Reverb EVERYWHERE. Time to Bus?

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endserenading81

New member
Hey all you reverb and 80s lovers.

I am mixing an album right now, and I love reverb. My band sounds like INXS, the Cure, Billy Idol, Jesus and Mary Chain, ... and lots of POP songs out there.

I am right now adding reverb to almost every track. When I closely hear many famous 80s recordings, .... even the Bass and Kick have just a bit of reverb.... very tiny.

So I'm wondering ..... do most mixing engineers add multiple tracks to a reverb bus? Or does every track have to have their own reverb? It seems very excessive. Not to mention CPU intensive.

Of course the Snare, Main Vocal, and Lead Guitar have their own dedicated reverb for color.

But this is what I was thinking of doing> Sending all the drums to a very light reverb bus, with compression, just to add some "GLUE". Then I do the same with Guitars, Synths, and Vocals.

Is it a good idea to run similar instruments through effects like this? It just doesn't seem like a good idea to be using 10 different types of reverbs or MORE in a song. Seems like it would be a drowning mess.

Thanks!
Rob
 
A sensible approach is to create a reverb bus and use this for all tracks that you want reverb on . . . just create sends from each track and vary the level of each send according to the amount of reverb you want.
 
In my opinion, reverb is something to add after the mix is working, not necessarily a 'glue' tool.

If a mix was a cupcake, compression would be the eggs in the cake. Eq would be the frosting. Reverb would be the sprinkles on top to make the bake sale ladies envy your cupcakes. :)
 
Depending on what DAW you use, you might find that the terminology for what you want (at least in Gecko zzed's scenario which I endorse) would be an Aux send rather than a Bus.

With a Bus the main output of each fader/channel goes to a single extra fader (i.e. the Bus) before going into the main mix. This means that the reverb on everything on the Bus is identical.

Using an Aux Send, the main output of each fader is your dry signal and the Aux goes to the reverb before coming back in on another channel as the full wet reverb. By playing with the relative levels of the channel fader, the aux send on each channel and the return you can balance the amount of reverb on each channel but still only have the processing overhead of a single channel of reverb.

As a detail, for live work I'd normally use a post fade aux but, to work like the above, I'd probably go pre fade.
 
"INXS, the Cure, Billy Idol, Jesus and Mary Chain"

Emulations of Lexi PCM 70 and 80/81 and some Yamaha - REV 5 and REV 7's would be a good start. Very popular in the 80s. I was there, in the studio lol

They were on sends, absolutely no question about that, never used as inserts. Multiple channels fed to a single unit. But you have to know how to select patches, how to edit them, how to eq the sends and returns and what level to use or things turn out a god aweful mess. I know, I made my share.

Yes - verbs were often used on kicks (gasp) and BASS (GROAN), and not always in tiny amounts - tears for fears the hurting for example....

Chuck
 
Some other random thoughts - we would use a 'ducker' on the verb returns and gates to drastically shape the tails. Also - a delay in tandem with the verb was also very popular.

1. Ducker - set up the verb returns to 'duck' by a few db when the vocal is actually present, but then rise up again when the vocal stops - this allows you to use a huge reverb that fills in the space between phrases, but the vocal will remain intelligible.

2. Gate - set up a gate and sculpt the tails with the threshold and envelope. Not the drastic slope that gets the phil collins sound - a longer slope, but less than the full tail.

3. Delay/verb (often timed to the tempo): Set up the delay for a single repeat, timed out on tempo, 100% wet - then feed this to the verb. This gets you a very dry vocal for the instant the words are sung, with a verb that starts on the next beat.
 
Massive Master said:
IMO, it was time to bus in the first place. Even with only one source being added.
Click to expand...

Always bus. Inserts (in the way I work) are for sims and necessary (while tracking) input signal. I'm not sure I have used anything as an insert on a raw track, other than HPF or possibly a compressor on small projects. I suppose that is personal workflow for me, but I always group tracks, and mix from there. The original tracks give me something to go back to, if I need something previous.

Not sure that made sense to anyone but myself. :)
 
jimmys69 said:
Always bus. Inserts (in the way I work) are for sims and necessary (while tracking) input signal. I'm not sure I have used anything as an insert on a raw track, other than HPF or possibly a compressor on small projects. I suppose that is personal workflow for me, but I always group tracks, and mix from there. The original tracks give me something to go back to, if I need something previous.

Not sure that made sense to anyone but myself. :)
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense. You are making your own 'stems' internally and keeping the relative levels of the various instruments the same while allowing you the flexibility to raise the level of the group as a whole. At least I think that's what you meant lol
 
I am getting one thing from here, correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like engineers use the same reverb for multiple instruments. For example, I can send a vocal and synth to the same reverb? Or because these are different type instruments, should I use two separate reverbs?

Also, it is my understanding that plate reverbs are the most used for vocals, correct? What about vocals that are so drowned in reverb, like the Cure .... are those still plates, just a lot of it?
r
 
jimmys69 said:
In my opinion, reverb is something to add after the mix is working, not necessarily a 'glue' tool.

If a mix was a cupcake, compression would be the eggs in the cake. Eq would be the frosting. Reverb would be the sprinkles on top to make the bake sale ladies envy your cupcakes. :)
Click to expand...

Nice analogy!! But it doesn't quite work all the time, because sometimes reverb is more than just sprinkles on top . . . sometimes it is an intrinsic part of the overall sound, i.e. a sound and its reverb is the instrument you're dealing with.

Bobbsy said:
Depending on what DAW you use, you might find that the terminology for what you want (at least in Gecko zzed's scenario which I endorse) would be an Aux send rather than a Bus.
Click to expand...

Terminology is tricky and I take your point. I use Reaper, so I just create a new track to hold the reverb plug-in, and create sends on all the other tracks that want reverb.
 
I totally agree gecko! About reverb being an instrument itself. Where would Sigur Ros be without it? And what would Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover" sound like without it?
r
 
endserenading81 said:
I totally agree gecko! About reverb being an instrument itself. Where would Sigur Ros be without it? And what would Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover" sound like without it?
r
Click to expand...

OT but this makes me feel old. Am I the only one who thinks Tommy James and the Shondells when Crimson and Clover is discussed? We had a band at my high school (in Canada) that did a great cover version too.

It's still a reverb classic though!
 
chuckduffy said:
Makes perfect sense. You are making your own 'stems' internally and keeping the relative levels of the various instruments the same while allowing you the flexibility to raise the level of the group as a whole. At least I think that's what you meant lol
Click to expand...

I think you just described what I do better than I did Chuck! :)

I will do things like drum enhancement/replacement and pitch correction on the main tracks, but from there, I will send each instrument to group channels. From there EQ, compress, send to other groups (which have their own set of EQ, Comp, send to other groups (which have their own set of........, and send them to whatever FX channels that are appropriately needed along the way. I typically automate sends from a group for things like delay or special effects.

It sounds like chaos, but it is actually completely organized. By final mixdown, I am only working with 10 or so group channels and the master buss. If something is just not working, then I go back to the main tracks. It does happen more often than I would like. Less so lately, the better I get at getting the initial tracks right on the way into DAW.

I also use templates and save channels for typical mix layouts. None of them are the same for every band or song, but I save them, and name them so that I can bring them up if/when another project is similar. Nothing is ever the same-ever, but routing and basic plugin chain for certain typical sounds, are easily recreated for basic setup this way.

It used to take many hours for me to get a mix going. Now, with templates with all of the groups and basic mixer channel presets that I have created, I can get a decent rough mix in an hour. One template does not work for everything. But having them ready for typical styles, is a time saving miracle! Screw tape! lol! Man I miss that sound.....
 
Hey has anyone ever tried the Lexicon LXP Native Reverb bundle. I am trying to decide to use these or my Logic Pro 'Space Designer' plug-in. Which one sounds smoother, sexier? Does the Lexicon have some of those 80s reverbs mentioned before, built into it?
r
 
I've tried hardware Lexicon reverbs and, although they're popular, I've always thought them a bit so-so. I've never tried their plug ins.

However, before you spend any money, have a play with the DA SAMPLE GLACEVERB. It's probably my most used plug in besides the ones that come as standard with Audition--and the price is right. It's FREE!
 
Two things to consider:

1) a lot of DAWs and computers can handle multiple reverbs on individual tracks. So depending on how your workflow works and how you prefer to do things, you could put it on each track individually.

2) bussing (aux sending) can be a good idea because it can help you keep track of how many different reverbs you have going, and what all is being affected at what level. Even in reverb heavy 80's pop there weren't 10 different reverbs going on (i don't think). They probably had 4 or so reverb busses and individual tracks being sent to them.

In the modern DAW world, as far as i can see, it's more about workflow, but still a lot of different reverbs will probably just sound a mess.
 
Note: I don't have anything productive to add so you may skip, saunter or otherwise stroll over my post if you'd like.

Reverb in the 80s... I love that sound, though I'm a child of the 90s. Back then, when I was very young (young enough to still be sharing a room with my parents) our room had a small TV that would usually be on as I was falling asleep. There was this one particular commercial that came on... one of those 'best of the 80s' things... and I loved when it did. It was that unmistakable sound; that reverb. It made everything sound like a dream. They played snippets of the music videos and everything is very vague in my memory. The only thing I remember clearly is a guy in a phone booth.

Naturally, my dad listened to 80s music all the time, having been around to hear it all. He amassed quite a collection of Madonna/Huey Lewis and the News mix tapes. They'd be playing in the car all the time. That and The Eagles: Hell Freezes Over which remains one of my favorite CDs/DVDs. (Completely unrelated to the 80s... but) The Eagles: HFO has some of the best production I've ever heard. I use it to test my speakers.

Anyway, everybody knows the song "I Melt With You," right? Well, in my minds...ear, I remember that song being flooded in a deluge of of reverb and on a recent listen, it's dry as a bone... which was quite disappointing.

You CAN overuse reverb but I damn-near put it on everything; like Frank's Red Hot Sauce. (I've never tried that, actually...)
Hey, that last part was somewhat productive, was it not?

Edit: Great use of reverb: Do You Dream of Me by Tiamat (1994) It's very haunting. The video (official or fan-made, I'm not sure... I can't find it elsewhere) is very complementary to that fact. It's one of my favorite things on Youtube and has been for years.
It's too bad that it ends rather abruptly...
 
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