This week we’re looking at one of the most common effects used in our tracks as we give you the definitive course on Reverb.
Over these nine videos, we go right back to basics looking at what reverb actually is, the different types available, along with the common controls you’ll find and how they can affect the sound before Protoculture shows us some examples and best practices when using this vital effect.
This course will give you the skills to fully understand what’s happening when you apply reverb to a track and why you should choose certain reverbs over another to help you get the best sound in your mix.
Great course, thanks guys! A question, what kind of reverb would be best for a drum bus in electronic music? I’ve seen Plates used a lot but wondered what your thoughts were.
Talk about a blast from the past! I remember watching Graham’s first Reverb series all those years ago! Great to see that he’s still around and just as Irish as ever!
In Tutorial 8 when he mentions the hard panning and reverb at the end, is he saying that hard panning something to the left whilst having the reverb in the centre is more natural or unnatural? Is it more desirable to have the reverb follow the panning or not?
It will be sounding more natural if you use this hard panning technique on sends reverb because you’ll keep the reverb in the center, as if it’s coming from the same room as opposed to hard panning with the reverb directly applied on the channels : in this case it would all go through the sides and will sound more as an “echo-ish” effect then, so less natural if the goal is to blend the vocals and place them in a space.
More natural with the reverb centred on a stereo send. If you stand in a room and ask someone to clap in front of you, then ask them to move to your side and clap again, you still here the sound of the room. It’s not like only the left side of the room reverberates sound. You still have echoes from the ceiling, the right hand side, the floor and so on. If you’re running a reverb as an insert and then pan it after the reverb is applied, you shift the entire sound of the room to one channel. It’s not that you can’t do it, but it’s not normal if you are going for a natural sound on a vocal for example.
Plates can work, especially if you’re going for a longer crisp tail on a snare for example they can be good. Personally I typically use a room or ambience to keep things tighter and just make electronic sounds feel a little more natural as opposed to drowning them in reverb. There is no real right or wrong though.
