Advice on applying reverb

[ericlingus]

Hello. I play atmospheric black metal. Bands that influenced me are emperor,burzum,summoning,mithotyn,graveland,nokturnal mortum, and nortt. I'm going for a cavernous sound. Like a band playing in a huge cave so obviously a bit of reverb is necessary. I would like to know how to apply it. I mean since i'm going for a band playing in a cavern sound, all instruments should have reverb right? But should they all have the same type? Same amount? I'm confused by this. In my case should I just apply reverb to a bus that all the tracks are in so I just add the same reverb sound to all the instruments evenly? I dont really know what to do. I would really appreciate the advice.

 

[brendandwyer]

there are a lot of ways to achieve what you're looking for but i don't think i would apply reverb to the mix of all your instruments. I would select instruments like the snare drum and overheads (being careful of the cymbal decay), lead guitars, vocals. Leave things like the kick drum and bass out of the reverb plan. You could include bass in the reverb plan if the bassist plays leady higher register parts. I would also consider carefully the mic scheme on the drums, maybe utlize an extreme distance microphone for catching natural delay. The don't necessarily need to all use the same type of reverb, but some settings like decay and predelay if set up incorrectly between reverb patches will conflict. Above all though, mess around with it. Try a bunch of different settings. Try it on the main buss and see if you like it. Experiment to find what works and what doesn't.

 

[reshp1]

Put a reverb plugin on a stereo aux track and use the sends on each track to buss the audio into the aux track with the reverb plug. Set the reverb mix to 100% wet, then use the aux track fader to control the amount of reverb you want, and the individual send levels to determine which tracks get more reverb. You'll save TONS of CPU power buy using just one reverb, plus it'll sound more consistent too. The vox would be the only track I would use a different verb on (plate most likely). Cavernous reverb needs LOOONNG predelay, and use a large hall preset if you have it.

 

[Dr Biscuits]

Yes, and definitely don't go too too overboard with the reverb or your mix will be muddy and unintelegible, even if you are trying for a very atmospheric sound... maybe try starting by adding 'big' cathedral reverb to one instrument, just to get thet cave-y depth you're looking for and then slowly increase the wet/dry on the other tracks... and as brendanwyer suggested, i would be carefull about adding it to the kick and bass as you can lose a lot of impact if EVERYTHING is all washed out in verb... it's a fine line between 'atmospheric' and 'a big mess' - just fool around and experiment to find the sound you like!
Oh, and be sure to check your mix on both monitors and headphones cause your perception of reverb levels is vastly different on each...

 

[ericlingus]

thanks a lot guys.

 

[ericlingus]

could you explain step by step on how to make a reverb bus/aux track and then applying it to the tracks? I'm not quite sure I know what you mean by this. Thank you

 

[reshp1]

could you explain step by step on how to make a reverb bus/aux track and then applying it to the tracks? I'm not quite sure I know what you mean by this. Thank you

I'm assuming you're using a DAW program? In protools, I create a Aux Track and assign the input to a buss, say Bus 1-2. I insert the Reverb plugin on the Aux track. On each track I want reverb, I use a send and assign it to bus 1-2. That way the send routes the audio from the track to the aux track, which then goes through the reverb plugin. The Aux track output is mixed with all the other "dry" tracks. The amount of "wet" you want each track is controlled by the send level on each track, while the overall "wetness" of the reverb can be adjusted using the fader on the aux track to turn up the reverb plugin output.

 

[ericlingus]

yes I use cubase LE. Could you still be more specific. I kinda lost you after you said apply reverb to aux track. Now aux track is another name for a bus?

 

[metalhead28]

I think I've heard that in Cubase it's called an "FX Channel"

Maybe that helps, I don't really know anything about Cubase.

 

[ericlingus]

where would it be under?

 

[metalhead28]

where would it be under?

Dude, at some point you've got to break out the manual

I'm sure there is something in there about effect sends, busses, etc...

 

[ericlingus]

yes I use cubase LE. Could you still be more specific. I kinda lost you after you said apply reverb to aux track. Now aux track is another name for a bus?

 

[ericlingus]

ive read the operation manual. 576 pages. I'm reading the effects chapter again right now. It's just you guys' terminology isn't the same as the manuals. So i'm pretty confused. Says I need to create a group channel or something. Isn't really clear.

 

[ericlingus]

i've always been confused about buses. I never really understood how it works exactly.

 

[reshp1]

Hmm, I'm not familiar with Cubase. Maybe another cubase user can chime in. Basically a track is a vertical sequence of input, inserts/effects, sends pan, volume, and output. A Buss is a horizontal connection between various track inputs, sends and outputs. It helps to think of it like a grid, where you can get from any one point to another through a series of vertical and horizontal lines.

 

[JeffLancaster]

OK, I don't use Cubase, and I don't know if the terminology's the same, but here's how I do it in Sonar (hopefully you can translate): First, I right click in my console view and select "Insert Stereo Bus". This gives me what basically looks like just another channel strip, but I'll name it with something like "Reverb Bus" so I know what it's for. I'll add my reverb plugin into this bus strip, pick the reverb settings I want to use, and make sure it's set for 100% wet mix. Then, in any of the channel strips to which I want to apply this reverb, I'll right click, select "Insert Send". and then select "Reverb Bus" to tell it where to send to. I then get a couple new little control looking icon thingy's in the strip, including a dial with which I can adjust the amount of signal I want to send to the reverb bus. I can insert sends like this in as many of my tracks as I want, and individually control the amount of signal sent from each strip, which helps make the different instruments sound either closer, or further away in the mix. Hope that helps

 

[ericlingus]

I think I did it. I created a group track and added reverb to it and made it 100% wet. Then I routed all my tracks that I wanted that reverb on to that group track. On each track I can control the amount of reverb on my send level slider. So all my tracks how that exact same reverb but with different amount of it. Is this what you guys mean?

 

[brendandwyer]

busses. Your main mix, L&R is a buss. A buss is an avenue by which your channels are grouped and distributed through the physical jacks. So the L&R Buss is a group of all channels that are assigned to the main mix. So if channel 1 is panned hard left, 100% of that channel is being routed to the left channel of the main mix buss. Since bussing on a mixer happens post fader (meaning that all the crap above it, eq, inserts, aux sends, blah blah has already occured **depending on your mixer and its settings) the final signal is passed to the buss that you assign it to. So if, say on a mackie 8 buss mixer, you assign the channel to L/R, it is being sent to the Main Mix Buss. Now if you assign your channel to buss 1 (subgroup 1, submix 1, group 1, etc) it will be sent to buss 1. Heres a trick...most 8 buss (or 4 buss) boards group 1&2 on a switch, 3&4 on a switch, etc. THe amount of signal passed to Buss 1 or Buss 2 depends on the position of the pan knob. If you have your signal panned hard left, and assign it to Group 1&2, it is only going to 1. If you had it panned hard right, it would be going to buss 2. If the pan knob is at 12:00, then an equal amount of signal is reaching buss 1 and buss 2.

You can then assign those busses to the Main Mix if you'd like, or route them out, record them to a pair of tracks (submixing) insert an effect or compressor, etc.

 

[ericlingus]

okay this time I really got it. I went through an exercise in the manual on how to do this. I had to create a stereo channel and then add a send effect, in this case reverb. I then routed only the reverb not the whole channel to a group(could have been a bus , either one works) then I added reverb via the insert effect. Then I mixed it 100% wet. Now the group channel's fader acts as a reverb level control and on each track thats in the same bus as it has the same reverb and I can control how much of it with the send level control. yay!

 

[reshp1]

I think I did it. I created a group track and added reverb to it and made it 100% wet. Then I routed all my tracks that I wanted that reverb on to that group track. On each track I can control the amount of reverb on my send level slider. So all my tracks how that exact same reverb but with different amount of it. Is this what you guys mean?

Sounds like you've got it.