...the boundaries of the hall. Having variously panned verbs is like having multiple 'ghost' walls on every side.....un-natural...confusing to the brain....

I gotta start listening to rooms. I just printed out Ford Van's audio primer. He mentions that. Synthesis.

It sounds like you have the right attitude to get good at this stuff over time. Nice job of keeping cool while you got ribbed a bit.

So, as you've reasoned, reverb is all about reflections, and reflections don't come from the source. In fact, if a source is close to one side of a room, the primary (vs secondary) reflections from the close wall will be too short in delay to be percieved as seperate from the source, while the far wall primary reflections will be delayed more and percieved as seperate. In other words, the natural primary reflections will appear to be more from the opposite side of the room, even though they will be lower in level, as the close primaries are integrated with the source.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I reckon I have a way to go before my senses are all wired up to be able to fill holes with reverb. A lot of brain-train to exprience; but I'm getting some things in your post to focus on. I appreciate the description.

RobD is right, you have an understanding and attitude that will take you far. You're already miles ahead of half the pack in that regard .

You're right, it's up to the ears and the ears do take some practice. But at the same time, the basics are not that hard and sometimes a simple mental panning map can help ID the "holes".

For just one example, one very common panning scheme is often called LCR (I personally think this scheme is overused, and I don't like it all that much myself, but it is a valid one used successfully by a lot of pros nonetheless). This simply means Left/Center/Right and is just a fancy way of saying that each track is panned either hard left, up the center, or hard right. This leaves "holes" in the soundstage between the center and the sides, where nothing is panned. Often times this space is filled in with some reverb. The nature of the reverb varies, and it takes ears and experimentation to see what works and what doesn't for you, but the "holes" in the pan in that are pretty self-evident as being where eveything else isn't panned .

I have a plug-in Lexicon program on my Sonar that I use to verb-up.

The two questions there are A) is the track you're feeding into the plug a stereo track or a mono one? and 2) how are you inserting the plug into your chain? By that last one, I mean are you just applying the effect to that track or are you returning the web verb signal to auxilliary an track or two?

G.

 

[jeffmaher]

For just one example, one very common panning scheme is often called LCR (I personally think this scheme is overused, and I don't like it all that much myself, but it is a valid one used successfully by a lot of pros nonetheless). This simply means Left/Center/Right and is just a fancy way of saying that each track is panned either hard left, up the center, or hard right. This leaves "holes" in the soundstage between the center and the sides, where nothing is panned. Often times this space is filled in with some reverb. The nature of the reverb varies, and it takes ears and experimentation to see what works and what doesn't for you, but the "holes" in the pan in that are pretty self-evident as being where eveything else isn't panned .The two questions there are A) is the track you're feeding into the plug a stereo track or a mono one? and 2) how are you inserting the plug into your chain? By that last one, I mean are you just applying the effect to that track or are you returning the web verb signal to auxilliary an track or two?


That's a great exercise! Like providing mytrog-brain with really huge targets.

I select a stereo track, and apply the Lex verb to the track. I select "keep original data" and "create new track" which gives me only the verb signal. I buddy it up with the parent, and level it to what sounds right. The return is also stereo. But I'm not sure if I get it centered or panned to the same location as the parent....gotta look at that. I often alter pans post-FX...and I could reall bugger things up if I have a verb track created with a 30% left pan that shows center on the bar slider! I know there's a way to link the control for multiple tracks....future project.

And I really appreciate the time y'all are taking to help. I figure I got ten years of gigging left. I need to get to a point where I can not only compose, but also package work with ribbons and bows.....pro sounding trax. I have a mentor who actually makes a pretty good income making floors and themes and tv and radio recordings. [he just licensed a couple ditties to NASCAR!!] I want a chunk of that business! He's a busy guy, and I feel guilty taking his time to ask stupid questions...and understanding only half of the answers.

I actually started pushing CD's into the mailbox last month..hunting for a sound library publisher. They must be laughing their asses off at what I'm offering up. But I plan to keep getting better...hitting them a couple times a year with new and improved stuff. I got a long way to go, but sending stuff is perfect motivation for achieving my best results .....it renders whatever I do important! If I could afford a pro engineer and studio to do this part, I wouldn't need the money I could make from licencing and airplay of my tunes! I gotta learn to do it myself. In sum...I REALLY APPRECIATE the HELP!!!!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The return is also stereo. But I'm not sure if I get it centered or panned to the same location as the parent....gotta look at that.

OK, this is exactly what Rami was talking about. A stereo reverb return is intended to repesent an actual stereo image. As such, it's really intended to be un-panned. Panning a stereo image is no different with a stereo reverb than it is with a normal full mix in stereo; pan it one way or the other and it just wont sound "right", because part of the full image is missing.

This is exactly why what you're doing now sounds best panned center. It's not because you're sending a localized reverb sound down the center, but because you are reproducing the full stereo image as it was meant to be heard.

If you want to pan a localized reverb sound on top of am instrument or to a specific location in the pan space, you should usually be doing this with a mono reverb effect; i.e. one that returns it back to a mono track, or at least a stereo track with identical information on both left and right returns.

G.

 

[jeffmaher]

Roger that. And I checked and found that all returns are centered, regardless of the parent's pan.