Unorthodox Reverb Techniques
Updated: Sep 8, 2022
Welcome to the 6th edition of my Pro Producer's Tips series! Time flies, indeed, and it's time again to dig deeper into another subject of music production to find more creative and inspiring ways to use our common tools in new ways.
This time around is all about unorthodox uses of reverb, a powerful tool we all utilize daily in our productions for achieving depth, a virtual sense of space, more emotion and glue between instruments and other common great habits I'll take for granted or just revise them a little bit, before getting into a more advanced and wild territory full of experimentation and, I hope, discoveries.
I've divided this article into two main sections: the first is more mixing oriented, the second is more sound design oriented, but actually as you'll see these are just blurred lines to make this long post a bit more tidy and easy to follow.
Furthermore, the techniques are presented in an increasing level of difficulty so, even if mainly aimed for advanced producers, hopefully it will be easier to digest for more people. I've also inserted some hyperlinks to previous blog posts when mentioned or to the specific sections of this one when some techniques and concepts are revisited.
As usual, if you are a regular reader, you'll expect to find audio examples, illustrations and free resources accompanying this comprehensive blog post.
Are you brave enough? Prepare yourself and let's start the journey!
Mixing Applications:
Reverse Reverb
A vanilla start, since this may be a technique you'll probably already be quite familiar with but as I said I'll try to get more complex and into less obvious and known approaches later on.
The reverse reverb technique or 'pre-reverb', as someone calls it, consists of reversing the source signal, applying a deliberate amount of the reverb of your choice (usually splash long results can be achieved with 'hall' settings) before finally reversing again the bounced audio.
In this way what you are getting is the original sound playing normally with a reverb tail underneath growing and sucking in reverse, in a ghostly, eerie fashion.
The common uses can be to use a rendered and cross-faded portion of this effect and employ it as a transitional effect and auditory clue before the introduction of a new section or instrument; because that effect is made with a sound you are introducing in your song, it's very effective in giving your ears and brain the feeling it belongs to the track and sounds right.
Keep this in mind: instead of relying blindly in endless research of the right fx to fit in your projects, use and abuse what's already there, as the core and original material of sound you are manipulating will remain the same even in more extreme applications like this one.
Restricting your sonic palette will give you more cohesive results and you'll come up with a unique sound since you're sound designing fxs for yourself, a win win.
In the following audio example listen to how the reverse reverb effect creates tension and builds anticipation for what is coming, in a cinematic scenario:
2. Side - Chain Compressing Reverb
This technique is so effective and a must have in your daily production toolbox, expecially during the mixing stage: applying sidechain compression to reverbs.
In some cases where you want the reverb just to feel the gaps in between notes or words if talking about a vocal, to improve intelligibility when the main instrument is playing, side-chain compressing the reverb to the dry source is hugely beneficial: tweak the main settings of the compressor paying particular attention to the amount of reduction applied (threshold and ratio controls) and the timing of it (attack and release times).
If you are taking a full drum loop as the sidechain input to a synth's reverb for example, the timing and reduction set by the compressor are crucial to get the right groove and polish in the mix.
You can even try to suppress certain dominant frequencies present in the reverb that may interfere with the dry sound using tools like dynamic EQs or 'spectral smoothers' such as Smooth Operator by Baby Audio or Soothe by Oeksound.
In the following audio example you'll hear a drum loop as the side-chain source for the bass loop's send reverb: the first four bars have both the dry bass and the send reverb, while the other four bars have just the reverb set in pre-fader so that the pumping effect caused by the drum loop to the reverb is more obvious to hear:
3. Compression vs Expansion On Reverbs
Some interesting results can be achieved with some more clever dynamic processing applied to the reverb; we have just seen the side-chain compression technique with reverb so that when the dry signal plays, the reverberated signal is attenuated for more clarity.
Let's explore more setups: if you want your transient enhanced with reverb in order to stand out, what you can use is upward expansion which is the exact opposite of downward compression (instead of attenuating signals passing over the threshold we are enhancing them), with a fast attack and a release time set to match musically by ear the evolution of the sound over its tail.
On the other way around if you want your transient to pass through dry but a wet tail, use a downward compressor instead with the same settings of attack and release times.
Furthermore, if you want the entirety of the signal to be enhanced with reverb then lower the threshold of the compressor and match the output to compensate so that all the reverb sound is compressed and the lower details come forward.
Other ways to achieve similar effects is by employing some tools that split the transient from the body of a sound like Quantum from Wavesfactory in order to process them differently from each other.
In the following audio example you'll hear an 8 bar key loop first with no reverb send applied, then the first repetition with an upward expansion configuration after the reverb to enhance the transients, the second repetition with a downward compression configuration to suppress the transients and enhance the tail of the reverb, and finally the third repetition with full on compression applied to enhance all the reverb parts and drown all the sound into reverb in a less dynamic way:
4. Adding Groove with Reverb
It may seem counterintuitive, since reverb usually smears transient material and pull away the groove if not set right (typically you instead want a short enough decay time not to interfere with the next sound coming afterwards, be it an other hit of a drum loop or a note from a piano melody) but there are ways in which reverb can actually enhance it.
For example creating an incidental reverb effect with automation on a drum hit can add drama and make it stand out from the others, creating anything from syncopation, if you stress weak pulses, to special edits and fills at the end of a phrase right before the start of the next bar, giving a sense of push & pull so fundamental for groove (great drummers know this!).
Another effective way to add groove with reverb is by playing around with synced pre-delay or decay times: some reverbs have the option to enter note-value settings like the new Crystalline by Baby Audio, for others not having this option just search for 'delay bpm time calculator' on Google and you'll find a lot of tools doing the basic math for you to find the appropriate note-value settings in ms according to your project's BPM.
By syncing the pre-delay to a 1/8th or a 1/16th note and shortening the decay time for less than a second you can create an effect similar to a single delay repeat but with the sound of a reverb; this is very effective to hi-hats or percussion hits on a drum loop to get an added almost 'ghost hit', other key element of groove in general.
For the synced decay time scenario imagine having a synth lead playing a riff melody and filling the gaps after the phrase with a swelling automated reverb that just stops in time before the new bar: this adds hugely to the musicality and justify the reverb as a groove element on its own, not sounding as a random 'ketchup effect' added on top of the lead.
Another crazy experiment you can try is to choose different reverbs that come in at different intervals: for example you may want the first set with a pre-delay of 1/16th and a long decay, combining it with a second reverb coming afterwards by setting the pre-delay at 1/4th that has a shorter decay.
In this way you get the two reverbs interacting at musical integer values.
In the next audio example you'll hear a 4 bar bass loop playing first in the original state then repeated with three reverb sends interacting at different synced values of pre-delay and decay, with panning involved too, to create a dynamic stereo interplay:
5. Lookahead Reverb
Usually reverb comes after the sound and that's how it works in real life: a source dry signal is played and the reflections boucing in a room come afterwards at different intervals of time.
But what if we change this behaviour by thinking out of the box?
What about a reverb that comes right before the dry signal?
It sounds weird and in a way that's what we can achieve with the reverse reverb effect too, to anticipate what is yet to come.
But there is another way we can implement this concept: in your DAW create an audio track which receives the dry sound you want to apply this effect to and apply reverb on this channel, the kind you prefer here doesn't matter.
Then apply a Track Delay function to a negative value to this reverb channel, let's say - 80 ms (in Ableton you can open this function by clicking the 'D' icon in the lower right of the display): in this way what you are getting is the reverb track playing before the actual dry sound!
If your DAW doesn't have this function handy, you can try the other way around so keep your reverb channel untouched while applying a Delay effect set to 100% wet to the dry channel and setting the time in ms to make it happen afterwards.
Listen to the dry and reverb tracks together when adjusting the delay time and hear how many different effects you can get out of this technique!
In the following audio example you'll hear a series of two claps first dry, secondly with instantaneous parallel reverb, then with the reverb in advance of 23 ms and finally with an advance of 114 ms:
6. Achieving Width with Reverb
In the previous blog post about stereo width techniques I talked about the use of short decay times and early reflections as a way to enhance the stereo width of mono sources.
Well, to take this a bit further try even distorting just those early reflections: this can create a massive enhancement of the stereo image and make for a more upfront sound with more definition in the mix.
Another trick you can try is to make multiple copies of your send reverb and transpose each one by a different octave and pan them differently (works better on mono reverbs); also try applying the Haas effect or even flip the phase to one of your sends for extreme widening (be aware of mono compatibility in this case).
Furthermore try using two mono aux sends panned one to the left and the other to the right, each with its own reverb for a rich and spacial effect.
In the next audio example you'll hear first an 8 bar melodic mono loop, followed by a repetition of itself where I've distorted the early reflections of a send reverb in order to achieve a wider stereo image:
7. Using Multiple Reverbs for Hyper-Realism
Before going into the more unusual and 'unnatural' applications of reverb in the sound design applications paragraph, let's look again to common mixing uses but with a bit of twist.
If we want to create a three-dimensional space in our mix, reverb certainly helps for that: it can be useful to set up a template in your DAW with three reverb sends already prepared for short, medium and long decay times and styles.
In this way you are ready to send the right amount of the reverb send of your choice from any sound of your production, pulling it back from the others if it needs to stay in the background.
Visually it can help to draw a graphic of your mix elements to decide where to place what, an intuition that David Gibson explored in his book 'The Art Of Mixing';
thinking of a real orchestra you can even calculate the micro delay times of an instrument from another based on how far from the source musicians sit for hyper-realism: go for convolution reverbs in these scenarios for best results.
In the following audio example you'll hear first a 4 bar loop with no processing, followed by a repetition where I've sent a different amount and type of reverb to the drums, synth-bass, lead and pad to achieve depth and a more three-dimensional feeling:
All the sounds from the previous and yet to follow audio examples come from my soundpacks, so consider checking them out in my shop page if you want to support me and bring some fresh inspiration to your productions!
8. Harmonic Reverb
What may not be obvious is that reverb, while great for adding depth and separation between instruments, can also cause harmonic clash.
This happens for example if the tail of a chord keeps going underneath the next one and sometimes this causes dissonance and doesn't sound very pleasant.
What you would prefer to do in this scenario is to tailor the decay time to end before the next chord, make automations or just restart the reverb circuit by de-activating and re-activating the effect just before the next hit occurs: be sure to do this right to avoid clicks or abrupt weird artifacts.
Some more advanced reverbs such as Adaptiverb by Zynaptiq even employ AI and spectral processing under the hood to prevent harmonic clash and clutter, in addition to other great features such as 'harmonic filtering' and transposition.
In this audio example you'll hear first an 8 bar melodic loop in its original state, followed by its 'harmonic reverb' transformation via the awesome Adaptiverb plugin:
9. Mastering With Reverb
This is a very delicate topic, since mastering engineers have different schools of thought.
Some of them don't employ reverb at all during mastering because they claim it causes loss of definition, makes everything less focused and muddy, while others who do employ a very small percentage of it claim it is a sort of Holy Grail of mastering.
I actually prefer the latter point of view since experimenting on my own I've found that indeed a small amount of reverb applied during mastering can create more depth, a 3D feeling and more emotion and glue.
The type of reverb and settings depend on the style and BPM of the music you are working on, but typically you want to go with expensive sounding ones which have a rich sound and just apply like 5% of dry/wet to it.
Experiment for yourself and find which of the two categories of schools of thought you think of falling into!
Fun fact: Izotope powersuite Ozone had a Reverb module built inside of it since version 5, but then it was removed because it was thought not be a common practice anymore, but remember that a change in practices and trends doesn't mean necessarily better results! 😉
In the next audio example listen to a short snippet from a cover of 'The Curse' by Agnes Obel where I've deliberately applied some reverb on the mastering chain starting from the lyrics 'From the start they didn't know..' to achieve more depth, glue and emotion:
Sound Design Applications:
1. Automating & Morphing Reverb
Now let's start investigating more sound design oriented techniques and go deeper down the rabbit hole!
As simple and straightfoward as it may appear, automation is the key to all sorts of fantastic experimentations since the beauty of sound is that it evolves over time.
For example, by automating the dry/wet knob to make the sound more reverbered at the end of a section, as we have seen before, you can increase tension and expectation for what is coming and if made quickly it can almost fake the previous mentioned reverse reverb effect as you are putting abruptly the tail of a sound upfront in the mix.
Another cool thing to try is automating the size parameter in your reverb: typically in an algorhithmic reverb it emulates as the name suggests the size of the virtual room you are placing the sound in, and increasing or decreasing this value in real time can result in jaggering, weird 'pitchy' sci-fi effects.
In some cases it can produce pops, glitches and artifacts that can be a desirable texture to enhance afterwards with heavy compression and upward expansion with the infamous 'OTT' effect.
Some more advanced and capable reverbs like IRCAM Verb v3 by Flux can even give you the possibility to switch two reverb configurations and types in a smooth way, to achieve the effect of moving a sound from a virtual space to another.
If your reverb doesn't have this capability, try this setup instead (this may vary according to your DAW, just grab the concept behind it): first, create a stereo aux send and split the left and right channels into a chain with an utility plugin, then insert on each channel a different reverb type (experiment! Try for example a short plate verb on the left side and a spring verb on the right side).
Keep in mind that if you are using stereo reverbs you have to mono-ize them by keeping either the left or right channel in the splitted channels for this technique to work.
Finally insert an autopanner after the splitting of the left and right channels and send some dry signal to this verb aux channel we have configurated: what we are achieving is a swirling motion from left to right in parallel that morphs between two different reverb types. Sounds crazy, right? Basically we are combining knowledge from the previews two blog posts ('A Deep Dive Into Stereo Width' and 'Exploring Morphing').
If you are an Ableton Live user you can download a free rack at the end of this article that creates this very effect! You will just need to put this on a aux channel and send the amount you desire to it from any sources: try guitars, pianos, cellos, vocals..
A brief explanation of the mapping I've made for this rack: the red knob turns on the autopan effect, alternatively you can manually automate the green knob for more control; the orange knob controls the shape of the autopan's LFO gradually turning a sine into a square wave; the white knob for values between 0 and 63 sets the LFO rate in Hz value, controlled by the corresponding blue knob, while for values after 64 the rate is in synced values, controlled by the other properly named blue knob.
Notice that inside the rack I've applied a Reverb device to the left splitted channel and an Hybrid Reverb device to the right splitted channel, with the algorithm set to 'Shimmer' for a different character, but you are definitely free and encouraged to replace those with your personal reverb choices to experiment on your own!
In the next audio example you'll hear an 8 bar synth-bass loop in its original state, followed by its repetition with some synced autopanned morphing reverb applied in parallel with my rack:
Another crossover technique you can try between this article and the past one about morphing, is to replace a reverbed tail of a sound with a tail from an other one, creating mismatched, hybrid results.
2. Advanced Reverb Effects
When it comes to chain fx processing a whole world of experimentation opens in front of you: each preset of a multi-effect plugin can indeed be thought of a unique effect in its own right since the possibilities are endless and the order and type of effects interacting are the variables for infinite sonic explorations.
A couple of cool examples you can try with reverbs: talking of Lo-Fi, so popular these days, you can combine vintage reverbs with saturation, filtering, tape-emulation, sample-rate or bit-depth reduction, chorus and any sort of effect with the goal of retro-fying any sound.
Multi-effects combining these effects in a single solution are very popular nowadays and there are plenty of options like RC-20 from XLN Audio and Yum Audio's series of Lo-Fi effects. Some like 'Lifeline Expanse' or 'Lifeline Console' from Excite Audio employ reverb as tool to bring sonic excitement and lively, organic feeling to any sound:
For more sci-fi adventures try combining ring modulations, flangers or frequency shifters with reverbs to get out-of-this-world sounds: imagine being on another planet in an other galaxy where things work in a totally different way.. Be creative and imaginative!
You can try 'Wormhole' by Zynaptiq or 'Enrage' by Boom library for an amazing source of experimentation with effects.
Distorting reverb tails is massively effective too (we already have seen how distorting early reflections can help to achieve a wider sound); dystopian textures, desolate lands, nightmares' reminiscences are a few of evocative images you can pick from this combination of effects.
I love thinking of effects and sound devices metaphorically as tools with a special narrative function, that's why I'm in love with cinematic music.
Imagine reverb as having a dreamlike function in your music and distortion as having a creepy, fragmented, dystopian function: combine the two to get a completely new storytelling meaning in your music!
In the next audio example you'll hear a 4 bar melodic sequence in its original state followed by its repetition with the application of Lifeline Expanse to spicy it up:
3. Parallel Modulated Gated Reverb
As complex and scary this paragraph's technique may sound, it's easier than you may think of when seen in practice.
Again I've created a free rack you can download at the end 😉.
Basically you start with a typical gated reverb configuration, where you truncate the washy tail of the reverb by placing a gate after it in a Phill Collins '80s snare style, then take it to the next level by spicying up this technique: compact this in a parallel chain or aux send as you prefer so that you are able to sculpt the gated reverb tone even more.
Start with a bit of polish with EQ if you want or get things dirty and wacky straight away with some distortion and frequency shifter in between the reverb and gate devices (set the gate sidechain input to the dry signal and in pre-fader for a more polished result).
In particular, frequency-shifting the reverb is mad cool and combined with distortion is just a wonderland experience.
This is where you have plenty of 'room' (sorry for the word pun in this article about reverb!) to experiment and come up with a unique sound that sets you apart from other producers all using the same known techniques.
Customize the reverb tone, experiment with the order and types of effects added and just have fun!
In the following audio example you'll hear first a snare hit dry, then with the standard gated reverb effect and consecutively with the application of further processing and modulation effects to the gated reverb signal using my rack above (in order: Frequency Shifter - Overdrive - Tremolo - Phaser all in series):
4. Exploring Modern Reverb Plugins
Sometimes ideas for new techniques to try may come directly from the kind of peculiar functions our reverb plugins have at our disposal since the advance of technology and techniques goes hand by hand.
There are tons and tons of reverb plugins, even some great free options like Raum from NI, which was given for free some time ago, with some neat functions like freeze and pre-delay feedback, or SuperMassive by reverb experts Valhalla DSP, which is an amazing creative delay+reverb combo with several modes, some added in recent updates.
Among paid softwares alternatives, some creative reverb options are Pro-R by Fabfilter, with a graphical EQ for sculpting the decay rate tone, a space knob which is actually a decay time linked to the reverb type so shorter values have room types while longer values have hall types for example;
Toraverb 2 by D16 Group, a 'space modulated' reverb as they call it, with advanced controls such as a Mid/Side split for controlling early and late reflections, and a custom diffusion network with creative modulation controls;
IRCAM Verb v3 by Flux, already mentioned, if you want state-of-the-art room acoustic simulation even for immersive multi-channels scenarios, with a cool morph function between two reverb states;
Liquidsonics is a company specialized in reverb plugins and their collection is really worth checking out for expansive and rich sounding verbs;
Neoverb by Izotope employs AI and their intelligent algorithms with their trademark assistant tool for helping you making mixing decisions;
Perfect Plate XL by Denise sounds great and has cool creative controls set in a simple GUI (a direction more and more developers are getting, great sound with few controls) like Drive, Detune, Ducker and the Reso function for creating metallic resonant effects:
In the next audio example you'll hear first a 4 bar bass loop in its original state, then its repetition with the Denise Perfect Plate XL's resonator reverb effect applied to grow during the pauses between notes. Notice that the resonators and EQ boosts have been tuned to the notes of a Gminor chord to sound more musical as seen in the prevous image:
5. Getting Wild With Convolution Reverbs
This is a technique I explored already a bit in the blog post about morphing, but let's get deeper into it.
To put it in simple terms, convolution reverbs employ a mathematical function called 'convolution' to emulate realistic world reflections by applying an IR, or Impulse Response to a signal.
This Impulse response usually is obtained by a sine sweep or burst impulse in a space to stimulate the acoustic response and record it, but the cool thing is that you can use literally any sound source as IRs for crazy results.
Try using reversed sounds or fxs for absolutely unnatural results: the goal here is to use tools in the 'wrong' ways to come up with unique sounds, so don't be afraid to experiment!
Inside of Ableton as options you have a great Convolution Reverb that comes part of the Max For Live Essentials and the brand new Hybrid Reverb on Live 11 which is really cool and lets you create a blend between the sound of an algorithmic reverb with a convolution one, creating as the name suggests 'hybrid' sonic results.
In this audio example you'll hear first a 4 bar melodic loop in its original state, then repeated with a reverse lead applied as the IR model of a convolution reverb for a ghostly, eerie effect similar to the reverse reverb technique:
6. Reverb Filters
There are some synths like Xfer Records Serum which have a reverb mode among the filter choices.
That sounds crazy even just by telling this; I'm not sure how it has been implemented into the algorithm but as you can see from the waveform filter display if we consider Serum, we see that it's a very complex type of comb filter with many boosts and cuts at different frequencies:
We can adjust cutoff and resonance as in a typical filter but here it looks differently than usual as the resonance knob looks like a global control to set more extreme values to the notches and boosts, while the cutoff seems to change the offset of this particular curve applied over the spectrum.
Without trying to reverse engineer this particular implementation, let's talk about the creative uses it may have.
By being so invasive and extreme to the sculpting of frequencies expect your timbre (and phase!) to change drastically and sound very nasty, weird and aggressive in most cases, great for heavy bass design where you want the upper frequencies to have a unique texture.
Inside of Serum you also have the reverb filter as an effect on its own so you can experiment on the order of effects and modulations too.
In the next audio example you'll hear first a 4 bar Serum bass patch followed by a variation of it employing reverb filters, LFO modulated, pre and post fx for added movement and texture:
7. Pad Design With Reverb
Typically pads and atmospheres serve as harmonic backbones of a track and sit in the background usually thanks to the aid of reverb processing.
But, what about turning any sound into a pad or atmosphere using just reverb?
A typical scenario you may think of at first is throwing a huge dark sounding verb on a kick drum to turn it into an epic cinematic impact , as we are going to see soon, but there is more you can do.
Isolate a single dry note or sound hit and after placing a reverb with an extremely long decay time (even 20 seconds), render and resample the result into another audio track. Then place the rendered sound into a sampler, key-map it, adjust the crossfade points and loop it for playback: Ableton's Sampler has various options like the back and forth loop mode to play the sound in reverse after it finishes the cycle and then back to the original direction again, great for this scenario.
Add an other reverb after the sampler and you've got a custom pad!
To reiterate a previous point, try to turn into a pad a pluck or a lead already present in your project, so the end result will sound even more cohesive.
Another cool trick you can use for pad design is employing the 'freeze' function of your reverb, if it has one: by freezing the sound into the reverb circuit, it's like taking a picture of that particular instant of time you switched it on, capturing a unique moment that sounds different based on when you activate it, creating an ethereal soundscape that you can record in real time with a resampling enable track.
Remember: always keep a recording track enabled when doing such sound design experiments because you don't wanna miss that odd eureka feeling!
In this audio example you'll hear first a 4 bar bass loop then its frozen reverb pad transformation (I switched on the 'Freeze' button at the end of the bass loop, so the timbre and character of the resulting pad comes from that part):
8. Cinematic Sound Design With Reverb
Cinematic Sound Design is a perfect fit for creative and unusual applications of reverb since composers are always willing to find special sound effects, textures and soundscapes to blend their musical instruments with.
Think of piano resonances for metallic and weird tones, cello textures to layer with your digital pads, heavy impacts achieved with hits feeding into massive reverbs, risers made by reversing those impacts, washing effects, drones made by extreme time-stretching of sounds combined with reverbs to get atmospheric and slowly moving tones, changing an instrument timbre altogether by using reverb as a color instead of its usual ambience function.. these are just a few ideas to get started experimenting.
I'll repeat it once more: always remember to keep a track ready for resampling when you do sound design since you never know when that wicked sound comes out!
In this audio example you'll hear first a dry kick hit, then its massive impact achieved with a long and big reverb set to 100% wet:
9. Re - Amping For Organic Reverb
Ever thought of employing the natural reverb of the room you are working on (if you are in your home studio) instead of relying on digital reverbs?
Well, of course you cannot have much control over it but it can be a cool thing to try in order to give a real reverb maybe to your static and lifeless synth sounds;
just pick a mic and register what's coming out of your speakers.
Experiment with mic positioning, polar patterns and output volume in order to come up with different sonic results.
It's similar in a way to guitar or bass recording where you want to blend the polished D.I. with the amped version to get the best of both worlds.
A little historical background and great musical example: 'I Am Sitting in a Room', a sound art composition composed by Alvin Lucier in 1969.
This ambient and genious minimalistic music work was based on the idea of capturing a voice act in a room then re-recording the tape playing multiple times inside of it consecutively: basically each new take has more modal influence of the room's acoustics and in the end after several serial recordings the voice becomes unintelligible and just the resonant frequencies of the room take over, becoming almost a drone sound.
This is of course a more extreme and experimental approach to the re-amping technique I talked earlier, but you could take this as an inspirational point to experiment with how reverb naturally occurs in the real world and even try inside of your DAW to put a bunch of reverbs in series to create a sort of feedback loop where the output of a reverb becomes the input of another, in the end creating beautiful and unusual soundscapes.
Maybe try to create slight variations to the reverb settings feeding into each other for a more interesting and natural result.
Be aware of volume buildups when doing so, possible digital artifacts and CPU overload so take care of your ears by placing a limiter at the end of the chain!
By combining this technique with the one explored in the previous paragraph about pad design, you can try to put a resonator before the cascade of serial reverbs in order to emphasize certain frequencies related to musical notes and come up with alien resonant pads as we have seen using the Perfect Plate XL plugin.
In the next audio example you'll hear a bass loop playing over and over with a new copy of a reverb device at around 14% Dry/Wet switched on after each bar, resulting in the end in 15 reverbs playing in series, one after the other, creating a modal resonant effect:
10. Feedback Loops With Reverb
I've just mentioned an example of feedback loops in reverb applications but let's resume and get deeper.
Technically speaking a feedback occurs when a signal from the output comes back to the input creating a cycle. This can be dangerous in some scenarios creating the nasty 'Larsen' effect for example when you put a microphone in front of the speakers, but if used with care can become a wonderful sound design experience.
As I mentioned before the piece 'I Am Sitting In A Room' involves using several tape recordings re-recorded in an acoustic space to get more and more modal reverberation: you can simulate that in a DAW creating a cascade of reverbs feeding into each other in series.
Or in another case where you have multiple reverb sends in your DAW you can try sending a small percentage of a reverb send into each other: that creates a more glued result, almost faking a bleed recording where on vocal takes you get a bit of drums for example (think of reverb as an instrument in its own right and all of this will make sense!):
Feedback loops can be thought as the opposite of frozen verbs, created with freeze functions: in the latter case you fill a buffer with an instantanous picture of the reverb sound, looping over and over, while in the first case the reverb is always changing because of the dynamic interactions of feedback loops.
In the next audio example you'll hear a 4 bar bass loop first dry, then repeated with three different reverb sends applied, creating a feedback network with each other:
11. BONUS: The Infamous Techno Reverb Kick
Let's finish this long blog post with a fantastic application of an unorthodox way to use in reverb in music production: the infamous 'Techno Reverb Kick'.
While kick in dance music should be upfront and punchy, a parallel send to a side-chain compressed reverb to pump in between hits adds air, sense of hugeness and darkness if combined with a low-pass filter applied to the reverb.
In the previous image notice how after applying a controlled reverb to the kick in parallel, by employing the side-chain compression technique we've seen at the beginning of this article, the transient of the kick remains unaltered, so its impact.
Sometimes this reverb is part of the 'Rumble Bass', so called because of its thunderous, atonal, rumbling character so much used in techno music.
This is another example of how breaking the rules with consciousness can create very unique results: using controlled reverb on a bass sound that is not even tonal!
Key is always knowledge combined with experimentation.
In this last audio example you'll first hear 4 kick hits completely dry, then with a parallel filtered and ducking reverb for that classic dark techno reverb kick:
Conclusion:
I hope this comprehensive article gave you enough food of thought to think of reverbs in new ways either when doing sound design or mixing and mastering, since both scenarios are creative tasks!
Comment down below your favourite reverb techniques or share any that comes to your mind, and please give a like to this post if you enjoyed it to support me <3
Until next time..
Happy Music Making!
P.S: Click the artwork below to download the racks for free!
