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Reverb is an essential tool in mixing, used to enhance various elements in your sound. Here’s how it can affect your mix:

  • Blend
    Reverb helps different parts of a mix feel like they’re in the same space. For instance, on The Ronettes’ Be My Baby, chamber reverb merges dozens of instruments and vocals into one lush texture, a hallmark of Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.”

  • Size
    On A Day in the Life, the orchestral ‘bigness’ comes from Studio One’s natural space plus multiple orchestral overdubs; reverb contributes to a concert‑hall impression, but the heavy, obvious reverb is on Lennon’s vocal.

  • Tone
    Reverb doesn’t just add space—it can dramatically change the timbre of an instrument. Dick Dale’s use of Fender’s spring reverb on Misirlou gives his Stratocaster that bright, percussive “drip” tone that defines surf guitar. Another example: It is likely (though not confirmed) that producers of the Nashville Sound used plate or chamber reverb or echo devices in vocal production to smooth and enhance the vocals. Patsy Cline’s recordings, evolving in that era under Owen Bradley and engineers in Nashville, exhibit a polished ambience consistent with plate-oriented techniques. But no definitive session log confirms a specific plate unit for her vocal chain.

  • Sustain
    Reverb can extend the life of a sound, making it linger beyond its natural decay. In I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston, the long plate reverb adds fullness and emotional resonance, carrying her held notes and filling silence between phrases.

  • Spread
    Reverb can make a mix feel wider and more open, especially when used with stereo or modulated algorithms. In Midnight City by M83, reverb expands the synths and vocals across the stereo field, giving the chorus its soaring, cinematic space.

Analog Reverb Techniques⌗

Before digital plugins, engineers used physical spaces and devices to create reverb. Some of these methods included chambers, plates, and springs.

Inside the Reverb Chambers at Capricorn Sound Studios⌗

Spring Reverb⌗

Plate Reverb⌗

Reaper Stock Plugins for Reverb⌗

In Reaper, there are two primary reverb plugins you can use:

  • ReaVerb
  • ReaVerbate

Check out the ReaEffects Guide for more details on these plugins.

ReaVerbate⌗

Let’s start by learning how to use ReaVerbate on single instruments, and then apply it to enhance the elements mentioned earlier. ReaVerbate is a stock reverb plugin in Reaper. Start by adding it to your guitar track.

Here are key parameter descriptions (from the ReaEffects guide):

  • Wet: Determines how much of the processed signal is mixed with the original.
  • Dry: Controls how much of the original signal remains unprocessed.
  • Room Size: Adjusts the size of the simulated room.
  • Dampening: Simulates how much the sound is absorbed by materials in the room (e.g., curtains, carpets).
  • Stereo Width: Controls the width of the stereo field for the reverb.
  • Initial Delay: Adds a delay before the reverb starts, creating more space.
  • Lowpass/Highpass: Filter controls to apply reverb to only certain frequency ranges.
  • Low-pass/High-pass: Filter controls to apply reverb to only certain frequency ranges.

Reverb on One Instrument⌗

Set the room size to 100, then adjust the damping. With low damping, you’ll hear a brighter reverb; with more damping, the reverb becomes darker. You can further shape the sound using the high- and low-pass filters.

Reverb on a Send⌗

Often, you want to apply the same reverb to multiple instruments. To do this in Reaper, create a send.

  1. Create a new track and name it “Reverb.”
  2. Route your drum tracks to this send by selecting all the drums, holding shift, and dragging them onto the Reverb track.
  3. Add ReaVerbate to the Reverb track. Set the wet mix to 0 dB and the dry mix to -inf dB (since this is a send track).
  4. Open the routing for the Reverb send and set all send levels to -inf dB. Then bring up the send levels for each drum one at a time. Start with the snare, then add reverb to the overheads.

Try creating custom presets for the guitar and vocal tracks. Then apply this process to your drum editing project from earlier in the semester.

ReaVerb⌗

ReaVerb offers more advanced customization and supports convolution reverb. It has several modules, including:

  • Echo Generator: Creates echo or delay effects.
  • Reverb Generator: Adds traditional reverb.
  • Convolution Reverb: Uses impulse responses to simulate different spaces.
  • High/Low Pass Filters: Adjust the frequencies affected by the reverb.
  • Normalization: Levels out the reverb volume.
  • Reverse: Reverses the reverb tail.
  • Time/Gain/Stretch: Alters the timing and pitch of the reverb.

Here are some resources for free impulse responses:

Again, the ReaEffects Guide contains details on how to use each of these modules effectively.