Differing use of reverb impulses

[JDOD]

All, don't want to spam Bubba's "Anthropocene" Mix (which is fucking excellent BTW) so I thought I would start a new thread.

How do you guys use your reverb impulses?

My music tends to be pretty lean on instrumentation so I don't use much.
I have a favourite room impulse that I run guitars through, very sparingly. For lead guitars I tend to have it slightly wetter but only a touch. And I add just a hint to my DI'd bass track along with a little compression.

For drums I have the whole kit (with the exception of the kick) in a folder and add an my favourite drum impulse - although this is a very different sounding impulse to what I would use on guitars.

I have the kick separated out and I use a different impulse but with the set setting at a similar level so it sounds in the same space as the rest of the kit. The reason for this is that the kick seems to trigger a really weird effect on my favourite impulse that I use for the rest of the kit.

 

[easlern]

I've tried out room ir's like small rooms for guitars. Sounds realistic but I ultimately decided it just didn't really serve the music for me. Lately I've been cutting out all the reverb except for vocals and drums. This is just straight up plain rock tracks. I don't really bother matching ir's because I can't hear the difference, with rare exceptions.

 

[Tadpui]

I love adding some room reverb to guitar solo tracks. I don't do particularly busy solos, but there's something that I love about a guitar solo that sounds like it happened in a great sounding room, with plenty of room reverb mixed in. I think I got that from a Songs:Ohia song called Blue Factory Flame. It doesn't work all the time, but I look for any opportunity to fit it into a lead tone.

Other than that, I haven't been using impulses much lately. I'm just hooked on Lexicon MPX Native reverbs lately. I should really play with the Waves IR-1 that I have but haven't ever even opened it. I got it in the Gold bundle the same day that I got the MPX reverb and haven't fired it up even once.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Many of my things have reverb but you can't really hear it.
If you're just going for a room or hall 'space' to make it seem as if everyone's really in a room together, then often a little bit that you can't actually hear is appropriate .... as an example ..... let's say you're playing live with a rock band and you like perfectly dry guitar so that's how your amp is set .... totally dry.
You're STILL gonna have some room sound 'cause you're in a room.
So in real life it's gonna be there ...... period. But you don't always hear 'verb in a room. It's just the air and atmosphere of the room .... almost unconscious but it's there.

So you can do that with impulses too .... you don't always have to have it wet enough to actually notice but if you take it away then you notice some undefinable thing is missing.

 

[Greg_L]

So you can do that with impulses too .... you don't always have to have it wet enough to actually notice but if you take it away then you notice some undefinable thing is missing.

This ^^^^^^^ x 10000000000000000000000000000000000000

Unless you're using reverb as a specific effect, the best use of reverb is when you can't notice it, but you'll notice if it's gone.

 

[JDOD]

Cheers. I like that last tip, Greg.

I've never tried to get all my instruments using the same impulse, just make them sound like their in the same place.

 

[Pinky]

I've tried out room ir's like small rooms for guitars. Sounds realistic but I ultimately decided it just didn't really serve the music for me. Lately I've been cutting out all the reverb except for vocals and drums. This is just straight up plain rock tracks. I don't really bother matching ir's because I can't hear the difference, with rare exceptions.

+1

I will sometimes use a light touch of reverb on an acoustic. Generally for electric I will apply delay. Bass guitar gets a tiny bit of chorus, but no delay and sometimes some very light room reverb. Guitars can sound fine without delay/reverb, for the most part, but some mixes require something be added especially when other instrumentation is sparse.

 

[easlern]

Yeah some reverb on a few dynamic instruments is really beautiful. I tend to throw a lot of junk in a mix though so it's hard to keep it without making things kind of washed out.

 

[spantini]

I've been recording a single acoustic and one vocal using the built-in mics on my mini-studio. The Hall1 and Studio reverbs are working well - I set the track levels and add just enough reverb so it's not really noticeable unless I drop it out. If I need to add more, I set the track level a bit lower.