What's your reverb setup using only the 12 default buses in 32c?

[Dingo]

There are a number of ways to setup and use reverbs:
Possibly the most common (born from analog consoles) is to use an Aux send or Mixbus send to another bus that has the reverb with that set to 100% wet. Relative levels are then set from the send to that reverb unit/plugin and overall reverb level is adjusted on the verb bus.
The other approach is to insert the reverb plugin across an individual track or bus and then using the wet / dry to balance the amount of reverb being used.
Both ways are valid but can garner very different results.

Whilst on the topic my list of got to have desert island reverbs are:
Hardware - Quantec QRS, Bricasti Model 7, Lexicon 480L
Software - Fab Filter Pro R, Altiverb (Post not necessarily music), Exponential Audio R4

[Jostein]

I have the reverb on MB9 - and usually only one reverb for the whole project whenever possible.

[tonstwo]

Hi

I'm an oldtimer and I used to be a FOH mixer. Back in the days, reverbs was expensive and we could not afford more than one reverb. That means that I'm grew up having one mixbus on the console for reverb. Remembering when I saw a digital Lexicon reverb for the first time. It was 19" rack and about 1 meter high. The price was....high.

Now I usually use 3 mixbuses for reverb:

One mixbus for vocal and instruments without heavy attacks 

One mixbus for drums and heavy attacks instruments. On that bus I use the leveler with 0 attack and dial in suitable release and ratio. This is done before the reverb to prevent the reverb from overload when the attack hits, making the reverb sort of 'yelling'. This technique makes a smooth and nice reverb tail to those instruments.

One mixbus for my setup to enhance dept, air, space and separation if possible. The reverb(Linux only reverb) on that bus is extremely short and nearly audible as a reverb. The predelay may wary.  There's two other plugins on that mixbus as well.


Steinar ?

Care to share what else is happening on the third mixbus?

[Holger]

I usually have a short ambient reverb on bus 11 and a longer room reverb on bus 12. I use this two buses to give the instruments a common room. (BTW: a delay on the sends would be great to have different predelays for the reverbs...)
Bus 9 I like to use to sum the drum bus (usually bus1) and the bass bus (usually bus2) and if present, a percussion bus. I often add a compressor there with a little compression. Bus 10 I often use to sum the lead vox and backing vox (if both are present).
The buses 3-8 I use for summing instrument groups. In nearly all cases I do not have an input strip going direct to the master bus.
In addition I add utility busses for parallel processing (e.g. additional reverbs on voice) or summing kick in and out / snare top and bottom mics...

[Tassy]

sent you an email about reverb I hope you got it

[Sthauge]

Care to share what else is happening on the third mixbus?

Hi tonstwo

I've no problems sharing what's happening on the third Mixbus, but it's meaningless if you do not use it in context with the rest of my setup/guidelines and my goals for what I think a mixes should sound.

Let's start with defining dept in a mix and how to achieve that. I just explained this in another forum, so I've just copy and pasted the text here(yes this might be well known to most):
-------------
Our ears and brains are fantastic. We can hear a sound and what direction it is coming from and most of the time, the distance to the sound source. This goes for music as well. Think of being at a concert with a band. You will hear the direction to the instruments(panning) and in most cases the different distance(depth) to the instruments as well. Back in the 70's/80's depth was an important issue. You'll hear a lot of depth in the recordings from that period. Bruce Swedien, the engineer that made the records for Michael Jackson+++ was very clear on this topic: Music is left, right AND DEPTH. It's important to distinguish reverb from depth. Often you can hear a lot of reverb, but the mix is still flat. With flat I mean that the mix is 'between your ears' if you listen to the mix in HP. If it's depth in the mix you'll experience that eg. a guitar is in front of you and the drums are behind the guitar. You do not only have the direction(L/R) of a sound source, but also how far it's away from you (depth).

In the 90's we got MP3 that striped out some of the high freq and compressed the file. This reduced the depth and "life" in the mix. After that the loudness war started and the use of compressors and limiters was used massively to get the loudest mix. Compressors are the main depth killer if used wrongly, so by then the depth was dead. At a moment someone start to "glue" their mix with masterbus compression. If "gluing" the mix you get "glue" but you also probably kill the depth, loose air, space and separation

I always mix in the way that I pretend to "being there", meaning I'm sitting in the audience listening. So I do not "glue" the mix and I try placing the musicians in a 3D "landscape" and preserve the depth and "life" in the music.

Listen to the original mix(not remastered) in high quality of Michael Jackson "Thriller" mixed by Bruce Swedien(Thriller ). You'll hear the depth clearly even on studio monitors. An interesting thing is that this track is made only with a tiny bit of compression on Michael's vocal only…..and on a 32C Console.

So what's my rule of thumbs to achieve depth:

1. Avoid using compressors in the signal path if possible
2. Preserve transients, if compressing
3. Use parallel compression instead of inline compression or by itself to enhance the transients, make more clarity or move the sound source back and forth(to the front)in the mix.
4. Use reverb and predelay to make depth 
5. Send sound sources to the same reverb, even if it's nearly inaudible. It makes our ear and brain put them in the same "room"
6. Do not "glue" the mix
7. I also use a technique to open up the mix and enhance the depth that's already there <=== NOTE - my third reverb mixbus
These are of course not strict rules.
---------------

So, to your question about what I'm doing on the third reverb mixbus. Here I do a lot of oidoi stuff. The idea is to open up the mix, make room and space. It's important to know that I'm only using the sound from this mixbus very, very gentle together with other actions. It's not something I use on vocals, bass, almost never on drums. It can function very well on eg. guitars, pianos, synthesizers, sound effects, other instruments.....

1. I start with a plugin called 'Calf Multispread'. It's a EQ type of plugin that uses as many band of EQ that I choose and makes one band louder to the left, next band louder to the right ....and so on to the number of defined numbers of bands. This widens the sound. See screenshot
2. Next is a 'Calf Reverb' with 400 - 430 ms reverb time, but in a 'large' room. I HPF at 300 Hz and have no dry signal, only wet. This adds depth and, what should I call it, a fuller or maybe a softer tone. This narrows the sound to some extent.
3. Last is 'Calf Stereo tools'. I boost the side channels, reduce the center channel and enhance the stereo content in the sound. This widens the sound again.

The result is a short reverb that is wider than the source sound. The sound is out of the way of what's in the center. You make a little more depth and you expand the 'room' without a reverb tail. 

It's important to experiment with the settings, try turning the plugins on and off to see what combination makes the best result. It's no problem making the mix sound strange if this mixbus is too loud or the mid/side channels are to much out of balance. It's all about adding little here and little there.

Hope it's understandable.

Steinar

[Dingo]

sent you an email about reverb I hope you got it

Why not post advice here for all to see ?

[Tassy]

A simple "thanks" would have done, instead of teaching me what to do. Sure I have my reasons

but in short: mixbus1 room 100%, bus2 plate 100%, bus3 hall 100%. send a track wherever you want. use bus faders to add as much as you feel good. My template is: room -10dB, plate -18 hall -25 with Lexicon PCM Native Reverb. almost never tweak different.

Sure there are a thousand more solutions that may work

[tonstwo]

Care to share what else is happening on the third mixbus?

Hi tonstwo

I've no problems sharing what's happening on the third Mixbus, but it's meaningless if you do not use it in context with the rest of my setup/guidelines and my goals for what I think a mixes should sound.

Let's start with defining dept in a mix and how to achieve that. I just explained this in another forum, so I've just copy and pasted the text here(yes this might be well known to most):
-------------
Our ears and brains are fantastic. We can hear a sound and what direction it is coming from and most of the time, the distance to the sound source. This goes for music as well. Think of being at a concert with a band. You will hear the direction to the instruments(panning) and in most cases the different distance(depth) to the instruments as well. Back in the 70's/80's depth was an important issue. You'll hear a lot of depth in the recordings from that period. Bruce Swedien, the engineer that made the records for Michael Jackson+++ was very clear on this topic: Music is left, right AND DEPTH. It's important to distinguish reverb from depth. Often you can hear a lot of reverb, but the mix is still flat. With flat I mean that the mix is 'between your ears' if you listen to the mix in HP. If it's depth in the mix you'll experience that eg. a guitar is in front of you and the drums are behind the guitar. You do not only have the direction(L/R) of a sound source, but also how far it's away from you (depth).

In the 90's we got MP3 that striped out some of the high freq and compressed the file. This reduced the depth and "life" in the mix. After that the loudness war started and the use of compressors and limiters was used massively to get the loudest mix. Compressors are the main depth killer if used wrongly, so by then the depth was dead. At a moment someone start to "glue" their mix with masterbus compression. If "gluing" the mix you get "glue" but you also probably kill the depth, loose air, space and separation

I always mix in the way that I pretend to "being there", meaning I'm sitting in the audience listening. So I do not "glue" the mix and I try placing the musicians in a 3D "landscape" and preserve the depth and "life" in the music.

Listen to the original mix(not remastered) in high quality of Michael Jackson "Thriller" mixed by Bruce Swedien(Thriller ). You'll hear the depth clearly even on studio monitors. An interesting thing is that this track is made only with a tiny bit of compression on Michael's vocal only…..and on a 32C Console.

So what's my rule of thumbs to achieve depth:

1. Avoid using compressors in the signal path if possible
2. Preserve transients, if compressing
3. Use parallel compression instead of inline compression or by itself to enhance the transients, make more clarity or move the sound source back and forth(to the front)in the mix.
4. Use reverb and predelay to make depth 
5. Send sound sources to the same reverb, even if it's nearly inaudible. It makes our ear and brain put them in the same "room"
6. Do not "glue" the mix
7. I also use a technique to open up the mix and enhance the depth that's already there <=== NOTE - my third reverb mixbus
These are of course not strict rules.
---------------

So, to your question about what I'm doing on the third reverb mixbus. Here I do a lot of oidoi stuff. The idea is to open up the mix, make room and space. It's important to know that I'm only using the sound from this mixbus very, very gentle together with other actions. It's not something I use on vocals, bass, almost never on drums. It can function very well on eg. guitars, pianos, synthesizers, sound effects, other instruments.....

1. I start with a plugin called 'Calf Multispread'. It's a EQ type of plugin that uses as many band of EQ that I choose and makes one band louder to the left, next band louder to the right ....and so on to the number of defined numbers of bands. This widens the sound. See screenshot
2. Next is a 'Calf Reverb' with 400 - 430 ms reverb time, but in a 'large' room. I HPF at 300 Hz and have no dry signal, only wet. This adds depth and, what should I call it, a fuller or maybe a softer tone. This narrows the sound to some extent.
3. Last is 'Calf Stereo tools'. I boost the side channels, reduce the center channel and enhance the stereo content in the sound. This widens the sound again.

The result is a short reverb that is wider than the source sound. The sound is out of the way of what's in the center. You make a little more depth and you expand the 'room' without a reverb tail. 

It's important to experiment with the settings, try turning the plugins on and off to see what combination makes the best result. It's no problem making the mix sound strange if this mixbus is too loud or the mid/side channels are to much out of balance. It's all about adding little here and little there.

Hope it's understandable.

Steinar

I'm not on Linux. Would love to install on my laptop (especially curious about Mixbus performance on Windows vs Linux) but as far as I can there's still no driver for my wifi card yet. Still thanks for the input!

[tonstwo]

A simple "thanks" would have done, instead of teaching me what to do. Sure I have my reasons

but in short: mixbus1 room 100%, bus2 plate 100%, bus3 hall 100%. send a track wherever  you want. use bus faders to add as much as you feel good. My template is: room -10dB, plate -18  hall -25 with Lexicon PCM Native Reverb. almost never tweak different.

Sure there are a thousand more solutions that may work

Hmm this is pretty much what I decided to do right now. Sounds similar to the reverb prescribed in The Mixing Engineer's Handbook.