Don't Do THIS With Reverb 

These are exactly the type of fundamental, basic tips I need. I'm a full time musician who's been doing my own live sound for years. Finally jumping into production and I want to thank Joe for speaking plain English and not trying to impress us with how many tech jargon words he knows. Refreshing and concise.

Joe, I have been in the film industry for a long time and began in the analogue world, so using sends to reverb hardware was SOP for me. We were limited as to how many reverb units were physically available, rather than adding a plug-in to a channel. Needing to provide multiple surround stems to the dub stage meant that we would run out of reverbs very quickly. Now, using Pro Tools, I still prefer the "send to reverb" method and if I ever need the "reverb only" effect, I simply check the "pre-fader" box on the send -- simple. Thanks for the videos!

Joe - it’s great that you keep reinforcing the fundamentals. I remember some new lights coming on when I first learned this concept and I am glad that updated videos are still being made about topics like this. Nice work!

Κατάπαυσις (Katapafsis). with this fastest mind you need it some times every day.. You are the best and more understandable (sound) RU-vidr. You help a lot. Thank you.

The “Abbey Road reverb trick” does both a low and hi-cut at around 600Hz and 10kHz respectively and this is *before* the reverb. In this way, the signal going into the reverb will not generate that muddiness on the low end or that shrill on the high end. What you demonstrated definitely works when you want a consistent sound all-around or to create the feeling of everything existing in the same room. I sometimes - not often - put some different reverbs on certain instruments if I know it will create a characteristic I like (as not all reverbs are alike =] ).

One of the best videos so far. Really helpful!

I prefer a hybrid approach. Generally I got one to three reverb channels to feed into, but for instance on the snare I like to use a verb directly on it, that signal then gets sent to a more general room reverb with the rest of everything. That gives me a reverb character that's different from everything else but still fits with the rest in the "room".

You're teaching me all the things I've been desperately trying to learn for years now 😭 Thank you sensei!

A real game changer for my mixes! Thanks 👑

Good job Joe, I found it better to route my tracks to a separate reverb, is great for consistency and you can always adjust each tracks dry signal before it hits the reverb on a fx channel.

Nice one, Joe 👏

Man I love your channel you’ve helped me Overcome a lot of obstacles.

sounds so awesome Joe

Great work! I've known all this, much thanks to Home Studio Corner, but it's a great reminder to not forget the EQ on the reverb, and that the high pass doesn't have to be subtle.

Great tips!! Thanks Joe

Thanks Joe. You keep things simple and help people like me that have never had any official training. I appreciate both you and Gregor a lot. You are good for PreSonus Studio One and show off their plugins well also.

This has ALWAYS been standard practice in all of my mixes. While a sometimes use other reverb plug-ins, I have to say that the stock reverb plug-ins in studio One are beyond reproach❣ I usually use the Room Reverb on an FX channel with Flat Plate reverb, and send each desired track individually to the reverb. I also instantiate the Pro EQ in the reverb FX track and do the Abbey Road trick: low cut at 300 Hz (sometimes a little higher) and high cut at 10 Khz with a steep octave on both so it looks like a horseshoe.

Learning so much from your videos.

This is a brilliantly presented video. Clearly explained and right to the point. Thanks so much, this has given me some really great tips. Instant sub!

sweet song. even better tips! Thanks for sharing!

Suuuuuper helpful! You just cleared something up for me. Thank you.👍🏼✨

Great lesson 🙏🏾

Thank you Joe for a nice video.

Thxxxxxx thxxxx 🙏🏾!! Dope Video! Thumps up!

People who began their musical history with hardware fxs know how to use sends/bus/aux, we didn't have the money to buy one reverb per track! 😉 And people who began their computer history with low CPU computers know how to use less plugin as possible

great .💛💛💛thank you sir.

U da man Joe! ⭐

Thanks, very informative!

so smart.. thanks man!

Lovely song!

It all depends on the situation, really. Every reverb has its own sound. I usually have a global reverb channel but I often run some tracks through their own individual reverbs simply because I like the sound of them, they actually become part of the sound design process.

I like acoustic guitars, your singing, and the vibe of the song!

Very useful. Thanks Joe. It's the hardest thing for me to estimate how much more I can add a reverb ... They say reverb shouldn't be heard on a professional record at all!

ooooh.. super thanks.... that's a lot of help for me...new subscriber here.. more power to you..

When I started recording back in the '70's, there were only a couple of "effects" sends on the console. That changed through the '80's but there was unlikely to be an unlimited number of reverbs available. One studio I worked at had 4 which was pretty amazing for the time, however there were only 3 effects sends available. One very important thing that you did not mention is that RT60/decay and predelay are settable on most reverb plugins now but I've been setting those to specific musical values since the 80's. It's best for the reverb not to decay for too long making things too washed out. I typically start with the Decay set to about a whole or half note value and the predelay [if any] to 1/32 or 1/64th note value. Today it's easy to figure out but back in the '80's I used a HP 42 programable calculator to calculate time delays.

What a great tip!!!

thanks so much for this video!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Joe, many thanks from a complete recording noob for an excellent lesson. Some went over my head but I certainly got the key message(s) and in the process finally found out what the heck a 'Bus' does so a big 👍 for that too!

Very helpful thank you

Tq bro.... Very helpful knowledge

another handy lesson thank you

Hey Joe, love your stuff, love your courses, always super helpful. I know that you can position things differently in the space of the mix (making them seem closer or further back) by using different predelays on the reverbs. For this would it be best to make a separate reverb channel for each thing (or group of things) or is there a better way you’d recommend?

Super helpful!!!

Hey, Joe! Really appreciate your videos and I agree with this 99% of the time, though there is that 1% when you need a certain effect that you can't get with sends and that's a more wet reverb than dry, sometimes maybe 100% wet. Sure, you could set the send as prefader, the fader of the channel to minimum gain and only control the send gain, but that can become a bit tedious. So I think there are times when it's ok to use reverb as insert, if you are looking for a certain effect more than placing a sound in a space, and also to have a more clear routing for this case. Sends are really great for many things, including compression. In the past, when there were no VST plugins, they used sends for parallel compression too. In those days there was no dry/wet knob on hardware. So my suggestion for everyone is try experimenting! My thinking lately is more like: there is no right way to do things as long as you get the sound you are looking for. Be creative, try breaking the rules some times! PS. Please don't take this the wrong way, it's nice for people to know about using sends, in most cases will help them lower their CPU usage.

100% agree… great explanation 👍

Great vocals :)

I ALWAYs learn something from you, thank you! I've been doing the FX bus reverb or delay thing, but hadn't thought about putting EQ on it, too. I'm new to this still, so that was a super helpful tip. I had someone tell me to take some low end off the reverb I was using and I didn't now how to do that. Now I do. I feel dumb and enlightened all at the same time, lol.

great you just saved me time

as long as i can remember, this is the first time i’m learning about this. thanks for this tip!

Thank you so very much I am one of those music producers who did this very thing so I thank you for teaching me a better way to do my recordings

This guy has been saving my Butt lately while I’m trying to learn this program and try my hand at mixing

Great vid. Sometimes it's helpful to simply separate the tracks into logical groups so that you have one sub for all the guitars, one sub for the drums, and one for vocal. But using the "all in one technique' as you did in this vid illustrates the concept well.

Cool videos. I used to use the mix knob on the plugin, but after hours of mixing that my ear is tired i can't feel the reverb that much at that time. But after a rest i feel like the reverb is too wet lol. Especially after print the track. So now i prefer to use send and print both the instrument and the reverb track so i can adjust how much reverb even after the print.

I am guilty of doing this I didn't realize you could do this I was killing my PC performance now this will free it up thanks Joe bTW excellent sounding acoustic guitar recording and mix it exploded on my headphone great separation of each guitar track R -L- C show us how you recorded the acoustic guitars and mixed them, please

I knew a lot of this and I am pretty careful with mixed reverbs, but today you convinced me to actually start using busses. I'm lazy xD

A pluggle is basically a plugin that can't work magic... ;-) Great video, Joe, thanks for reminding us of this important topic :-)

This is a great approach to saving time and only using the reverb once. Would you recommend the same thing when it comes to using a compressor on the drums and bass?

One thing I'd like to know is how to plan out and set up reverb on a session where the majority or all of the instruments are bone-dry, such as synths, DI, Close mic-ed vocals. With instruments recorded in a space it's arguably easier to choose and apply reverbs as the spatial characteristics of the recording railroad your choices somewhat. I've never come up with consistent formula for applying reverb when it comes to a dry session however.

Great video and really well explained. Just one question (wouldn't you know it?), what shortcut(s) were you using to copy the reverb to apply it to each of the other channels?

Using effects sends to route tracks to reverbs and delays is pretty much standard back in the analogue past where I live 😃

Joe...Fellow nashvillian here and love your lessons. Good stuff. Question on VST instrument presets. Do you remove any reverb from these presets so you can then send them to a a common reverb?

Love me some parallel processing, makes life so much easier 😁

Thanks for the video Joe. Could you please request presonus to set the sends volume down to the lowest instead of -6.0db. it is annoying having to do this all the time.

Im a student of music technologies, and in our lectures on mixing this was 101 for FX :D This technique stems from the old days when you would only have analogue gear and the Reverb you had was great but ecpensive so you only had 1-2 of them, so what would you do? Send your tracks into them and record the output into a separate track to play alongside the others in the mix. Of course, you didnt always get the option to send all the tracks you need in that reverb at once, but slowly they got there. Now with digital its just too easy to get carried away and forget the difference of aux and insert.

Thanks Joe. Would you suggest to use the same effects channel in case I want to use another effect like a delay or I should rout each effect to a separate effects channel?

Hey Joe where you going with that reverb plugin in your hand?

Will that work well with other effects like Helix Guitar effects to be used on multiple guitars?

Using reverb as an insert is a great technique. Many big artist do that.

Interesting. I thought for sure you were going to put the EQ in FRONT of the reverb, because I swear I’ve seen you do that before. Does it matter? Are there times when you go EQ > reverb, and times when you go reverb > EQ?

my question is.. how do u record ur daw with your voice over it and have it sound this good?

Great video Joe! Given that the Reverb track will need EQ post-Reverb, and that the EQ needs for the guitar (for instance) would most likely be different than the EQ needs for the Vox, would it be better to have a separate Reverb/EQ track for Lead Vox and one for Guitars (as a group), and any other instruments as their own group? That would make sense to me plus it would help create more separation to my mind. Thoughts?

I love my pluggle

so when eqíng the reverb, does it usually make sense to have eq'd it the same across multiple tracks?

Joe, FIRST of all, that's a nice song. To be honest, lately, I have all but quit using much reverb in the vocals. I am not going to say that I won't in the future, because there are times I probably need it. I am more apt to use reverb on the instrument tracks than the vocals. I the reverb makes the vocals hard to understand, but then again.......I might have used a little too much. Basically, I guess I am saying that when people use reverb, they need to be careful about how much reverb to use, as well as to clean it up with an EQ in the track. Thanks, I always learn something from you.

🙏🏻🤟🙏🏻

So Joe...What do use the index card box for...?

i haven't made the 'separate reverb on each track' mistake, but i *have* made the 'print' the reverb that is part of the patch from the guitar modeler then not be able to dial it out when it didn't sit in the mix as well as i *thought* it did while i was tracking ... so now i almost always record dry guitars with fx added in the mix to build a cohesive track 'whole'

Thanks for this. I do add reverbs and delays on busses but maybe I should try this having just one reverb track and just use sends. Btw do I include and EQ in the reverb track or use anther track for EQs?

Ayyyyeee what's the song? The guitar parts are SICK

Have you ever tried adding a SLOW FLANGER before the REVERB insert......Tip from Bob Clearmountain.......

The trap i keep on falling into on a regular basis lol

question, if i EQ on a track, will that effect the EQ on my send?

What's your approach to reverb pre-delay?

what if you want different eq on the reverb of different tracks?

If I have a hard panned guitar going into a shared verb like that does any of the guitars reverb bleed into the other channel

I'm guessing sometimes you want different reverbs so you can EQ them differently? Or do y'all find that's rare?

Very helpful, thank you. Who's the singer ?

Great video! But Joe, you are soooo diplomatic! Bro, you are the 'Mary Poppins' of audio engineering... "Just a spoonful of reverb makes the mixdown sound 'round!"

This works because you really want the same reverb on most things so that it sounds like it is in the same space.

Thx for sharing. I wonder how can I do that with cubase 8. Also what mic are you using.

this, for me, begs the question: how many stand alone reverbs should we be running in a mix? while i know there is no "definite" answer, should there generally be different reverbs for things (vox, guit, drums, etc)? again, i know it depends upon how we want things to sound and some tracks might benefit from fewer reverbs and some might benefit from more (and different sounding ones), but is there any "rule of thumb" approach we can use?

Hey Joe. How much reverb do you typically send on a rap “lead” vocal?

Questions : 1) Do I need to compress my reverb channel? If yes on what grounds? 2) Do you usually throw in an imager/spreader after the eq on the fx channel? Thank you. Edit : I am aware of the fact that every mix is unique and almost everything is relative to that. However, If you still can suggest me something.

Summary: Reverb sends

I understand the concept of a number of tracks feeding one bus channel (that has the reverb), but the reverb setting for the vocal would be the same reverb setting for all the other tracks feeding into the bus, correct? Therefore the reverb settings shouldn't be altered for the guitars etc because it's already set for the vocal. You would have to create another bus track with alternate reverb settings and then feed the other tracks to that bus (or busses) if you were looking for a different reverb sound. Is that correct?

I use sends 99% of the time but theres some situations I'll put it directly on the track but its rare

I disagree because all of the scenarios mentioned by you are valid when you want to preserve the original "dry" signal and add a touch of reverb to spice up the sound. However, there are situations where you need/want to use a 100% wet signal; then there is no other option but to use reverb on the channel (and not on send). In cases where there is more than one instrument that must be wet, the workaround is to create a bus channel with a "full-on wet reverb" and send all of the instruments there. To avoid overuse of CPU power, one should render an instrument to an audio file. Of course, it all depends on the genre you're working with

what's the difference between ROOM REVERB and MIXVERB plugins that come in studio one?

My question is, is there a difference between lowering the mix knob on the reverb & lowering the fader on the reverb? I use sends for reverb a lot, but I don't like to keep my reverb at 100% wet. My thinking is I'm using too much reverb & the fader is just controlling the volume of the reverb. Is that wrong? Does the fader actually control the amount of wet?

The unsolved question is if the singer would rediscover his fright of the dark.