Cleaning up excess reverb in a mix
Cleaning up excess reverb in a mix Posted on: 24.05.2013 by Berta Baie Hey guys,I have a confession to make: i'm a bit of a reverb junkie. For whatever reason i just tend to use a lot of it. The problem with this is i start to get "nickel and dimed" by the reverb for space in the mix as the amount of tracks im using increases. The result is things can start to sound muddy and individual sounds become harder and harder to pick out. Its not like things are a complete mess, i just find it tends to make for a less "tight" mix. So i have a dilemma: I like the effect reverb gives of getting things to sit in the mix properly. I believe its pretty much essential to have in there. But if i dial back the reverb things just tend to sound too dry and not cohesive. Is there a way to clean up reverb after the fact using EQ or something, or some other trick I'm missing here to cut back on the amount of reverb that just stacks in the background? I'm already EQing each track to cut the unnecessary frequencies, but beyond that im not sure what the secret is. Could this also be a problem with mixing on cans? I find I'm having a hard time accurately judging the depth of the sounds sometimes because everything is "right there" in my ears. Could this also be messing with my judgment of how muddy things actually are? Studio monitors are shipping as we speak, so maybe that will help some | |
| Lynda Guerrieri 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by grazz16
It really comes down to what you want to do with the effect... using it as an insert and using the dry/wet knob will have more of an effect on the original signal, since I'm pretty sure in most DAWs the dry/wet knob affects the balance, so you lose some of the dry signal as you turn the wet knob up, while using a send keeps the original signal intact, and adds the effect signal on top of it, whether pre- or post-fader. Using sends gives you a little more flexibility, because you can make the send pre-fader, turn the mixer down, and then adjust the dry/wet knob on the send channel to experiment with which sound you prefer. You can also do things like send the audio to two separate reverbs separately, without them effecting each other, or have a separate send for every single channel. If you like using reverb as more of a sound design and sound-shaping effect than a mixing effect, and if you're happy with the result, then by all means use it as an insert and wile out. |
| Romelia Stankard 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by alchemy
Send/Returns only exist from the days of hardware mixer consoles where you wouldn't always have an individual hardware reverb unit for every channel to share one reverb or other effect unit on multiple track. There are still reasons to use them and sometimes it is simpler but you can achieve the same thing as inserts and busing sounds if you prefer working like that. I tend to use both. |
| Lynda Guerrieri 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by grazz16
You can then locate two different tracks at the same depth in your mix by sending them to the same aux send. Also, generally speaking, you always want the dry/wet knob on your effects sends to be 100% wet. Like Unique Freak said, you vary the amount of the effect based on the send level. |
| Lynda Guerrieri 26.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by Unique Freak
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| Berta Baie 25.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by PjAndreasson
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| Berta Baie 24.05.2013 | Hey guys, I have a confession to make: i'm a bit of a reverb junkie. For whatever reason i just tend to use a lot of it. The problem with this is i start to get "nickel and dimed" by the reverb for space in the mix as the amount of tracks im using increases. The result is things can start to sound muddy and individual sounds become harder and harder to pick out. Its not like things are a complete mess, i just find it tends to make for a less "tight" mix. So i have a dilemma: I like the effect reverb gives of getting things to sit in the mix properly. I believe its pretty much essential to have in there. But if i dial back the reverb things just tend to sound too dry and not cohesive. Is there a way to clean up reverb after the fact using EQ or something, or some other trick I'm missing here to cut back on the amount of reverb that just stacks in the background? I'm already EQing each track to cut the unnecessary frequencies, but beyond that im not sure what the secret is. Could this also be a problem with mixing on cans? I find I'm having a hard time accurately judging the depth of the sounds sometimes because everything is "right there" in my ears. Could this also be messing with my judgment of how muddy things actually are? Studio monitors are shipping as we speak, so maybe that will help some |
| Augustina Zulu 30.05.2013 | Bussing reverb is what you want to do when you want to put the track in a sound space and get the cohesion that comes with it. When you do this, youre only putting on a little dash of it on all the parts and want all of the parts to share the same setting. You could do the same thing with an insert on every channel but if you want to tweak the size of the room or something, you've just made an assload of work for yourself. Insert reverb is when you want to go all king tubby on a single part |
| Berta Baie 29.05.2013 | ok, cool, thanks for the opinions everyone |
| Monserrate Rupnow 29.05.2013 | Yeah, for instance, I almost never use send tracks in my tracks, preferring to just stick whatever I need on each track. While counter-intuitive, I find that using too much reverb makes it sound less realistic than using less. Often when you hear hear these really lush tracks, it's the HINT of space that gives it depth and spaciousness, not a reverb so loud you hear the flaws in it. That tends to make things sound artificial IMO. |
| Lynda Guerrieri 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by grazz16
It really comes down to what you want to do with the effect... using it as an insert and using the dry/wet knob will have more of an effect on the original signal, since I'm pretty sure in most DAWs the dry/wet knob affects the balance, so you lose some of the dry signal as you turn the wet knob up, while using a send keeps the original signal intact, and adds the effect signal on top of it, whether pre- or post-fader. Using sends gives you a little more flexibility, because you can make the send pre-fader, turn the mixer down, and then adjust the dry/wet knob on the send channel to experiment with which sound you prefer. You can also do things like send the audio to two separate reverbs separately, without them effecting each other, or have a separate send for every single channel. If you like using reverb as more of a sound design and sound-shaping effect than a mixing effect, and if you're happy with the result, then by all means use it as an insert and wile out. |
| Laurinda Benya 28.05.2013 | If you have 10 channels that require reverb -and you decide to place an individual reverb on each channel- you might run into cpu overload. If you send the 10 channels to 3-4 carefully selected reverbs on aux channels, you'll save some cpu usage. See the pattern? |
| Berta Baie 28.05.2013 | so is there anything inherently "wrong" with placing an individual reverb on a each channel as opposed to doing the exact same thing just with send tracks instead? |
| Romelia Stankard 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by alchemy
Send/Returns only exist from the days of hardware mixer consoles where you wouldn't always have an individual hardware reverb unit for every channel to share one reverb or other effect unit on multiple track. There are still reasons to use them and sometimes it is simpler but you can achieve the same thing as inserts and busing sounds if you prefer working like that. I tend to use both. |
| Lynda Guerrieri 28.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by grazz16
You can then locate two different tracks at the same depth in your mix by sending them to the same aux send. Also, generally speaking, you always want the dry/wet knob on your effects sends to be 100% wet. Like Unique Freak said, you vary the amount of the effect based on the send level. |
| Laurinda Benya 28.05.2013 | You can vary the reverb by adjusting the send level. Although I like to work with a couple reverb aux tracks as well as delay aux tracks. |
| Berta Baie 28.05.2013 | if im using sends, can i adjust the individual parameters for the reverb per track though, or am i stuck with the parameters and just sending the amount of signal? For example what if i want the dry/wet on one track to be greater than another? If im only using one reverb on the send channel, how could i adjust one without affecting the other? |
| Luciano Hyppolite 27.05.2013 | Use sends and returns this will allow you to maintain the dry signal as well as the effect signal without drowinng the original sound. Use different kind of reverbs, delays, with different settings, short, long. etc. Also, when you feel it sounds well, lower it |
| Lynda Guerrieri 26.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by Unique Freak
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| Berta Baie 25.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by PjAndreasson
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| Laurinda Benya 25.05.2013 | Not sure if this will work as I don't use reverb excessively, but try sending your tracks to a reverb on an aux channel. This will allow you to EQ each individual sent track as well as EQ the reverb itself. |
| Rodolfo Oriol 25.05.2013 | I tend to cut all the low-mid frequencies and only have the high ones (in abletons reverb). I do this because I don't want the reverb to fight against the low-mid frequencies and because it sounds more "airy" and "sparkling". Sometimes I decrease the size and the stereo abit because sometimes the reverb gets too "muddy" and "big". |
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