When to use reverb

[Jagwah]

A few days ago someone somewhere mentioned that they use reverb after finishing mixing - after equalizing / levelling / panning. It's been on my mind a lot, surely this is a bad idea right?

Would you use it completely before the mixing process or somewhere in between, or after?


Cheers!

[Loque]

I sometimes use it before the final limiter/maximizer to create a new room or create a bit more volume if i am on mastering. But if i use it on master, i use only a little bit.

I use it in the mixing to create rooms for some instruments. Not too many different rooms and not too much at all, that makes the mix sound muddy, unclear, noisy.

Sometimes to enhance a sound with a gated reverb to give more power, sometimes with deesser or special compressing to avoid a "lost in space" sound.

Imo there are no rules. Using a small room with heavy compression after it can sound great, depending on the music, style and what you want to achive. Also in the mastering.

[Jagwah]

I sometimes use it before the final limiter/maximizer to create a new room or create a bit more volume if i am on mastering. But if i use it on master, i use only a little bit.

I use it in the mixing to create rooms for some instruments. Not too many different rooms and not too much at all, that makes the mix sound muddy, unclear, noisy.

Sometimes to enhance a sound with a gated reverb to give more power, sometimes with deesser or special compressing to avoid a "lost in space" sound.

Imo there are no rules. Using a small room with heavy compression after it can sound great, depending on the music, style and what you want to achive. Also in the mastering.

Thanks for the info, such a deep topic. Really want to try adding reverb late so I'll give it a go this time around, cheers!

[normen]

It depends on what you want to do with the reverb. Given that reverb sometimes changes the frequency response of the part I wouldn't say that a strict "use reverb last" rule is valid. Also sometimes reverb is used to initially create the character of the sound, being less of a room simulation and more of an effect in that case. So then you'd use the reverb right when you create the sound.

Otherwise, when I'm mixing stems then yes, I guess I am using the reverb quite late. What I'd usually do is go through the parts and do "technical EQing" first, i.e. "fixing" the problems in the parts. Things like adding low/high cuts, cutting resonant frequencies and boosting character frequencies. Then I'd go about and set the levels and add dynamics to get the levels under control. Then I'd proceed to do the stereo field placement in which reverb is very important. In this case you'd use panning, volume and reverb to give the part a placement in the stereo field. Panning is for the left/right placement and volume and reverb are for the depth placement.

That said, when I am doing tracks myself I seldom have a separate "mixing phase" because I normally decide on the sound and placement right when I create a part and often don't see a reason to do "mixing" afterwards..

[selig]

I've yet to find a use for reverb in the mastering stage, putting it on the entire mix (if that's what you're asking). It changes too many things IMO, no matter the setting and no matter the amount. Just my 2 cents.

[normen]

I've yet to find a use for reverb in the mastering stage, putting it on the entire mix (if that's what you're asking). It changes too many things IMO, no matter the setting and no matter the amount. Just my 2 cents.

Try a very short reverb an a very subtle mix setting, can be very nice to create a "listening room", I do that sometimes. Anyway I don't think thats what OP meant.

[selig]

I've yet to find a use for reverb in the mastering stage, putting it on the entire mix (if that's what you're asking). It changes too many things IMO, no matter the setting and no matter the amount. Just my 2 cents.

Try a very short reverb an a very subtle mix setting, can be very nice to create a "listening room", I do that sometimes. Anyway I don't think thats what OP meant.

Agreed, but in all cases I've been involved in, that decision would have been made at the mix stage, so no reason to add it in mastering. But I'm probably (again) taking this thread off topic with these comments…

[MarkTarlton]

if it sounds good do it!

[Jagwah]

It depends on what you want to do with the reverb. Given that reverb sometimes changes the frequency response of the part I wouldn't say that a strict "use reverb last" rule is valid. Also sometimes reverb is used to initially create the character of the sound, being less of a room simulation and more of an effect in that case. So then you'd use the reverb right when you create the sound.

Otherwise, when I'm mixing stems then yes, I guess I am using the reverb quite late. What I'd usually do is go through the parts and do "technical EQing" first, i.e. "fixing" the problems in the parts. Things like adding low/high cuts, cutting resonant frequencies and boosting character frequencies. Then I'd go about and set the levels and add dynamics to get the levels under control. Then I'd proceed to do the stereo field placement in which reverb is very important. In this case you'd use panning, volume and reverb to give the part a placement in the stereo field. Panning is for the left/right placement and volume and reverb are for the depth placement.

That said, when I am doing tracks myself I seldom have a separate "mixing phase" because I normally decide on the sound and placement right when I create a part and often don't see a reason to do "mixing" afterwards..

Great explanation makes me feel easier about trying it much later than usual, cheers normen.

[adfielding]

A few days ago someone somewhere mentioned that they use reverb after finishing mixing - after equalizing / levelling / panning. It's been on my mind a lot, surely this is a bad idea right?

Would you use it completely before the mixing process or somewhere in between, or after?

I've messed around with it before (go figure, it's not like I use enough reverb as it is ) - but yeah, I've never managed to use reverb at the post-mix stage in a way that's benefitted anything I've worked on. Not saying that it's an outright terrible idea or anything like that (if it sounds right, it is right!), just that it doesn't do a lot for me.

[selig]

A few days ago someone somewhere mentioned that they use reverb after finishing mixing - after equalizing / levelling / panning. It's been on my mind a lot, surely this is a bad idea right?

Would you use it completely before the mixing process or somewhere in between, or after?

I've messed around with it before (go figure, it's not like I use enough reverb as it is ) - but yeah, I've never managed to use reverb at the post-mix stage in a way that's benefitted anything I've worked on. Not saying that it's an outright terrible idea or anything like that (if it sounds right, it is right!), just that it doesn't do a lot for me.

I do agree that if it sounds right, it is right. But IF you make all of your reverb decisions during the mix, especially as it concerns tracks that should have NO reverb, then I can't see how adding it to the 2-mix would make any sense. Especially since these days you would simply go back and add it to the mix if you wanted more reverb. There are very few mixes that I've felt needed reverb, however short, on everything equally! But there have conversely been many mixes I've done using no reverb at all, so I'm not sure I agree that adding reverb is the (only) way to create depth in a mix.

As a disclaimer (and probably in contrast to many others here), I've done more mixing for clients than for myself over the years, which means I've worked on everything from avant-garde experimental noise pieces to mainstream pop, and just about everything in between over the years, and have observed that each client often requires a totally different overall approach/vision to mixing.

[Rice]

My 2cents...I've tried to NO avail to make use/sense of reverb during Mastering with ZERO success. I really felt as if I was not doing something wrong and even began to feel like an idiot. But thanks, Adam and Selig for easing those thoughts...now I can move on!

[mcatalao]

I try to use reverb only on the mix.
My idea is that you should decide the amount and quality of the reverb to each element of a song (prefeareable as a send).
Reverb, along with volume, paning and eq, will impact a lot on the perceivable position of the instruments. Adding reverb on a master bus or the mastering process, applies the same reverb, with the same intensity to all the mixed elements, so my take is that they would all sound in the same position in the same space, and that is not the purpose of reverb, imho.

This being said, i've heard some uses of reverb on mastering, to take care of too dry mixes, with a very soft reverb, or take care of too dry fade out tales. I've had some cases of fado recordings that arrived to me too dry and won some additional sparkle from a very gentle room reverb in the master chain. But fado music is a particular thing, with few instruments, conceptually occupying a very narrow space in a room, so this was a very particular case. But my guess is that if the initial mix engineer would have added it it would be a better decision.

Nevertheless, being in control of the mix, i always take care of reverbs in that step.

FWIW, some mastering apps like ozone include a reverb in the Mastering Chain.

Here's an explanation from Jonathan Wyner:

However, the #3 example is where i think reverb does not make much sense, if you have the control to do it in the mix. And truth be told, apart from reason 2, 1 and 3 is simply sloppy mixing work that should be redone.