How common is the addition of reverb in Mastering?

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 12:35 pm

Just Currious do any of you ME's every add a small amount of verb to a track when mastering to soften up a song/add some ambience?

Justin

Moderator Joined: Sep 12, 2002 Posts: 1844 Location: NYC

I can count the number of times on two fingers. once was a live show in a very very small club and they asked me to add some. the other was a guitar vocal thing where they asked me to add some.

Not something I would do unless specifically asked to do so.

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:30 pm

Why not?
I'm assuming you don't want to verb the kick, bass, vocals any more than already done, etc. ?

Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:08 am

Even more rare than using multi-band compression.

Not that I haven't cleaned up a few bad edits with it...

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 10:57 am

Thanks for the info. It really did sound better when I used it on another band's project (very very small amount, like wet signal at 18 and dry signal at 100). I A/B'd it and thought the reverb version sounded slightly fuller than the non-reverbed version. Thanks all.

Justin

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 12:32 pm

I generally get the 'verb I want in the mix and don't add any more in mastering.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:19 pm

Once...
I was mastering a dance track (club style). The artificial cymbals were very dry - I put a short, subtle decay on only the HF stuff to open up the fake cymbals and other extreme hf stuff. The HPF was set up past around 7K.

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 4:57 am

I think putting just a little bit of reverb always works to make a the seperate instruments more consistent and sit together, so I always do it, even if it's just a little bit.

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 9:14 pm

Always?

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 10:33 pm

You said that, my first thought...

"I've been here, before, a few times, and I'm quite, aware, we're dying, and your hands, they shake, the goodbyes, and I'll take you back if you'll have me...so here I am, I'm trying, so here I am, are you ready? Come on let me hold you, touch you, feel you, always..."
(Always - Blink 182)

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 11:13 pm

That would be negatory...you would never see a mastering engineer adding destructive effects to a mixdown. Unless say an artist wants that particular part of the song to go into a flange (there's a creed song that did that and was annoying), but you would most likely add that to your automation in the master channel strip

so no, don't add verb, i don't know where this idea came from, but its a bad one

Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 12:40 am

Dude. You'd be surprised the ideas out there on the interweb. This is the only forum I feel comfortable searching for advice on. A lot of sites propagating misinfo out there....and I'm still pretty dull. as in not sharp, at times. Gullible maybe or just inexperienced. Yeah that's kinda me.

Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 2:34 am

Space wrote:

Always?

Well 9 out of 10 times then, even if it's just 3 or 4% wet.

Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 6:33 am

Sorry, I am not a mastering engineer, so I probably shouldn't chime in, BUT.....

10-15 years ago it was somewhat common to add a Little bit of reverb at the mastering stage to "glue" a mix together.
This was in the days before everyone was a mastering engineer and there was a million opinions on the internet on how to do it. Please don't ask me for names or examples 'cause I don't wan't to have to go through years of Mix and EQ magazines to find them, but I do remember reading it.

I think this falls under a taste issue and not correct or incorrect procedure.

MarkG

Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:04 am

Well, I decided to do a little research, and found that reverb is used very little by mastering houses currently.

When it was used, it was mostly for fixing something, not for every job.
I think most of the people here have mixes that need "fixing", so a little reverb at mastering might not be a bad idea.

MarkG

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