Need help moving track back in the mix with reverb...

J

joshua288

New member
Hello. I am taking a guitar track and "sending" part of the signal to a stereo aux track with a reverb plug-in that is 0% Dry 100% Wet. When I play both tracks, I can hear the reverb from the aux track and the original guitar track, but, no matter how much aux track I blend in, it doesn't feel like the guitar is moved back, spatially. It feels like the guitar is still right in the front, with some reflective sound in the background. I read that reverb is supposed to make an instrument appear to move back in the mix. I realize I can put the reverb plug-in on the guitar track and Reduce the Dry signal relative to the Wet signal, but I prefer to send multiple instruments to an aux track dedicated to the reverb. Any help would be appreciated.
 
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Turn the dry guitar track down a little when adding reverb. The reverb adds to the total volume of the guitar so you may need to compensate. If you're using a post-fader send the balance between dry and wet guitar will stay the same when the guitar channel fader is moved.
 
Try just turning it down first. Might be enough. If you need a little more, you could try rolling off some high end to get it to sit back a little.
 
Anytime you send a channel to an aux bus, think of the return as a 50/50 mix with the original channel. Even though you have your reverb setting at 100% wet, when the aux signal comes back to the original channel, it is blended as 50% reverb and 50% original dry signal, (as long as all levels are equal).

It is not a good idea to send several instruments to the same reverb bus because each instrument will "excite" or "activate" the reverb in different ways. The reverb is then likely to start sounding like a sloppy garbled mess.

Good luck.
 
homerecor said:
It is not a good idea to send several instruments to the same reverb bus because each instrument will "excite" or "activate" the reverb in different ways. The reverb is then likely to start sounding like a sloppy garbled mess.
Good luck.
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**Disagree** A reverb buss is a typical device used in recording - all instruments sent to one reverb. It puts them in the same 'space'. But use it sparingly.
 
mjbphotos said:
**Disagree** A reverb buss is a typical device used in recording - all instruments sent to one reverb. It puts them in the same 'space'. But use it sparingly.
Click to expand...

I prefer to pay close attention to the frequency response of my reverb space. For example, a vocal reverb may benefit from a carefully placed low pass filter to prevent exaggerating those shrilly "ess" sounds. On the other hand, upper notes on a flute, violin, or piano may sound dull with the same LPF applied. For those reasons, I feel that each instrument track should be treated individually.

But again, there are no rules. Knock yourself out.

EDIT: Granted, I have grouped similar tracks together, (such as several backup vocals,) to apply reverb. But the key word there is "similar". I know it's not a perfect world and many of us need to work with what we have. If you don't have the processing power to apply each effect separately, then grouping still works.
 
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Yes, Armistice, I was planning on "sending" a few instruments to this Reverb aux track. I had seen on many online mixing courses that it was standard practice to use aux tracks for reverb to maintain a common space, with the added benefit of preserving the CPU.
 
mjbphotos said:
**Disagree** A reverb buss is a typical device used in recording - all instruments sent to one reverb. It puts them in the same 'space'. But use it sparingly.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but it gives you the added benefit of being able to do things like EQing just the reverb (which is the most common thing I've seen), among any other processing you might want to do.

I actually saw this really cool video recently by Eric Tarr about how you can adjust exclusively the high frequency reverb length or low frequency reverb length by using a multi-band compressor on your reverb return (which is a common thing to be able to do on algorithmic reverbs like the Lexicons, but if you're using a convolution reverb, you usually don't have such a luxury).

In my opinion, unless the reverb is being used on exclusively one instrument and you're 100% happy with how the reverb sounds, then it should be used as a send.

But that's just my opinion, of course. =P
 
joshua288 said:
Yes, Armistice, I was planning on "sending" a few instruments to this Reverb aux track. I had seen on many online mixing courses that it was standard practice to use aux tracks for reverb to maintain a common space, with the added benefit of preserving the CPU.
Click to expand...

I was asking as I was wondering if it was "sticking out" because most of the other instruments were dry, but I see that's not the case.
 
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