If we’re being brutally honest, the only two plugins you need to get a great mix are an EQ and a compressor. That’s why the past two weeks we’ve covered both in a simple and approachable way. However, if you could take a great sounding mix (sculpted by EQ and compression) and give it one more dimension with little effort, wouldn’t that be nice?
That’s where a simple reverb and/or delay plugin comes in. Today I want to share with you a simple look at the power these two effects can bring to your already great sounding mix.
Reverb – Instant Mix Glue
One thing many of us home studio owners have in common is that when it comes to recording, we are overdubbing 99% of the time. What I mean by that is, we don’t record the entire band all at once. We start perhaps with the drums, then record the bass and guitars, followed by the vocals.
To the final listener, the mix sounds like an entire band played together at once, but the reality is, we simply overdubbed one band member (or instrument) at a time.
One “problem” that arises with recording this way is that we have a bunch of tracks that sound relatively dry and distinct from each other. There’s no mic bleed or room energy, since each instrument was captured in total isolation.
Enter our first use of reverb.
By simply routing all of your tracks to a single reverb plugin, we can “put each instrument in the same room” as it were. We aren’t necessarily trying to make everything sound drenched or massive, but rather we’re trying to “glue” instruments together as if they were all played in the same room.
Warning: A Little Goes A Long Way
Before moving on to a simple way to use delay, let me offer a word of caution when it comes to reverb. A little goes a long way, especially with digital reverb plugins. Too much of the reverb mix glue concept and you can easily muddy up an otherwise clear sounding mix.
Think about it. You’ve worked so hard to take well recorded tracks and open them up even more with EQ and compression. Now is not the time to introduce more mud and washiness to the mix. And yet, that’s exactly what too much reverb will do to your mix.
My rule of thumb (once I’ve found a global reverb sound that I like) is to push it up till I hear it plenty, then dial it back until I almost want more of it. That is usually the sweet spot.
Another helpful tip is to simply mute the reverb and see if it makes a dramatic difference to your mix when it’s gone. You will obviously notice it’s absence, but it shouldn’t be drastic. If it is, you know that you had too much reverb to begin with.
Delay – Out Of This World Texture
It’s hard to write about delay (and reverb for that matter) in sweeping generalities, for two reasons: everybody has different tastes, and there are a wide variety of different sounding reverbs and delays.
That being said, one thing I love about long, echoing delays is that they can take anything from a vocal to a guitar riff and send it out of this world with a unique texture and depth that you simply can’t get anywhere else.
So much of mixing is putting the listener in a virtual space, taking them on a mental journey with the power of sound. A repeating and decaying delay effect on a vocal can be simple but powerful way to make your mix seem larger than life.
My personal favorite thing to do, is to create either a stereo or mono delay, route my lead vocal to it, and then use a low pass filter (also called a high cut) to make the delayed signal sound more muffled and distant. It will instantly give your vocal that space it needs, while not competing with the dry vocal track itself.
Warning: Delay Can Kill Your Panning
And one word of warning with delays, much like too much reverb can kill all your hard work with EQ, too much delay can kill your sense of stereo separation and panning.
This is especially true if you put delay on things that aren’t panned up the middle. Your ears are now hearing both the hard panned signal (let’s say hard right), and then the delayed signal that is ping ponging in both the left and the right.
The illusion your mind plays on you is that the hard right panned track is now a little more softly panned. The result? Your tracks sound closer together than they are.
That may not bother you, but I can tell you from experience, that it doesn’t take much delay to begin eroding that nice stereo width you worked hard to achieve with panning and EQ. So just keep things moderate and pay attention to the stereo imaging as you play with your delays.
How Are YOU Using Reverbs And Delays?
So my friends, today I simply want you to share below how you personally are using reverbs and delays in your mixes. What have liked, and/or what have you disliked about your results? And why?
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
Hi,
I am using much delay and reverb busses, for instance a vocal front bus, a vocal back bus, a drum room bus, a snare room, and so on. The details are highly depend on the material I am mixing.
I route each reverb bus to a reverb main bus (the same for delay). After mixing my reverb and delay (mostly the last step in my mixing workflow) I reduce the reverb main track fader to zero. Now I start to push this fader back until I start notice the reverbs in my mix. This is normaly my reverb sweetspot. I don’t really hear the reverb as effect, but I notice it absence If I mute the reverb main track. Then I do the same with the delay main bus. So I use much reverb and delay but this last step prevents me for overdoing it.
How do I route all tracks to a single delay and reverb instead of using a separate reverb and delay in each track?
Using fl studio
Hey Graham,
first i want to say that i follow your blog a couple of years and i think these articles and videos of the last two weeks are probably the best you’ve ever done (in my opinion of course ;)).
I use reverb the way you wrote here although i always use a second reverb for drums.
Delay is and will always be my favorite haha. I use it on almost every guitar and vocal. When it is more of an upfront rocktrack just a little, when it’s
more of a dreamy poptrack it can happen that i use a lot. I like them as mono sends which i pan like the dry track.
Anyway thank you very much Graham.
Nils
Thanks Nils
I always use the same Reverb and Delay as sends on all tracks. One reverb and one delay with the right parameters. I found that this is a good way to keep things “consistent” on the overall mix. Sometimes, to fatten up a little bit the snare drum I insert a gated reverb on the snare track, and blend it with the dry signal using the “wet” parameter.
Hi,great tips as usual Graham ,i would just like to tell people that you can send say a vocal to 2 or 3 different reverb auxes IE Fab Dupont to get different levels and depths to certain instruments or vocals,when i first learned this it was a game changer !!!
I prefer as natural a final sound as I can get, to be honest, so I try to use delay and reverbs in very subtle ways, to have them felt rather than heard – to create a sense of space, width and depth without the effects being too obvious and upfront in the mix. So, rather than wet sounds, I prefer the effect of a light passing shower of drizzle…..if you follow the analogy!
I am using reverb pretty mich the same way. I am just going a little further. I’ve got a reverb plugin that allows me to adjust the mix between early reflections and the actual reverb. If I want a certain part of the song to be rather in the front of my virtual room, I rout it to a reverb bus on that I set the mix to a rather higher percentage of early reflections. If I want one instrument to be perceived a little further in the background I just do it the other way around!
Hey guys. Can anybody suggest me a website for perfecting sound forever e-book ?
You are probably on it. Graham’s free e-book is extremely helpful. The internet is replete with awesome stuff. Go take a wee look.
Great article Graham! I use a very small amount of delay on most everything. None on guitars unless necessary for a specific part of a song that requires it. I have different delay settings on most every instrument.
Great article Graham! I like to automate my delays and usually use a Lo Fi plugin on them. I like using mono to stereo delays on my verses and switching back and forth depending how I want them to be felt or heard. Sometimes I’ll even run a stereo delay thru a reverb. As for reverb I like to keep it subtle, sometimes even use the reverb as a sort of delay and I will set the predelay tail to an 8th, 16th etc. according to the tempo. Great ideas on these other comments also that I’ll be adding to my bag of tricks!
A basic trick (well hardly a trick albeit basic!) is to keep all reverbs and delays panned hard left and hard right. Obviously, you’ll wanna be using stereo aux’s or even set up two desperate mono aux’s with a reverb/delay plugin on each side. Push all the wet sounds to the edges and keep all the dry, in your face, sounds for the centre.
Just for fun, import some hit songs into your daw then place Waves Centre on the stereo bus. Then pull down the ‘sides’ fader. Listen to how dry the centre of the mix is. Now push up the ‘sides’ fader and pull down the ‘centre’ fader. Where did all the echo come from!!!
Seperate mono aux’s. Not desperate.
Bahaha
very keel idea!!!!
kewl not keel lol man somethin jinxing us here 🙂
I love how you explain all of this stuff so clearly. I’m trying to teach a couple of friends of mine to mix, and these will help a lot.
One of my favorite vocal effects, especially when mixing rock, is a mono slap-back delay… It sounds awesome, and is kind of a happy medium between a full-blown reverb and full-blown delay.
I agree!
Thanks for the great article on using delay and reverb in subtle ways.
For me, reverb and delay can create instrument tracks of their own, or suggest ones that exist somewhere on the other side of our reality, or outside our perceived rules of time. I also enjoy creating strange spaces with these effects, as well as their absence. I’m into that sort of thing, but of course not everyone else is, and that’s OK.
The vast majority of my reverb and delay goes on the rhythm guitar or chord-forming guitar parts. I tend to push delay more than reverb, but a small amount of reverb does make things sound a little better. Of course, I never use them on bass, unless it’s a twangy baritone part, and then it’s usually reverb.
I’ve also used them, especially my multi-tap delay, as a type of tone generator. One trick I’ve been playing with more is to use my MTD to generate false harmonics. This works best on parts in which single notes or double stops are featured, but it can add some amazing qualities to percussion as well. The trick is to keep things subtle and stick to just evens or odds, depending on the instrument (I use both on the percussion).
Another stylistic trick I’ve experimented with is creating a fully wet reverb for a part, reversing it, and lining it up with the original or sticking it into other places in order to create a ghostly disconnect. I’ve experimented with mixing reversed music and reverb as well, and gotten some results that sound strangely tense and beautiful all at once.
I know none of this has anything to do with normal use of reverb and delay, but I’m not normal, and neither is my music–LOL! With that said, I don’t bury my vocals in the mix, the way many of my favorite artists do. I like the voices to be up front, and have their own reverb and delay space, if any at all.
Something that works very very well for me is I use standard delays on individual tracks and reverbs on auxes (using it as a send), then on top of that, to make everything blend (reverbs, delays, and direct signals), I will use a short spring reverb on my mix buss.
This gives a very customisable sense of realistic space that works on pretty much every mix that needs it.
I urge everyone that reads this to try this out, but remember to be conservative with how much of each you use.
I like the technique Daniel is talking about. I caught on somebody’s video (I watch a lot, I like perspective), Using it on a aux and blending as been my favorite way to use delay especially but sometimes the reverb too. Graham mentioned the too much delay problems and I’ve had to re-think clients suggestions of heaver effects. The clients want them until someone else ears tell them it’s too much, then they act like it’s their idea to dial it down, lol. Good times though…let the end justify the means.
Great article Graham,
I work alone using synths and create and as you stated, drums first, bass etc. vocals last and have been doing this for a while. I am a newby to DAW’s and working through the learning curve in the recording process. Your lesson on EQ and Compression was great and this lesson on Reverb/Delay is like icing on a cake. I remove reverb on the patches (sounds) on the instruments “going in” leaving the delays and effects on. I compress and delay vocals “going in” with no reverb. I add reverb, compression and EQ on the Mastering. My goal is to have good quality “going in” so the mixing process can be less. (well balanced, gain staged etc.) Enjoy the blog. What you give out here for free will benefit you great in return.
Can you explain your process a bit more? You say you record into a delay? what type and timing? and you add reverb before eq and compression? Explain a bit more and can i hear one of your mixes?
Great article Graham, I like how you’re going back to basics on these last few articles. I use reverbs and delays in many different ways depending on the “feel” I’m going for in my tracks. Keep up the good work!
One way I use both delay and reverb is, say on a lead vocal…I route the vocal to a mono slapback delay. I turn this delay up just enough to where I can sense it directly behind the vocal. I then take this delay and send it to a plate or hall reverb to make it float a bit. I also turn this reverb up just enough to sense it in the mix. The result is a clean lead vocal that is still centered and up front in the mix.
I usually use 2 reverbs in my mixes…
1.- a Room reverb that’s usually a plate reverb with no predelay, LPF cut on around 10k… a small size room with almost no diffusion. The size of the reverb is then adjusted in order to make everything sound nice and punchy (specially the Snare).. I use it on almost every instrument… Except on the bass guitar track and the lead vocal… An yes, a little on the Bass drum brings it up to life.
2.- a Vocal Reverb ..It’ more of a hall reverb with much more diffusion and size… brighter than the other one (I may even use a HPF)… This one represents a secondary reflection as if the room has a combination of 2 different reverbs. .. so this one usually goes into the higher frequency tracks… Lead vocals, Background vocals, hi-hat, cymbals, just a little on the snare, toms and electric guitars.
The method that I use specially on vocals and guitars, is putting the reverb bus send on PRE-FADER and muting the source track, so I can only hear the reverb. I play the mix and start adjusting the send’s mix from zero and going up … So, as soon as I can hear the reverb tracks in the mix on the right volume, I stop, then un-mute the source track and disable the Pre-Fader option. That works great.
The other thing I sometimes use, specially when the drums are not recorded from a real drumkit, and they are programmed from samples (i.e. Reason) is creating a Room track from scratch…
This is done by adding an auxiliary bus channel (room channel). Then adjust the send level of each drum channel to 0dB to that aux bus and activate the PreFader option so you can mute the source tracks and only hear the room track. You then have to insert 3 plugins on that room channel:
– Plate reverb… adjusted with the same parameters as the Room reverb example above… but with the mix on 98-99% …. so you can still hear a bit of the source signal.. then you should adjust the send levels of the source channels to taste, so the room sounds balanced.
– Waves Stereo Imager or any other plugin like it… here we use 2 functions: Stereo width on maximum, and swapping of L and R, so you can hear the Left on the Right and the Right on the Left… WHY? because en you play something in a room it usually reflects on the other side of the room.. so, whatever may sound on the left, will bounce on the right.
– Finally a … the one you like the most… (I usually use the SSL or the API 2500 plugins on this)… minimum attack, a short-medium release, a 3:1 to 6:1 ratio and then adjust the threshold to taste… you should hear the room bigger and some splashing on the cymbals…
When you are done, just turn the room channel’s volume down. un-mute the source tracks and listen… while you listen turn the room track’s volume up… SLOWLY… untill you can hear a difference….
You can also record the Room track as audio, putting the Room track’s output through a bus, and then the same bus as an input on a stereo audio track…. record the processed room track as audio and then you can delete the previous auxiliary room track with all the plugins, so it doesn’t use to much CPU on your system.
Regarding the delay, I always automate it and use on the parts that can use a little delay as an effect, more than a dimensional tool… as it happens a lot (and you mentioned it here) the stereo image is a bit lost when you use it…. on mono tracks panned in the center it can make wonders… sometimes I add a VERY light flanger over the delay’s bus channel, and the result is awesome.
Any thoughts?
on the 3rd plugin I meant to write:
– Finally a Stereo Bus Compressor… the one you like the most… (I usually use the SSL or the API 2500 plugins on this)…
I don’t use delay on a lot of stuff, mainly just vocals and I like to run my delay back through my room (ambient) reverb.
I’m not a big fan of that lexicon stuff it’s a little to lush for my liking but the convolutions are great for adding depth to the mix and giving it a live all in the same room vibe.
I always apply some EQ on my reverb bus, in particular rolling off some of the highs and / or cutting some of the primary frequencies of the dry track so the reverb doesn’t step all over it.
My goal is almost always to try to simulate the sound of the old ’60s echo chambers… I wish someone could come up with a realistic convolution for one or more of those (assuming any of them are still in existence!). There isn’t a digital reverb or plugin in the Universe that truly sounds as organic and awesome as that! ;o)
Totally agree. I find the biggest key to good reverb sound is EQing your reverb channel. Quite often the biggest tell-tale between something sounding amateur and pro is high frequencies. Hearing a lot of top end reverb ring out on things like sibilant vocal sounds, snares, acoustic guitar attack, etc can sound quite cheap.
I am often quite brutal in filtering out the high frequencies on my reverb channel. I also totally agree with Graham (as I usually do!) in that I don’t really want to hear my reverb, but that the track sounds better when it’s on. Listening to pro recordings (excluding the 80s!!) the reverb in most cases barely noticeable. However, if you were able to compare the same track with and without reverb you would prefer the one that has it.
If I want the effect to sound as if it “part of” the instrument then I will insert it directly on the track like a slap delay on a guitar to make it sound as if I purposely placed the amp firing toward a wall… Or a spring reverb to simulate having recorded it directly from the amp itself. I keep these in mono just as I would had they been recorded. Again, this application makes the effect become part of the instrument.
If I want the effect to give space and depth then I will set up a dedicated (usually stereo) bus and send different amounts of instruments to the effect to create a common space and glue things together. I also sometimes pan the effects opposite of the instrument… Example: a guitar that is panned hard left gets sent to a stereo reverb or delay (or both) that is panned hard right. This gives even more realism to the synthetic space I have created and helps place the instrument even more firmly where I want it.
Graham,
Thanks for this amazing post. I have found over the years that I prefer small amounts of reverb over larger doses. It’s always great to have someone with more experience basically say the same thing! I have learned a few extra things that I want to try out too just from reading other bloggers’ replies. This site is a musicians gold mine. Thanks so much.
Jason
Great read, not 100% sure I would use reverb on bass or distorted guitars in a lot of cases. When I get my hands on the separated tracks of major label song, I notice the snare is almost always totally soaked in reverb. So as a rule of thumb it’s generally something I do, and usually works with great effect.
Hi Graham
In general I am pretty conservative when it comes to using reverbs and/or delays in my mixes.
I work along the same lines as yourself: just a little to glue the tracks together or to thicken up a vocal track …. unless I’m after some dramatic effect.
I have created some live intros for bands in the past – a short piece of music laced with sound effects at the beginning of a gig: Making those one can allow oneself to go overboard on delays and reverbs along with other effects like flangers, distorted voices or what have you.
That being the exception to the rule I have learned by trial and error over the years that less is more.
Nothing constructive to add here but just wanted to say that that article is very informative and well-written …and one every serious recording engineer at whatever level should keep handy for reference. Keep up the great work!
hey guys! lately I’ve been giving some love to PT11’s D-Verb and liking it more each time I use it; and the same for the Mod 3 Delay, which by looking at the GUI are from the same team – as is the Channel Strip that I’m using more and more. Keep up the good work Graham!
The last few years I have let the Compression create all the Reverb needed. Notice how the “room” surrounding ANY track you record with a mic, or even most samples-loops, gets brought forward when applying Compression. IMHO adding MORE to this just washes out everything…
To glue it all together I slap good-old Free GlaceVerb across the Master set on the “Mix” preset. It smooths out the overall response & creates all the space needed IMHO…..
Just my quick addition to a great article and many helpful comments…
I always EQ reverb and delay sends, sometimes pre and sometimes post the effect, but usually both. I usually try to keep the sub out of the reverb, so filter out stuff bellow 100 or higher depending on the genre. Also often use saturation before the effect (you did a great video using Lo-Fi with delay).
I was quite surprised to see how much Phil Tan uses reverb as an insert, check out the video he did with Full Sail about his mix of ‘Diamonds’
I’ve been using a Lexicon LXp1 for my delays on vocals . I set it up an aux in pro tools to run the signal thru…I’m big fan of delay on vocals . Although its not an optimum sound for everything , I use it when I can .
Hi, I use a lexicon mx 400 for rev in stereo mode and del in stereo or dual mono mode. I feel an external efx gives my mixes better feel than the waves truverb or other plugins…but sometimes I need to use plugins as well for some added flavour. Rest of my usage is greatly derived from Rec. Rev, thanks Graham.
Hello Graham, Hi to all:
I have a lot of reverbs and delays, digital and analogics, (and electroacustics) my rule is:
To Reverbs, when I chose any , normally in any parts is to much and in anothers is enough, I only play whit the % of dry/weth to each parts.
To Delays: Is important understand the dynamic of the rythm, and then adjust the time, finding the clearely.
Hi everyone.
A great subject for a blog that generated lots of helpful comments. Thanks guys.
Should be pointed out that most of the info here concerns audio tracks. But for software instruments, so many of them come with its own aux reverb or delay track with default settings, and before you know it, you have a whole mess of different reverb/delay plug-ins, some quite different and some redundant. Sorting it all out can be quite fustrating. May sound familiar to some.
Awesome article man.
I’ve been trying 4 reverb/delay busses. One is a reverb room to glue things. Then a ‘character’ reverb (spring or plate) that’s usually pretty dark. This is the effect reverb instead of space reverb. Then I have a short delay to thicken things up and a long ‘character’ delay. That last one is usually a tape delay.
Btw The P&G echo flex and plate reverb both kill! Especially for the money, they stand up to UAD and def to the AIR plugs.
What a great lesson about “less is more” and “everything in moderation.” I, personally, am GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY of mixing a little music in with my reverb . . . always in search of the hugest possible sounds. In the end, I’ve always scratched my head about why my mixes sounded somewhat boxed-in, despite using all the “big sound” effects on nearly everything. Graham’s latest article has convinced me to dial back on the reverb, henceforth.
Hey, Just starting to use reverb busses…. So my question for today would be, If I have 3 guitars routed to a guitar buss, would I send that buss to the reverb Buss, or each guitar track, or both, or which? I’m using the GTR ALL buss right now and it sounds good. Any advice? Thanks.
Tom, I’d say it depends on what you’re doing. If you’re giving it space with the other tracks send it to the bus. If you’re looking for a washed out ‘effect-y’ reverb put it on the track itself.
thanks.
today i’ve been experimenting with short low passed verbs on kick drums to fatten them up. still learning but it can work wonders on kicks that need some sustain!
Have you tried working with subharmonics yet?
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