My reverb skills suck.

[abt]

I pretty much suck at reverb in general, but especially drum reverb and even more so snare reverb. When ever I put verb on a snare it always sounds unnatural. Often the tail sounds digital and I can't stand it. I usually end up low passing which ends up going lower and lower. After this is tends to get lost in the mix, if I jack up the volume to get it back its too wet, and it sounds like it's in a cave.

I've been playing with a few different verb plugs, some have helped, but I'm still not getting where I want it to be

 

[Machinated]

I find it best to bring in reverb as late as possible. If you're relying on it too early, you'll have problems.

it's hard to know where to start with reverbs so I'd recommend starting with plugins which don't have too many parameters so you can quickly adjust it to fit your mix.

EMT140's work great on drums, if you have a UAD card it'd be a great place to start. Unfortunately there aren't too many reverb plugins that model physical plates.....

Valhalla vintage verb is great, it's coming at a slightly different angle though. The best thing is there is lots of algorithms you can quickly cycle through and not too many parameters to adjust so it's easy to tweak. Usually one of the plate algo's, chamber, or ambience work best for me.

Short decay times/not having to room size too big can go a long way, tight reverbs can work great. I usually filter from 3khz up and a lot of lows. Just because you're using reverb, don't assume it aways has to be massive. a bit of predelay is great to allow the drum's transient through without it getting clouded. most reverbs will have an attack/diffusion parameter where you can choose how close or far back the reverb sounds.

ultimately there's no rules, but these are things I commonly think about. like with anything audio related, think why you are adding it and what you want to achieve from it and you'll find it much easier.

maybe post which reverb plugins you have available to you and good luck!

 

[rob w]

I used to have reverb issues until I got breverb2. Then it was a pleasure to play around with. Spoilt for choice.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

I know what you saying. I was feeling the same months ago but with voice reverbs. I was looking for that smooth reverb that suits heavenly the clean singing and ads a lot of depth, wideness and space. That kind of reverb that is quite frequent in electronic music but quite rare in metal. I have to say that valhalla shimmer comes quite close of what I wanted.

For other instruments I still also struggle a bit and most of the times I remove the reverb of the chain, especially in the snare. Because sometimes with the compression and with the blending of one shot snare that has already some kind of reverb, one more reverb will become a mess in the end.

But still interested what kind of tricks people use to have the reverb in a mix wihout being buried or too prominent.

 

[abt]

I find it best to bring in reverb as late as possible. If you're relying on it too early, you'll have problems.

it's hard to know where to start with reverbs so I'd recommend starting with plugins which don't have too many parameters so you can quickly adjust it to fit your mix.

EMT140's work great on drums, if you have a UAD card it'd be a great place to start. Unfortunately there aren't too many reverb plugins that model physical plates.....

Valhalla vintage verb is great, it's coming at a slightly different angle though. The best thing is there is lots of algorithms you can quickly cycle through and not too many parameters to adjust so it's easy to tweak. Usually one of the plate algo's, chamber, or ambience work best for me.

Short decay times/not having to room size too big can go a long way, tight reverbs can work great. I usually filter from 3khz up and a lot of lows. Just because you're using reverb, don't assume it aways has to be massive. a bit of predelay is great to allow the drum's transient through without it getting clouded. most reverbs will have an attack/diffusion parameter where you can choose how close or far back the reverb sounds.

ultimately there's no rules, but these are things I commonly think about. like with anything audio related, think why you are adding it and what you want to achieve from it and you'll find it much easier.

maybe post which reverb plugins you have available to you and good luck!

Thanks. Good tip about not bringing it in too early. I will also give Valhalla a try.

I used to have reverb issues until I got breverb2. Then it was a pleasure to play around with. Spoilt for choice.

Thanks, I will give it a try.

I know what you saying. I was feeling the same months ago but with voice reverbs. I was looking for that smooth reverb that suits heavenly the clean singing and ads a lot of depth, wideness and space. That kind of reverb that is quite frequent in electronic music but quite rare in metal. I have to say that valhalla shimmer comes quite close of what I wanted.

For other instruments I still also struggle a bit and most of the times I remove the reverb of the chain, especially in the snare. Because sometimes with the compression and with the blending of one shot snare that has already some kind of reverb, one more reverb will become a mess in the end.

But still interested what kind of tricks people use to have the reverb in a mix wihout being buried or too prominent.

I usually do the same, use a sample that is already processed.

 

[DavePiatek]

I've found that if you do a high-cut filter on your verb, the tails sound a LOT more natural. I usually start at 3k.

 

[abt]

I've found that if you do a high-cut filter on your verb, the tails sound a LOT more natural. I usually start at 3k.

Yeah that's what I've been doing. It makes a big difference.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

HPF around 150 and a pretty sizable (3-8 db) chunk taken out of the snare's peak bottom resonance usually fix things up for me. I also almost never set the decay to longer than 1.5 seconds max- usually closer to 1.4. And if you want a really tight sound, you can always use a transient designer before the verb plugin and follow it up with a limiter.

Another thing to bear in mind is what you want your reverb to do. I usually add it in 3-5 db below the snare room track to add some warmth to the tail sound. The room can tend to be too "thwappy" sometimes, and it sticks out like a sore thumb if it's the slightest bit too loud or not EQ'd enough. The reverb, especially a short plate verb, can help to make it sound more natural and less pokey.

 

[nialldoran]

valhalla vintage verb as mentioned is a great starting point and their "roomverb" is incredible too for close early reflection sounds on drums, great for hardcore or rock stuff if you want it to sound like room mics/kit mics, everything else mentioned i'd tend to dabble in too, cut the highs, cut the mud, get a good pre-delay time to push the reverb away from the drums a bit. I've also been loving subtle distortion after the reverb plugin on my last few mixes too, something like protools lo-fi or soft tube saturation knob sounds great especially on vocals!

 

[greyskull]

Is this in context, or are you listening to the drums in their own? I find you may need WAY more than you think (depending on the genre)

 

[miguelrx10d]

this may sound simple but I often find that the problem is the snare sound itself and not the reverb, try feeding different (processed) snares and use that reverb tail with your dry snare

 

[abt]

Thanks for the tips, already big improvements.