lets talk reverb

[Mastering101]

i would like to know who uses outboard reverb and what units people are useing.. i have a eventide h8000 and i love the verbs.
but i recently feel i use too much reverb so i backed off of it and i like what i hear..so whats your opinion? what do you think about early reflections are they musical to your ears or not...how do you use reverb? i like to put several tracks in a room like bass and guitars are there any rules to follow..

[Ruudman]

I like several verbs in a mix, but I also like to feed to one main
reverb. One trick is to add different pre-delays to each track send, then the main verb appears less muddy.

The 8000 verb is magnificent thumbsup

I use old lo-end stuff these days, so I'm happy with my
ADR 68k and SRV-330, in addition to software.

I also like distant miking, to give some air around things.


ruudman

[DirkB]

I use reverb mainly as front to back pan.
I have a Kurzweil Rumour, TC M3000 and Eventide H3000. The latter isn't often used for verb...

Greetings,
Dirk

[djui5]

The studio I work at now isn't very "reverb friendly"........which is kinda a good thing and has forced me to get good sounds without outboard verbs...but...

Some of my fav's are..

M5000.....I love the way this unit sounds...and it's got a small wood room preset that's awesome for snares...

480L.....obviously...

system 6000......absolutely amazing unit..

EMT250.....my fav vocal unit.....

PCM90...a little "cold" sounding..but it's got some nice pre-set's in it....not a bad unit by any means...

DSP4000...there's some awesome sounds in here...haven't used the 8000 yet....so I can't comment on that one..

M2000....nice "lower" budget unit....has some good sounds in it also....not bad for drum busses...

TC2290......one hell of a delay unit...

PCM42...another amazing delay unit....


As for what I use them for....well...that depends....there's the usual delay on lead guitars...etc etc.....but if I'm trying to achieve something then it's different..

Like using delay on certain vocal parts......echo farm can be really cool for this...delaying vocals at the end of a song and letting it trail off....
Then there's using flangers during parts of a song on the drums, vocals, guitars (usually done by the guitarist..but sometimes not)....
I think early reflections have their place......they don't always work........sometimes using a lot works.......just depends on the song and effect..
For reverbs there's the usual 2 buss application.....
I like to use verb on snares if the room the drums were tracked in was small....livens them up a little....I also like a little verb on the kick..not much...a little......
Aside from that..it's a matter of taste....and what kinda sound your trying to achieve..

There's no rules....do what works...

[max cooper]

The place I've been mixing has one of those new Eventide SP2016 things and I've been trying to get sounds I like out of it. Funny thing, though, I've always been reverb-phobic. I have a nice, live space for tracking and every time I try to add reverb after the fact, I feel like I've made a mess. I often try to get reverb to work for me, but I guess after all this time, I just hear it pretty dry.

I do like delay on vocals, usually on the eighth note with slightly more than one repeat. When I did like using reverb, I had an Ursa Major Space Station. After that I got an SPX-90, which may explain my phobia. How can it have more high freq. noise than high freq. effect?

[Mario-C.]

its hard not to overdo those eventide reverbs ... i love the way they sound

regarding your "use" question, I like to use low and high pass filters to make reverbs less obvious, if you can patch an envelope follower to the reverb's decay time it really comes alive, use a spatial enhancer after the reverb too (e-cue gave me this cool tip) I usually set the reverb's crossover at 650-700 hz or so to avoid mud ...

[RhOdEz]

Originally posted by Mario-C.

if you can patch an envelope follower to the reverb's decay time it really comes alive, use a spatial enhancer after the reverb too (e-cue gave me this cool tip) ...

envelope follower to rev decay is kickass idea ! I wish i could use that today damn ,can you please say more details about this or point me to some topic about this ,like which FX boxes/plugins and followers i can use to set that up (I cant figure out the way to do it outta my head now )

thanx ,keep it rollin'

[Drumsound]

I don't use a lot of reverb.

I do like to use room mics of drums. I also like to use a parallel compressor to act as my drum reverb. If I’m looking for that "obvious snare reverb," I like to gate the send.

For vocals, If I use reverb I like it not to be noticed. My goal when setting up the vocal reverb is to think that there's not enough reverb, but when I mute the return the vocal falls apart.

Usually if I want reverb on guitar I dial it in at the amp, or back up the mic. I did a very "Jimmy Vaughan" Tele thing last week. I put the mic about eight feet from the amp and Voi La there it was.

[thethrillfactor]

I think the use of reverbs these days is a genre or song specific thing.

I own a ton of different units and they get uses all the time.

For some songs something shorter or drier is needed, for others something longer and more blooming is the thing.

On some songs it sounds like nothing is being used, but the truth is they are just tailored to enhance the sound not to push it back.

There are a lot of tricks to tailor your verbs.

I find myself still using verbs these days mainly on vocals and keys.

Once in a while on snares.

I also like to layer reverbs to get different sounds.

[Knastratt]

Altiverb blurred the line between outboard and software reverbs. YMMV

Bill Putnams echo chamber at Universal no 2 is a hit on drums.

Played tin flute with guitar synth controller in Concertgebouw for a straight week.

Fun - dammit!

[Mario-C.]

Originally posted by RhOdEz
envelope follower to rev decay is kickass idea ! I wish i could use that today damn ,can you please say more details about this or point me to some topic about this ,like which FX boxes/plugins and followers i can use to set that up (I cant figure out the way to do it outta my head now )

thanx ,keep it rollin'

I've had great luck with lexicon and tc reverbs, basically you just go to the mod matrix (or patch menu in a lexi) patch the decay time to the envelope follower and start tweaking (it doesn't work inmediately so take your time to play with it), you can also patch the envelope follower to the low pass filter frequency too ...

glad you liked the idea

[ISedlacek]

I use Lexicon PCM-91. Sounds very good to me. Comparing to my previous MPX-1, PCM-91 is definitely a steep upgrade.
ALthough all the convolution reverbs are very interesting, to my ears PCM-91 sounds definitely better than any of them ...

[beechstudio]

Not using much 'verb these days. The occasional Rev5 on snare for a little depth is about it. I mix mostly heavy stuff. Verb tends to clutter things up.......

[Mastering101]

Originally posted by beechstudio
Not using much 'verb these days. The occasional Rev5 on snare for a little depth is about it. I mix mostly heavy stuff. Verb tends to clutter things up.......

thats what im leaning toward. i do alot of hard stuff and too much verb can do a lot of damage.. but im gonna keep playin with it!
super short decay just a hint of room on some instruments.

really good info in this thread..thanks all

[gem]

can someone describe the eventide 2016 hardware please-
i mean the new one.
what is its strength what not....
thanx

also is it comparable with 480l..why not?

[Mastering101]

Originally posted by gem
can someone describe the eventide 2016 hardware please-
i mean the new one.
what is its strength what not....
thanx

also is it comparable with 480l..why not?

i had one of those. the princeton digital reverb .. it was nice but its more of a speciality reverb. more of an extra than your main reverb.. the 480 is a work horse..i sold it because i have an h8000
and it sounded like the traditional eventide reverb to me anyway.
the vintage unit was used a lot on drums and vox

[Mario-C.]

Originally posted by thethrillfactor

I also like to layer reverbs to get different sounds.

im glad you brought this up thrill, I've had to do this when dealing with (very) poorly recorded drums, basically layering short rooms or plates in serial to help things a bit, care to comment on your approach ?

[gem]

Originally posted by effectsnut
i had one of those. the princeton digital reverb .. it was nice but its more of a speciality reverb. more of an extra than your main reverb.. the 480 is a work horse..i sold it because i have an h8000
and it sounded like the traditional eventide reverb to me anyway.
the vintage unit was used a lot on drums and vox

so if i want to start with a main very good reverb it would not be
the one right?
i guess the 480 would...
but so expensive.

[djui5]

Originally posted by gem
so if i want to start with a main very good reverb it would not be
the one right?
i guess the 480 would...
but so expensive.

M5000 or PCM 91 would be a good bet......imo

[Mastering101]

Originally posted by gem
so if i want to start with a main very good reverb it would not be
the one right?
i guess the 480 would...
but so expensive.

lexicon pcm91 , tc electronic reverb 4000 ,... eventide dsp7000 has great reverb and a tun of effectsthumbsup

[axeman69]

I love the old Yammy verbs.

I have a Rev 7 and a Rev 100.

I also use one of the verbs in an old ART SGX 2000 Express.

My room sucks, so I hafta.

I'm seriously looking for a higher end verb. Maybe the Kurzweil or a TC.

[vnt001]

I have found these allow a great mixture of musical genres and fit nicely in most people's budget.

Lexicon PCM90 or 91
Yamaha SPX990 (much cleaner than the older SPX stuff)
Roland SRV330 or SRV3030

Nice to have a Lexicon 300 laying around but really very limited compared to the PCM's functions.

Also like the Yamaha Rev series...

[dillweed]

gotta second the roland srv 330 dimensional space reverb!!!!

400 really great sounding patches!!

couple hundred bucks on ebay!

[mig27]

I've been mostly sticking with obvious sounding old school units like roland space echo, different spring reverbs etc.

But I scored this Dynacord DRP-20 dirt cheap the other day ($200.00). My first "serious" outboard reverb so to say.

Currently I experiment a lot with daisy chaining several units.

Aux send => chorus => spring reverb => Dynacord DRP-20

[thethrillfactor]

Originally posted by gem
can someone describe the eventide 2016 hardware please-
i mean the new one.
what is its strength what not....
thanx

also is it comparable with 480l..why not?

They are different.

Bottomn line and cutting straight to the chase...you need both if you are doing any serious mixing.

The typical High End gearslut answer.

[lucey]

Thrill you are the Reverb King it seems ... and since reverb is 'back' how about a list of your units and your preferences for them ...

Let's see the high water mark

[Ted Nightshade]

Nothing like a real room, baby.

Can't can that.

[ISedlacek]

There is much enthusiastic rave about convolution IR reverbs. Looks so easy with unlimited possibilities, sounds very nice and gives an impression that the "real" box may be not needed any more. It is very tempting concept and I am trying it a lot, but when it comes to direct comparing with Lexicon (PCM-91) , I simply cannot help: comparing to Lexicon, the IRs sound always a bit thinner, less colourful, sometimes slightly metallic etc. (be it "real spaces" or just sampled gear). So many people claim they sold their boxes after they heard those amazing IR reverbs. Is it just my impression ? What are your experiences ?

[ISedlacek]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade
Nothing like a real room, baby.

Can't can that.

Definitely yes, but Would be great to own a castle with at least 20 rooms of different size from a "vocal booth" to a church with at least 10 seconds reverb

[Revelation]

How are the Lexicon reverb waves with SIR compare to the real thing (PCM 91) ?