the REVERB thread

[Fragle]

hey guys,

after doing this for quite some time now i think i have reached a solid level on most aspects of audio engineering.
however, reverb is one of the things that i struggle the most with. i can do a lot of nice things with natural ambience, especially on drums using the recorded room sound, but when it comes to artificial ambience it's always hit or miss for me. this starts with choosing the right kind of ambience (room/plate/etc, algo vs IR etc) all the way to shaping it in the mix.

i think it would be pretty cool if some more experienced people shared a few hints and guidelines how to create good sounding artificial ambience that fits the track.
for the sake of this thread, let's assume we're strictly talking about "typical" modern metal production, i.e. screamed/growled vocals, drum replacement/sample augmentation, everything nice and controlled etc. i'm thinking of something like arch enemy - doomsday machine, behemoth evangelion and similar stuff. let's forget about raw/oldschool and epic orchestral stuff for a second, otherwise the variables would be infinite.

i'm especially interested in the following aspects:
drum reverb: snare and toms, NOT rooms. algorithmic or static impulses? plate/hall/room/chamber? filtering? specific areas that need careful tweaking? what are you trying to get out of the ambience? high end sheen (boosted top end?)? how are you dealing with the bottom end? filtering out subs is a no brainer, but is the reverb usually pretty fat, with a good amount of 100-300hz-ish stuff, or really thin? room sizes?

vocals: same thing basically. anyone blending two different reverbs? like, plate and room? if so, in which average ratio? mostly room or mostly plate? what is the purpose of the room and the plate one? what are you doing to the midrange? is it usually scooped or mid heavy reverb? filtering on lows and highs? anyone ONLY using delay for vocal ambience? i noticed in the machine head - aesthetics of hate multitracks that the vocals are completely dry for the most part, only adding fx in a few sections.

last but not least, for those who like to use impulses, what are you favorite ones for which application? i know lotsa people here love the bricasti M7. even with these impulses i'm still struggling a lot.

maybe someone could even post a clip of a mix with a nice ambience, and do another clip with just the ambience so i can get an idea of what to shoot for?

 

[Emdprodukt]

hopefully someone is going to provide some useful info. for me it's hit 'n miss, too. I usually end up using the bricasti ir's with a hpf.

 

[paladin shredder]

I just posted a reverb tip in Ermz thread, just scroll down:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/622633-some-vocal-tricks-you-3.html

 

[Morgan C]

Interested in info for vocal reverbs.. I really struggle there, especially with screams.

Drums I have some snare/tom room samples that I made that I use on pretty much everything, they are fucking awesome. Then perhaps some Slate room or Freeverb really really low. If I use an actual reverb, I'll usually put a pretty large delay on it, as it's not really the main source of reverberation, but simply there to add a touch of depth. Actually, I tried delay on drums (the entire kit) and that worked really really well too. Just have to automate it down when it becomes obvious.

 

[Emdprodukt]

Interested in info for vocal reverbs.. I really struggle there, especially with screams.

Drums I have some snare/tom room samples that I made that I use on pretty much everything, they are fucking awesome. Then perhaps some Slate room or Freeverb really really low. If I use an actual reverb, I'll usually put a pretty large delay on it, as it's not really the main source of reverberation, but simply there to add a touch of depth. Actually, I tried delay on drums (the entire kit) and that worked really really well too. Just have to automate it down when it becomes obvious.

how fast do you set your delays on drums? my snaredrums always sound kind of dry, no matter how much reverb I add.

 

[greyskull]

in that sort of thing seems to be medium plate all round for me.
the shitty dverb for drums.
and maybe a tlspace impulse or one of the bricasti for vocals.

 

[TheDriller]

I usually just use a Bricasti impulse with a hint of chorus (or some sort of modulation) after it to get away from the "static" impulse sound.
I might have maybe two reverb busses set up from the outset, perhaps a room and either a medium plate or hall.
highpass is essential, and I find you need to roll off the top a bit too if you want the effect to sound remotely believable.

maybe a bit of compression on the reverb busses too.

 

[_Protoss_]

D-Verb is the only reverb i use for metal production. Believe me man, it's perfect for what you are looking for

 

[mburton21]

I also like D-Verb the most out of all the plugins I've experimented with.

I found that for the album I just did, a large Plate with ~21ms predelay was right on the money for snare and toms. HF pass was I think 12KHz.
For vocals, I ended up using a Church (I know wtf?) which seems odd but I loved the feeling it gave. Slight amount (~5ms) of predelay and a large-ish decay.

It probably won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it sounded great on my project!

 

[grywolf627]

D-Verb if you're on Protools. If not, the donation-ware Ambience VST. It will easily get the Sneap-snare-verb with just a few tweaks...and it is VERY tweakable. It's my main go-to reverb for drums when I'm not in Protools.

 

[Emdprodukt]

What's predelay doing?

 

[mburton21]

Pre-delay:
Pre-delay is a parameter found in reverb processors. It refers to the amount of time between the original dry sound, and the audible onset of early reflections and reverb tail. Carefully adjusting the pre-delay parameter makes a huge difference in the "clarity" of a mix. For example, a longer pre-delay will move the reverb tail out of the way of the vocals, making them much more present and understandable.

 

[Emdprodukt]

does that mean the reverb kicks in after the original source hit's it?

 

[mburton21]

^ Yes it does.

 

[Emdprodukt]

Ah okay thanks. I never used predelay. Does it copy the signal like a delay or is it extending the the tail only?

 

[pipaguapique]

I Love D-Verb!! works perfect on drums.

 

[TheDriller]

Ah okay thanks. I never used predelay. Does it copy the signal like a delay or is it extending the the tail only?

Pre-delay basically puts a bit of a delay before the reverb starts. so if you fed in a single snare hit to a reverb that had a rediculous pre-delay like 300ms, you would hear the snare, and then 300ms later the reverberation would start.

 

[MetalSound]

there is no need for much reverb especially in modern metal productions. maybe just a tiny bit of room on drums/vocals/leads that´s it.
a basic rule of thumb would be: if you can really hear it chances are good you have too much reverb.

 

[El_Gato]

Pre-delay basically puts a bit of a delay before the reverb starts. so if you fed in a single snare hit to a reverb that had a rediculous pre-delay like 300ms, you would hear the snare, and then 300ms later the reverberation would start.

Yep. Also, a 15-30 ms pre-delay is recommended for snare so the attack is still intact there but you can't notice the "gap" between.

 

[TheDriller]

Yep. Also, a 15-30 ms pre-delay is recommended for snare so the attack is still intact there but you can't notice the "gap" between.

indeed.
I usually find that 30ms is the upper-limit for useful pre-delay. I mostly set it around 12 or 14 ms, just give the original transient some time to punch through before the verb comes in.