Hey guys, today i'm going to show you seven reverb tricks that every producer must know
and these are going to be the difference between having a flat lifeless mix and
having a pro sounding mix that sounds really cohesive with loads of interest and variation.
Make sure to stick around for the last one because it's an absolute game changer, and if you want more
reverb and mixing tips, you can download my guide completely free below this video.
Without further ado, let's hop into the door and get it done. Okay, so the first reverb trick i'm going to show you is
reverse reverb and you're going to love this! you can use it in any genre and the first example
I heard was in the Prodidy's Firestarter many years ago. So, this is the effect that we are going for
I'm going to give you two examples of how to use it but you would usually use it, where you want to
transition into a new vocal or a new instrument.It's a really smooth way of doing it. So, this is
how you do it. If we go to our vocal track here, what we need to do is select the first syllable
of the track and we're just going to copy it earlier on in that track into a blank space, so it
sounds like this just one syllable. You might even want to smooth it off slightly.Now, to make things
easier, you can mute any other reverbs and delays you've got going on, so it's nice and dry but then
at the end of whichever processing chain you've got, you can put on a reverb.You can use any reverb
at all. I'm going to be using the Valhalla room for this, so I can zoom in nice and big for you
and then you need to make sure it's 100 wet, decay of about four to five seconds and you get that
effect. Now bounce that down into a new track. You can bounce to audio, if you're using Logic but if
you're using Ableton, this is how you would do it. You can arm a new audio track. Make sure that the
input here is coming from your vocal track so that would be lead vox and you just record it into it
and wait until that reverb tail has died right down. There you go. So, now all you have to do
is press r or reverse it, in whichever software you're in, and now you've got this lovely smooth
effect. Bingo! and this is how you would use it. You can delete that little clip from the
first one, take off the reverb that you used to create it and then you can just drag that
up to just before the beginning of your vocals and when they start and fade it out slightly,
so it's a bit of a smooth transition and this is the effect you get. So, let's hear that again
quickly and you can tweak how long you want it to fade in for by using the fades in your clips.
And this is how you would use it in the second way. So, you can use it for a melody as well.
So, here's our melody
Now, there's already side chain compression on this, so just pick the first note of the melody
(mine would be this but as i said it's side chain duct)
So, this is the note.And again, using exactly the same technique this is the result we get
And you can use it later on as well. Just duplicate it. Let's have a bit of a shorter one
That's the reverse reverb technique. It's a great way to smooth in transitions. Okay, reverb trick
number two - the wash out. Now this is a great way to build tension and contrast in your buildups.
And again it doesn't matter which genre you're using or which DAW. So if we listen to our build up
so we want to fade out some of those effects to allow more contrast. So what you can do is put
a reverb (again any reverb is gonna do) on the channel and then we'll automate from dry to wet
So it takes out the power, so it can come back in on the drop. We can do it on the arpeggio as well.
And that trick works great over the entire mix as well.
Okay, reverb trick number three - the reverb pad. This is a great way to use reverb as
an instrument, that has a similar timbre, to some of the other sounds in your track.
So, for instance, this is how we would create a pad out of a synth. Here's our arpeggio
So, what we would do is we would just have one note playing on there, and again get to
a part of the track, where you're not going to mess up the composition you've already done,
and we're just going to choose a middle c. And this is so when we load this into our sampler
we don't have to worry about tuning, it it's already going to be tuned.
So, just put one note in and then make sure you've got a reverb unit. Again, we can use
any reverb for this to 100 at the end of your chain so it's a bit smoother, and then as we
did with the others we can just sample it into a channel. So bounce to audio if you're using
Logic or if you're using Ableton you can do this and then record from where that synth
plays.
And this is how you make it into a pad. First we'll delete that up there, take the reverb off,
reactivate whatever you've turned off that you wanted on the instrument usually. And now you can
go into the clip boost it if it's a bit quiet. We don't want this beginning bit because we want a
nice smooth pad sound. So we can just take that out, we can consolidate it and then we can load
it into a sampler. Now any sampler will do. Once again. So i'm just going to use the one
that comes with Ableton, but you can use the one that comes with Logic or you can use the
one that comes with FL Studio as well. And then we just drag and drop it into the sampler. Make sure
the sustain is set to full, put a bit of release on it. Make sure that you've got multiple voices
selected, so you can play chords and then you can add a little bit of attack to make it more paddy.
and now we have a pad that's going to gel really well with
the other elements in the track, so we could play along like this:
Okay, reverb trick number four. And this is an absolutely essential trick you just have to know
whatever the genre. It's using your reverbs on the auxiliary channels.
As there are many things that you can do and we're going to be using them a couple
of them in the next two tips as well. So, if we go to the vocals and turn on the reverb again
Because we've sent it from ascend control to the auxiliary channel, you can see we can equalize that
reverb as its own separate instrument. What you have to make sure is that again it's set to 100
wet, when it's on an auxiliary channel, otherwise you're going to get that dry signal doubled up
on the auxiliary channel. You can add eq, you can add saturation, you can add any
effects you like to that reverb and leave the dry signal unaffected. Let me give you
a quick example. Let's just put a flanger on that auxiliary reverb, see what happens
Pretty cool effect, huh?
Okay, reverb tip number five. This is, again, an essential one. It's using an auxiliary channel for room reverb and by room reverb i just mean really
something that's very short and close with a very short decay time. You can see here
593ms. Again use any reverb for this, just make sure it's to 100 wet. And then what you can do is
feed in separate elements into this room reverb, like drum hits and whatnot. So, let's listen to
our beats and our bass with the room reverb on and see what happens when we turn it off
Listen how flat and dull that sounds.
And this is what they sound like on their own. I've got two room reverbs - one for the base
one for the drums. So it's subtle but it just adds an extra layer of warmth and cohesiveness
to the whole track and you can feed in little bits of room reverb to separate drums. That's
a really good tip. Okay, reverb tip number six. This is incidental reverb and this is great for adding
interest and little elements of surprise in your track. So, for instance, if your bar is
changing you can add some temporary reverb to an element. And again i do recommend using an
auxiliary channel for this. So, for instance, if we have a clap playing in our tune like this
And then we create an auxiliary channel with a reverb on it. Once again you guessed it 100 wet
in the mix. Let's put a nice long decay on it. Now we're going to automate on that reverb just for
a split second, we can do it with vocals, we can do it with synths we can do it with drums, we can
do it with anything. In this example I'm going to show you with a drum. So i've got three claps
all layered together but this is the main one. Let's just automate on that incidental reverb.
Show automation. And then on the last
clap of the track or, of the bar, sorry, we're going to automate on that reverb.
You hear what happened there?
And that's another great way to add interest and variation into your music. And, finally, perhaps the
biggest most important of all the reverb tricks, apart from maybe tip one that was pretty awesome,
the sidechain compressed reverb. So, there are two ways in which you can do this: you can duck it from
the kick drum in a pumping effect, which is what you would usually use sidechain compression for,
but you can also apply it to a lead or a vocal to help it cut through the mix. First I'll give
you an example of the pumping side chain. So, we have a melody here being sent to this reverb
and I've applied a side chain compressor, being triggered from the kick track, which
means it ducks and that gives it more energy when the drums are playing, when the kick's playing.
This is off. It's subtle.
So, that's the first reverb side chain technique. The second one is really professor. This is where
you trigger the side chain compressor from the dry signal. So let's use the vocals for this example.
Really nice and rich, right? But it does sound a little bit washed out. So, if we go to our
auxiliary channel for the vocal reverb, I've just thrown on another sidechain compressor.
And, again, you can use the FabFilter Pro-C2, that's a fine compressor to use, or any other
compressor that has sidechain facility. Logic Pro and FL Studio both have that functionality
built into their compressor. Okay, you can see i've chosen the audio from the lead vocals
and i'm ducking it using the threshold. So, this is with no compression on the reverb
So, you can see the dry signal is ducking the reverb very slightly when the dry vocals are
singing and that what this does is allow space for the vocals in the mix all the
lead synth, whatever you want to use, usually it would be the lead synth or the vocals
and this is a real game-changing technique, guys. This will make your vocals pop in the choruses,
this will make your lead synths pop as well. So, all together let's hear what we've got
So, there you go, guys, I really hope you've enjoyed these pro reverb techniques. If you want to learn a
lot more about how to produce truly professional sounding music that can top the download charts
and get played by your favorite DJs do check out my 8-Week Production Masterclass. We've had
students who've released music on their favourite labels, like Anjuna Beats, Armada, Nervous Records
and many many more, and we go through everything you need to know just like this lesson today
over the course of eight weeks to get you up to a professional standard of music production. If you
are interested, check out the link below. Other than that, don't forget to download my free mixing guide
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like this each and every week, thanks for watching and until next time. Cheers and happy producing!