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 and if you like this video please like it, share
it and subscribe to the channel. If you want tips like this each and every week, thanks for watching
and until next time. Cheers and happy producing!
