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Use Reverb Like A Pro: 1 Send E ects & Mix Balance

Listen To the On-line Examples
How top engineers use their most important e ect Choosing Reverb Presets
Further Reverb Reading
Recording
Tweaking Reverbs: The Controls To Reach For First
By Mike Senior Published July 2008
The Long & The Short Of It
If you've ever spent hours mixing only to be confronted with a wall of mud, How Much, On Which Instruments?
you might need to think harder about how to use reverb and delay in your Blending Your Mix With Delay E ects Instead
mixes - and some simple tricks can yield dramatic results. Bringing It All Together
Room For Improvement
Reverb and delay are arguably the most common e ects used at mixdown, but because they Next Month: Top Producers Talk Reverb
nd so many di erent uses in this context they can seem bewildering to musicians who are still
in the process of getting to grips with the fundamentals of studio production — those setting
up a home studio, perhaps, or those enrolled in a music technology course for the rst time. Readers' Ads
Part of the problem inevitably stems from the wide range of di erent devices available that can VIEW ALL ADS CREATE FREE AD
supply these types of e ects, and from their frequently inscrutable editing parameters. There
is, however, an enormous amount of information on hand to demystify such technicalities, not
least in Sound On Sound 's on-line article archive (see the 'Further Reading' box for some
suggestions). Furthermore, the preset-led nature of many e ects units these days makes it On the same subject
unnecessary for the beginner to delve very far into their algorithmic innards, and to be honest I Session Notes: Recording An Acoustic Guitar Duo
think there are quicker results to be gained at the outset by working from presets, and leaving August 2018
most of the e ects parameters well alone! Inside Track: BTS 'Fake Love'
August 2018
As I see it, the more pressing di culty when starting out is dealing with basic practical Emile Haynie: Producing Florence + The Machine
questions such as how many di erent e ects to use, which e ects to apply to which August 2018
instrument, and how to decide on suitable levels. So in this article I'll be trying to eliminate Marta Salogni
some of the guesswork by suggesting a basic general-purpose approach to using reverb and August 2018
delay while mixing. In the process I'll pinpoint some things to watch out for when sur ng reverb Studio SOS: Getting A Better Recorded Drum
presets, as well as highlighting the handful of e ects parameters and techniques that make the Sound
July 2018
biggest impact with the least e ort.

However, I've always felt that there's only so much you can communicate in print alone when Latest Videos
you're dealing with mixing techniques, so I've also put together a bunch of audio examples so
that you can judge for yourself how useful each of my proposed methods is in practice. You can
download them in MP3 or WAV format from the SOS web site at [Link]/sos/
jul08/articles/[Link].

On the most fundamental level, both delay and reverb are about adding the characteristics of
an acoustic environment, either by creating
simple echoes or by simulating more complex
patterns of sonic re ections. The reason these
e ects are usually so important at mixdown is
because the individual parts in most modern PreSonus Faderport - Summer NAMM 2018
multitrack projects communicate very little in 1 month 4 days ago.
the way of a common sense of space, and as
such sound a bit 'dislocated', rather than
seeming to belong on the same record.
Eventide Punctuate & Saturate - Summer NAMM 2018
Obviously, synthesizers and sampled sounds
1 month 1 week ago.
often have no sense of acoustic realism to Sends are your friends: whether you're using
them at all, but even miked instruments are hardware or software, reverb and delay are usually
often recorded very close up, to reduce room used as send e ects — because that way you're

re ections as much as possible, allowing

creating a 'space' that can be shared by di erent DigiAuxine inc Kaoline - Summer NAMM 2018
tracks. 1 month 1 week ago.
decisions about the nature of the production's
overall acoustic space to be deferred until the nal mixdown.

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For this reason, the primary objective of reverbs and delays is to reconnect tracks that have no SIGN UP TO SOS NEWSLETTERS
inherent connection by giving them some shared acoustic characteristics, and it's this task
that's the subject of the article at hand. Naturally, there are creative applications of reverbs and
delays too, but these are window-dressing in most mixes (as well as being very much more a
matter of personal taste), and will do your mix little good if the main edi ce doesn't really
cohere properly.

Send E ects & Mix Balance

Because the underlying aim is to give the separate tracks something in common, it makes
sense to set up your plug-ins or hardware processors so that the same e ect can be applied to
multiple tracks at the same time. Whether you're using a hardware or a software mixer, the
manner of doing this is pretty much the same. First of all you set up the output of your e ects
processor to feed a spare stereo mixer channel; then you set up a separate mix of your tracks
speci cally for the e ects processor and send it to the unit's inputs, whereupon the e ected
signal feeds back into the mix. By changing the levels of the di erent tracks in the send mix,
you determine how much of the e ect is added to each track.

In hardware systems, the mixer will have

auxiliary send controls which allow you to
create a number of independent e ects-send
mixes, each mix appearing on a separate
output socket. By connecting di erent e ects
units to the mixer's di erent auxiliary-send
outputs, you can drive several independent When using send e ects, make sure that the e ect is
e ects at once, assuming that you have set to 100 percent wet. Some plug-ins, such as the
enough free mixer inputs through which to UAD1 Plate 140 reverb, have this setting as a default,
but not all do, so remember to check — otherwise
return their outputs. In software, a separate
when you send a signal to the e ect, that signal will
mixer channel usually needs to be created to not just get the reverb, it will become louder, ruining
hold the e ect plug-in, whereupon auxiliary the balance of your mix.
sends can be created on each relevant mixer
channel to feed it. (This is exactly the kind of setup I used in Cockos Reaper to create my audio
examples, using a section of an otherwise dry multitrack project.)

Irrespective of which kind of system you work in, though, there are two important things that
you need to bear in mind if you're going to ensure that this kind of e ect con guration (usually
called a 'send e ect' or 'e ect loop') works properly. The rst thing is that you need to make
sure the processors or plug-ins you're using only output e ects, not a mix of processed and
unprocessed signals, otherwise changing any auxiliary send level will also have an impact on
that track's overall volume. Some e ects units have separate level settings for e ected ('wet')
and une ected ('dry') signals, while others o er a Mix Balance control, which needs to be set to
one extreme (usually labelled something like '100 percent wet') to stop any unprocessed signal
breaking through.

The second thing to ensure is that each channel's auxiliary send is taken from a point in the
signal path after the channel's fader — in other words, that you use what is called a 'post-fade'
auxiliary send. That way the amount of e ects for any instrument will vary naturally as its
channel fader is moved. If you fed the auxiliary send from before the fader, then you could, for
example, fade a track completely down and you'd still be hearing its reverb — rarely a desirable
state of a airs except for the occasional special e ect.

Listen To the On-line Examples

As usual, we've placed a number of audio examples discussed in this article on-line at
[Link]/sos/jul08/articles/[Link]

Choosing Reverb Presets

Now that we're clear on how to set up the necessary connections, it's time to start considering
the e ects themselves. First of all, let's start by looking at how you can use just reverb to draw
a nal mix together, and then we'll build on that to show the subtly di erent possibilities that
are a orded by delay e ects.

As I've already mentioned, there are enough things for newcomers to mixing to worry about
without programming their own reverbs from scratch, so I would certainly recommend starting
from presets where possible. However, this tactic only lets you o the hook to a certain degree,

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because it's still up to you to select the right processor and preset for the task. Here are a few
tips.

The rst, and probably most useful, thing I can

say is that you should ignore the preset names
and instead try to imagine the kind of space
you want your mix to inhabit — picturing a real
environment can help focus the mind here,
although this may not help as much if you're
trying to create a more other-worldly sound. A
wrong choice in this regard can be almost
impossible to sort out during mixing, whereas
a reverb with the right kind of inherent acoustic
For reverb, it often makes sense to start with a
signature but the wrong tone and/or length can preset, but knowing what makes a reverb patch can
usually be tweaked into better shape help when it comes to nal tweaks. In particular,
comparatively easily. It's not uncommon for me notice the three phases of initial delay (or pre-delay),
to wade through a couple of dozen presets the early re ections and the dense re ections of the
reverb tail, and how high frequencies tend to decay
before I nd one that instinctively feels like it
more quickly than lower ones.
ts the mix in hand, and it's vital that you don't
hurry this process.

Beyond that rather intangible decision, though, there are a few other more down-to-earth
things to consider. First of all, if you have a choice of reverb processors or plug-ins, be wary of
any that produce a metallic sort of sound, particularly in response to noisy tracks like drums. To
show what I mean by this, let me turn to the rst of my audio examples: the Reverb1 and
Reverb2 audio les. The former has a pronounced metallic ring to it, whereas the latter (while
still far from perfect) is a bit better behaved in this regard, and is likely to prove much more
usable. The problem with metallic resonances is that, by the time the reverb is at a level where
it's doing its job, the overtones become too clearly audible, unpleasantly colouring the mix as a
whole and making the e ect sound too obvious. Reverbs with obvious resonant 'character' do
have their uses at the mix, but typically for other, more specialised tasks beyond the scope of
this article, so it's best to steer clear of them to begin with. (It's worth pointing out that the
Reverb1 le also veers o to one side of the stereo image as it decays, which isn't ideal either.)

Another basic principle when looking for reverbs that will bind a mix together is to tread
carefully with any that seem to have very prominent frequency extremes. Neither very high
frequencies nor very low frequencies are much use when using reverb to bind a track together,
the former tending to make the reverb too audible in its own right, and the latter reducing
punch at the low end of the mix where de nition is normally really important.

Further Reverb Reading

If you nd that you're struggling with e ects-related jargon, or you just want to know a
bit more about di erent reverb types and plug-in parameters, head over to the SOS web
site at [Link] and check out the extensive article archive, which has
thousands of free-to-view articles for you to browse. You can search the articles yourself,
using the search function, but if you're short on time then here are a few of the most
useful on the subject of reverb and delay:

Reverb: Frequently Asked Questions (SOS May 2000)

[Link]/sos/may00/articles/[Link]
Advanced Reverberation (SOS October & November 2001)
[Link]/sos/Oct01/articles/[Link] and
[Link]/sos/Nov01/articles/[Link]
Sequencer Reverb & Delay Masterclasses (SOS June & July 2003)
[Link]/sos/Jun03/articles/[Link] and
[Link]/sos/Jul03/articles/[Link]
Using Reverb & Delay In Cubase (SOS October 2007)
[Link]/sos/oct07/articles/cubasetechnique_1007.htm
Improving The Sound Of Your Reverb (SOS August 1996)
[Link]/sos/1996_articles/aug96/[Link]
Choosing The Right Reverb (SOS March 2006)
[Link]/sos/mar06/articles/[Link]
Convolution Processing With Impulse Responses (SOS April 2005)
[Link]/sos/apr05/articles/[Link]

Tweaking Reverbs: The Controls To Reach For First

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If you're lucky, you might have selected a reverb preset that's perfect for your track. In my
experience, though, no preset ever seems to t the mix like a glove, and I routinely tweak the
reverb sound in a variety of ways while mixing, to make it match better. What I also nd is that
amongst the forest of reverb parameters frequently provided, some end up being much more
useful than others, so here are a few pointers for getting the quickest results.

The most important thing that you need to get right is the balance between the length of the
reverb and its overall level across all the tracks in the mix. Most people who send mixes in for
Mix Rescue tend to have misjudged this balance, either by having the reverb too long, so that
they can't fade it up far enough without it washing out the whole mix, or by having it too short,
so that they can't get a full sound without distancing their tracks to the horizon. Almost every
reverb processor has some kind of control to change the length of the reverb (often labelled
Decay Time or Reverb Time), so one of the most important things you can do is to experiment
with di erent reverb length settings, juggling the return channel's fader in tandem, to nd the
best balance between these two parameters. In fact, this is something I often nd myself
coming back to late in the mix, as it can be di cult to judge properly until the comparative
reverb levels for all the instruments are set up.

If you have a listen to the ReverbLength audio

les you can hear how the length of a single A useful starting point is to set up four basic send
e ects: a short (ambient) and long reverb, and a
reverb can a ect the fullness of the mix, given a
short and long delay. You can then send di erent
xed e ect-return level. ReverbLengthShort amounts of any of your signals to one or more of
leaves the mix a bit lacking in warmth, while at these e ects, to create a feeling of cohesion. Placing
the other extreme ReverbLengthLong goes over an EQ after your reverb or delay can make it much
the top, swamping the details in the mix and easier to sculpt the sound to t your mix. Rolling o
the low and high frequencies, for example, tends to
giving itself away as an unnatural e ect.
make reverb or delay less conspicuous.
ReverbLengthMedium strikes a balance
between these two extremes and therefore sounds more successful in context. I've also
created a le of the same section with the reverb bypassed so that you can hear how it's
contributing to the song's blend. (Incidentally, If you're having di culty initially distinguishing
the di erences between the di erent sets of audio les, try importing all of them into your own
sequencer so that they're all playing back at once, and then use your mixer solo buttons to
switch between them while they're playing. This makes subtle adjustments between the les
much more apparent.)

The next most common thing I do with any reverb is adjust its tonality to suit the track. Some
equalisation controls are often built into the reverb processor, but I usually prefer the extra
exibility a orded by a separate equaliser following the reverb in the return channel. With
modern commercial styles I almost always cut away some of the low frequencies with a high-
pass lter set somewhere in the 100-300Hz range, simply because it allows me to keep the
required focus and punch of kick drums and bass lines uncompromised. I also often cut high
frequencies as well, either with a low-pass lter or high shelf. This is partly because it helps
make the reverb less audible as an added e ect (particularly in response to vocal consonants
and high percussion), but also partly because it has the psychological e ect of making the
reverb seem further away from the listener than the brighter dry sounds.

However, in addition to cutting high end and low end, it can also make a great deal of sense to
sculpt the reverb return's tonality even further if you nd that it's colouring the mix's overall
tone undesirably. Another reason for doing this is that the fashion these days is for reverb to
be pretty inconspicuous, but it still needs to be high enough in level to get the instruments to
gel properly. If your reverb has a prominent frequency-response peak where little else is
happening in your mix, this will make the reverb e ect too audible well before the overall
reverb level is high enough. A few well-placed reverb-return EQ cuts once the mix is up and
running can therefore really pay dividends if you're after an up-front production sound that is
nevertheless still cohesive.

To demonstrate the impact of these kinds of EQ changes, I used the same reverb e ect from
the previous example, on which I'd already used all the types of EQ I've been talking about, to
create the ReverbEQFull audio le. I then dropped out each of the three lter bands (a high-
pass lter at 240Hz, a very gentle low-pass lter rolling o from around 7kHz, and a 5dB
peaking cut over a one-octave band at 580Hz) to generate the ReverbEQHPFOut,
ReverbEQLPFOut, and ReverbEQPeakCutOut les.

The nal reverb parameter that I regularly reach for is the pre-delay setting, which simply
delays the onset of the reverb re ections by a speci ed amount — the longer the pre-delay, the
closer the dry sounds appear to be in comparison with the boundaries of the simulated room.
Some reverb plug-ins either have no pre-delay option or have a zero default setting, and if left
unchanged this psychologically positions any sound source much further away from the
listener, e ectively right against one of the boundaries of the simulated room. This isn't the
only problem, though, because what also happens is that the almost instantaneous early
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re ections of a reverb without pre-delay interact unpredictably with the dry sound in a way that
can noticeably alter its tone. An immediate reverb onset can interfere with vocal intelligibility
too, by blurring important consonants. Again, Mix Rescue candidates regularly encounter all
these di culties, simply because they ignore the pre-delay setting — and even if your reverb
has no internal pre-delay, that's no excuse not to dial one in manually by chaining delay and
reverb e ects in series.

To hear how audible these factors are in practice, try comparing the ReverbPredelayIn and
ReverbPredelayOut les. The rst of these uses a 35ms pre-delay, while the second has none at
all. To my ears, the vocalist takes a clear step backwards when the pre-delay is bypassed, and
sounds less clear into the bargain.

The Long & The Short Of It

On the face of it, if you're trying to get your tracks to sound as though they're all roughly in the
same space, sending to a single global reverb from all of them is a common-sense approach.
However, in my experience this puts a lot more pressure on the engineer to select and tweak
that single reverb to get respectable results, so I usually suggest to those starting out that it's
actually easier if they use two. Let me explain how this works.

The idea is that the two reverbs each serve di erent purposes, and they can be mixed and
matched to cope with a range of recording types within most typical projects. The rst reverb is
short (usually well under a second in length) and with perhaps only 5-10ms of pre-delay. What
this does is simply make disconnected sounds stick together more convincingly within the mix,
as well as setting the distance between these sounds and the listener, but without making itself
obviously audible as an added e ect, given its minimal reverb 'tail'. (As a result, some engineers
call this e ect ambience rather than reverb.) The second reverb can then be set to give much
more of a sense of an acoustic space, using a longer and perhaps slightly brighter reverb as
required, but combining that with a fairly long pre-delay (maybe 30-70ms), to avoid the e ect
distancing sounds that it's applied to very much further.

Having these two reverbs on hand, you can then deal

with a variety of di erent situations. For example, a
bone-dry synthesizer track that belongs in the track's
background might need lots of short reverb to push it
away from the listener, whereas a lead vocal might only
have just enough to make it sound as if it belongs in the
mix — indeed, it might have none at all if you want to
achieve the most upfront sound, albeit at the risk of it
sounding disconnected from the record as a whole. Both
of the tracks may need a bit of the longer reverb, though,
if you're trying to make them sound natural together.

To take another example, drum overhead mics that

already have a lot of room sound on them could easily
warrant no added reverb at all (although you might try to
match the sound of the longer reverb to them somewhat,
to get other, drier sounds to work alongside), but some
of the accompanying close mics may bene t from some Think about what reverb you want to
apply to which instruments. In this
of the shorter variety, to avoid them advancing too far
picture, the overheads will already have
forward in the mix perspective. A retriggered drum captured some room sound, so while it
sample, however, would probably need both reverbs, makes sense to match the sound of your
carefully applied, to blend it convincingly with the rest of 'long' reverb to them, you might not want
the kit: the shorter reverb would primarily set its to add any reverb to them at all. The close
mics, however, may bene t from some
distance, while the longer could help to retrospectively
short reverb to stop them leaping out of
teleport it into the original recording room.
the mix.

Clearly, both of your reverbs will need to be tweaked to suit the track, but as long as you stay
focused on their respective purposes you shouldn't go too far wrong. If the shorter reverb can't
blend tracks together before it becomes too audible, try further reducing its reverb time or dial
in some EQ cuts on the reverb return channel. If the longer reverb is making things sound
distant, you can take o some high end to push it further into the background; if it's making
things sound woolly, adjust that level/length ratio or crank up the return channel's high-pass
lter.

To demonstrate this dual-reverb setup in practice, I've done a rough mix of the chorus of my
little demo project using just these two e ects, to create the DualReverbsBoth le, but I have
also then made two further les (DualReverbsShortOnly and DualReverbsLongOnly) designed

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to show what each e ect is contributing in isolation. The DualReverbsDry le, as you might
expect, is the same section without any reverb at all, just for reference.

How Much, On Which Instruments?

Many people eschew reverb on kick and bass entirely, to avoid low-end mush, but there's no
need to be hard-and-fast about this and risk throwing the baby out with the bath water. If a
little reverb helps to achieve a more satisfactory blend of these instruments with the rest of the
track, it's no bad thing, just as long as you keep any undesirable bass overhang in check with
your return-channel EQ.

One type of track that I rarely put reverb on, though, is any background synth pad I might be
using. These invariably sink into the track without any extra help, and because they already
tend to create a homogeneous blanket of sound, even large amounts of reverb will seldom be
noticeable — all the reverb does is make the part sound behind the beat! If a synth pad is too
far forward in the mix, a more e ective recourse is to just shelve o a bit of high end with EQ.

Probably the most important thing to say about using any reverb, though, is that it's not a bad
idea to err on the side of using too little in general, particularly if you anticipate using
mastering-style dynamics processing on the nal mix at a later stage, because this will tend to
increase the levels of mix details such as reverb tails. In a lot of cases where an obviously
reverberant sound isn't required, it's quite a useful little rule of thumb to set levels so that the
reverb only really draws attention to itself if you mute the reverb return — that way you can be
pretty sure it's only supporting, rather than overwhelming, the dry tracks.

When you're trying to nesse reverb levels in your track, another handy trick suggested by top
engineers such as Geo Emerick and Alan Parsons is temporarily to mute the most prominent
tracks in the mix, typically drums, bass, and/or lead vocal. This lets you hear more clearly
whether there are any less-than-ideal reverb balances amongst the background
instrumentation.

Blending Your Mix With Delay E ects Instead

Delay is a much simpler e ect than reverb; most of the time you can pretty much set the delay
time (the distance between the echoes) and the feedback level (the number of echoes) and
you're o ! Perhaps it's because of this simplicity that so many musicians ignore it when it
comes to the mix, or maybe it's just that they don't want any kind of distracting 'echo e ect'.
This is a shame, however, because delay is almost as useful as reverb when it comes to gluing
instruments together at mixdown. In fact, in some senses delay is superior to reverb for many
dry-sounding modern styles, as it can achieve cohesion without any obvious reverb tail, leaving
individual sounds more upfront, distinct, and raw-sounding. It also tends to leave the mix
sound much clearer, because it doesn't ll up all the gaps in the stereo eld in the way reverb
tends to.

Although there are many uses for mono delays,

if you're looking to use delay e ects for subtle
blending tasks, you'll get the most transparent
results if you use them in stereo, such that if
you send any panned or stereo tracks in your
arrangement to the delay channel, the echoes
return with the same stereo positioning and
spread. This can be ddly to manage in
hardware setups, even if you have a stereo
delay unit, as very few mixers have stereo
sends, so you may need to carefully juggle the
levels of two separate send controls per
Commercial tracks rarely have send levels xed
channel to maintain the correct stereo image in throughout, and using automation on your send
the delay return. In computer systems, things levels to bring things forward and push them back in
are usually a little easier, although it pays to di erent sections of the song can really add interest.
check that it's all working as you hope. I was
using an Apple Logic Pro system very recently, for example, and could nd no straightforward
way of panning the send from a mono track across the channels of a stereo delay e ect —
although whether this problem was my fault or the software's is anyone's guess!

Again, you could use only a single delay e ect to pull your mix together, but I've found that
setting up a couple of contrasting e ects actually makes it easier to get results quickly: the rst
is a short 'slapback' delay, with 50-100ms delay time and zero feedback; and the second is a
longer delay with some feedback and a delay time synchronised to the song's tempo. The short

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delay operates much like the short reverb I've already discussed, although you need to be
careful feeding high levels of percussive sounds to it, as these can begin to sound as though
they're amming, interfering with the track's rhythmic pulse. Because the longer delay is tempo
synchronised, it tucks itself into the mix in a very transparent way, creating the same kind of
warmth and sustain as the longer of my two reverbs, but without adding much in the way of a
sense of real space.

Much like the reverbs, delays also bene t from judicious EQ'ing to suit the track in hand.
Fortunately, exactly the same principles apply when massaging the EQ settings into shape for
either e ect, so there's nothing more that needs to be said except that you should give it the
time it needs. To illustrate the di erent avour that delays o er compared to reverb, I've again
set up a similar set of rough mixes of my demo song's chorus, but this time using the two delay
e ects: they're the ones with the DualDelay le names.

Bringing It All Together

Many professional mix engineers have a selection of standard e ects that they set up before
they even start to mix, having learnt from experience which units and algorithms have reliably
delivered the results they need on project after project. The four speci c e ects that I've
described here are designed to be fairly all-purpose in this way, and can be used in tandem to
tie together mixes in a variety of di erent styles. For example, if your recording is already fairly
live-sounding and mostly needs 'gluing together', the shorter reverb and delay can come to the
fore, whereas the longer variants can be faded up when more space or sustain are required to
enliven something like a heavily-overdubbed pop or electronica record. Alternatively, the delays
might take precedence where a track already has the necessary spatial character (or just needs
to sound very upfront), but lacks a satisfying resonance and fullness. To show how these four
e ects can t together, I've mixed that demo chorus section one more time using all four
e ects at once, to create the AllE ectsWet le, and you can use AllE ectsDry to get a
perspective on how much di erence they're making.

There remains one nal very important point to make, though: the e ects levels on most
modern records don't stay static throughout, but actually adapt to suit changes in the
arrangement and underscore the long-term ebb and ow of the mix. That means you shouldn't
expect the reverb and delay balance in your choruses necessarily to translate directly onto a
contrasting verse arrangement. To illustrate this, I've created three longer audio les of the
demo song (the Automation les), taking in the rst verse as well as the chorus. For
AutomationInactive I've just kept the same e ect settings I used in the chorus, and you can
hear that the e ect levels become a bit overbearing in the sparser arrangement. However, just
fading down the levels of the two delays and the longer reverb during the verse using mixer
automation easily sorts out this problem for the AutomationActive le, with the bene cial side-
e ect that as the e ects levels fade back up for the chorus section it makes the sound a bit
more expansive and 'widescreen'. Again, compare these two audio les with the e ectless
AutomationDry for an idea of what the e ects are adding overall.

Room For Improvement

Even with audio les to demonstrate some of the factors involved, there's a limit to how far you
can improve your mixing technique without giving it some practice, so if you've found the
application of reverbs and delays to be a bit of a black art so far, try out the four-e ect setup
I've advocated above on a few of your own tracks. With a little experimentation, you'll nd that
your ears will begin to attune themselves to the more subtle characteristics of your mix, so that
you can balance the e ects levels for each track much more successfully.

Many thanks to Sarah Richardson for performing the vocals for this article's demonstration mix.

Next Month: Top Producers Talk Reverb

While the reverb techniques introduced here are a good place to start for straight-ahead
mixing tasks, both natural and arti cial reverbs play a much larger role in most
professional productions in practice, having as much impact on the recording process as
on the mixdown. So if this article has left you hungry for more, stay tuned for next
month's in-depth special feature , in which I'll be comparing insider tips and tricks from
more than 70 of the world's top producers. Just don't expect them all to agree with each
other...

Published July 2008

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