Hi Bob, Give my regards to Gammlestan! First off, mixes that you really want heavy reverb in have to have the space available in the arrangement to use it effectively. The big trick is to manage the low midrange frequencies really well (ie: for multiple guitars, give them unique low mid EQ settings with tight bandwidths). try to avoid having too many tracks competing for space in the low mids. If you're using reverb on more than one instrument or vocal, use different ones with different decays, pan settings, EQ profiles for the decays, anything you can to distinguish one from the other. Use the best reverb you can afford too, whether hardware or plugin. You get what you pay for (except for SIR, which is free and great!). Good luck with it.

jonyoung wrote: Hi Bob, Give my regards to Gammlestan! First off, mixes that you really want heavy reverb in have to have the space available in the arrangement to use it effectively. The big trick is to manage the low midrange frequencies really well (ie: for multiple guitars, give them unique low mid EQ settings with tight bandwidths). try to avoid having too many tracks competing for space in the low mids. If you're using reverb on more than one instrument or vocal, use different ones with different decays, pan settings, EQ profiles for the decays, anything you can to distinguish one from the other. Use the best reverb you can afford too, whether hardware or plugin. You get what you pay for (except for SIR, which is free and great!). Good luck with it.

Hi Jon, yeah of course I will. :) I was there last saturday and ate a pizza. :mrgreen:

Thanx for the good answer, I think, I must start to cut the low mids some more. :) Defenitly to much interference there.

I have two old external reverb that I prefere to use, but also some plugs like the UAD-1 plate. The externals are TC M2000 and Lexicon MXP1, think they sound okay.

Must check out the decay settings next time I use them. :)

Working on the low end of the reverb returns definitely helps keep things under control. There's plenty of things that DONT need reverb, yet it's easy to accidently dump reverb on them. Bass guitar, kick drum, etc. don't need it; some of the bass/kick drum will bleed into the snare or OH mics anyway.

When you can, check the sound of the "Wet" reverb return by soloing it. Many times, you can roll off the low end and leave a very clean, detailed reverb return that will do much more that way.

With very dense mixes, you can use less reverb that you'd think - it only adds to the "Muck" factor anyway.

I've always found that when you reach a point of everything being too dense, it's time to start backing things down, or turning them off altogether.

Less IS more, sometimes.

I deffinatley try to keep reverb to an absolute minimum and use short reverbs, ambience settings or a delay with a short feedback and delay time to give things space. Of course this goes out of the window if I'm doing ambient music where I use bucket loads of big reverbs :)

You can also try running lesser amounts of contrasting multiple reverbs in parallel...this gives the option of having shorter delay times for vox, longer delay times for space guitars, whatever...frequency dependant (as Joe mentioned) reverb is I think is a MUST when doing this

Also give playing with predelays a whirl...will add spaciousness and a 3 dimensional quality...

Midlandmorgan wrote: Also give playing with predelays a whirl...will add spaciousness and a 3 dimensional quality...

Yes! I totally forgot about this. It's a great trick to try. I remember doing it back in the "old days" (analog) on some tracks as a combination of slap echo with reverb. We used a 3 head rec/playback tape deck (with a loop of tape) to create the delay. Then we dialed in (with varispeed on the tape deck) an eigth-note tempo, so all the echo's would kick in on the "AND" of one AND two AND three AND...etc.

With the "echo" return then wetted through the reverb, it was a great "Deep" sound addition to some instruments, esp for certain vocal effects, snare hits, etc. You couldn't use TOO Much of it, but it sure did add depth and a much bigger reverb sound.

These days, I'm sure you can easily dial in any length of pre-delay on a reverb/room sim return, and set it up that way. That little bit of delay sure adds some space, alright.