The reverb problem with DAWs

[-]

I was wondering how all you DAW users (*without* extra hardware to take the load off the CPU) handle mixing with reverb. I find after using about two or three reverbs plus 24 tracks and EQ, compression, etc. that my system slows down quite a bit. If the reverbs are turned off, my system works great.

 

I'm considering printing reverb for the instruments where reverb is used to give the instrument its own "space". I don't know how many tracks my DAW can handle (I've got a SCSI drive and it doesn't break a sweat with 24 tracks), but I figure this is worth a try.

 

How do you handle the too-much-CPU-usage-because-you're-using-several-reverbs problem? Do you submix and print groups of instruments? Print all the reverbs and use up a gazillion tracks? I'd like to get an idea of what everyone's working style is...

 

 

 

This message has been edited by popmusic on 05-29-2001 at 08:29 AM

[Ethan Winer]

popmusic,

 

> I was wondering how all you DAW users (*without* extra hardware to take the load off the CPU) handle mixing with reverb. I find after using about two or three reverbs plus 24 tracks and EQ, compression, etc. that my system slows down quite a bit. If the reverbs are turned off, my system works great. <

 

Reverb plug-ins are definitely the most CPU-intensive programs you can run. Therefore, the best solution is to set up one or maybe two different reverbs on a buss, and then send varying amounts of each track to the buss. This is what the big studios do too - not because of CPU load, but because good hardware reverb units are so expensive.

 

So far I've never needed more than two instances of a reverb plug-in. I have two presets I tend to use a lot. One defines a small space to make an instrument sound like it's right there in the room with you, and the other is a larger "hall" type sound. I can apply varying amounts of either to any track, and not have to worry about overloading my PC.

 

--Ethan

[-]

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

Therefore, the best solution is to set up one or maybe two different reverbs on a buss, and then send varying amounts of each track to the buss. This is what the big studios do too - not because of CPU load, but because good hardware reverb units are so expensive.

 

I agree with that -- I use busses a lot, like for affecting a group of sounds, like a drum kit... However, many times I'll be using individual reverbs to help shape a particular sound.

 

For example, I have some really well-recorded kick/snare/tom samples... But they sound too dry to me. So I might have a short mono reverb on the kick which might make the kick sound a little more "roomy" (for the lack of a better word). Plus, I'll maybe make that short reverb on the kick emphasize certain parts of the bass frequencies (so that the part of the bass frequencies is held out longer than the higher frequencies).

 

The snare usually will be treated by itself with a different reverb... I'll record electric guitar with certain effects, but usually not reverb -- so that gets added at mix time... And the lead vocal reverb is usually a chain of different effects, but it almost always ends with a different reverb than anything else in the mix.

 

(I should note that many times I use reverb not so the listener will say, "Oh, that's some reverb!" ... I tend to use it subtly. But the listener would definitely notice a difference if these subtle reverbs weren't there.)

 

So I guess what I'm trying to get at is that, for my mixing style, I tend to use a lot of different reverbs depending on the instrument and how it might need to breathe in the mix.

 

If I were mixing a live recording with few overdubs, I would probably go with one short and one long reverb. However, since the stuff I do is created with nothing but overdubbing, reverb is an essential tool for me to try to create a virtual "stage" or ambience for each of the instruments.

[hiraga]

popmusic, why don't you try to catch/record the natural ambience in the room, if that's what you're aiming at?

[-]

Originally posted by hiraga:

popmusic, why don't you try to catch/record the natural ambience in the room, if that's what you're aiming at?

 

I'd *lovvvvve* to do that, but I live in an apartment... Gotta keep the noise down.

[Anderton]

My DAW setup has multiple ADAT outs (8 stereo pairs) going into a digital mixer. I only need two for the final mix, so when I need reverb (which is rare, I don't use it all that much), I'll set up another stereo pair as an aux and just use a hardware unit patched into the mixer. There are still some instances where hardware is the best way to go.

[Mr Darling]

popmusic, before I upgraded my powermac 7300 with a G3 card, I too sufred from cpu load, espacialy during recording the mix back to the mac. I found the bouncing (printing) the plug ins takes the loads off. My battered mac liked six tracks better then one plugin (and I'm not even talking reverb here - I didn't find any I realy liked) Of course don't forget you have to turn the plugins off after save the setting and printing the effect. It might take more the time but it worth the effort. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Enjoy

 

------------------

Visit http://www.DarlingNikkie.com/sounds for free MP3's

[Ethan Winer]

pop,

 

> So I might have a short mono reverb on the kick which might make the kick sound a little more "roomy" ... The snare usually will be treated by itself with a different reverb... <

 

But my point was that many separate reverbs are usually not necessary. EQ can help you shape the kick's tone, and a single instance of a short reverb can serve all of the instruments that needs it.

 

I also agree with Hiraga that natural room ambience is often the best reverb of all. And it doesn't really have anything to do with disturbing the neighbors or not. Either way, you're whacking a drum in your apartment. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif To get a natural room ambience, simply record in a room that isn't too muffled with furniture and the like. A kitchen with a tile floor will do. Then pull the mikes back a few feet. Or close mike the individual drums, but also use a pair of stereo overhead mikes.

 

--Ethan

[hiraga]

And if you're trying to recreate natural ambience a single global 'verb is more realistic, I think..

 

I don't really use digiverbs much anymore. One thing you also can do, is to send out a snare (after you've tracked the lot) for instance through your monitor (only ONE!) and record that with a mic.. or two. That way you can INCREASE the natural ambience, with out getting bleed from other intruments. Record that and have it on a seprate fader. You can do that with all your instruments with out blowin' up the CPU.

 

You cn also place the speaker in another room, the bathroom for instance. I've practically retired 10K of 'verbs doing this..

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

pop,

 

> So I might have a short mono reverb on the kick which might make the kick sound a little more "roomy" ... The snare usually will be treated by itself with a different reverb... <

 

But my point was that many separate reverbs are usually not necessary. EQ can help you shape the kick's tone, and a single instance of a short reverb can serve all of the instruments that needs it.

 

This letter to the editor in the brand new Mix magazine says it better than I can:

 

originally published in Mix

...While Frank (Filipetti) is dead-on in terms of his use of digital technology and his discussion of it, I think another important point for your readers and one not really touched on in your article is Frank's use of reverbs. To my ears, all of the best mix engineers have a unique and extremely musical approach to using reverbs, not only for ambience but for EQ, instrument placement/depth and, for lack of a better phrase, the "X factor." While most home recordists (and even a lot of good pro engineers) dial up as many reverbs as they can get their hands on, engineers like Frank use reverb like a paintbrush. Also, many engineers hope to correct things in the mastering, never realizing that what they thought they had is no longer there. And, should you think it's the gear he has, trust me, it really isn't the gear at all; it's the way he uses it and his musical sensibilities. ...

 

Jack McCracken

Remarque Productions

New York City

 

Jack produced an album Frank mixed in 1997, and had many other good things to say about him in response to an article in March, 2001, Mix.

 

I also agree with Hiraga that natural room ambience is often the best reverb of all.

 

--Ethan

 

When you have a decent room to record in. Not many home studios have that. Sure wish I did. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

Neil

[fantasticsound]

Oh, and Craig, if reprinting that excerpt from the new Mix is poor form then I certainly understand if you delete it. I thought they wouldn't mind considering it is a letter to the editor, and not an original piece written by a staff or contract writer. If I'm wrong, I apologise.

 

Neil

[Philip OKeefe]

I also agree with Hiraga that natural room ambience is often the best reverb of all.

--Ethan

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When you have a decent room to record in. Not many home studios have that. Sure wish I did.

 

Neil

 

 

That's very true Neil. I was fortunate in that I was able to design my rooms from the ground up and spent a lot of design time and construction money on the acoustics, but there's ways to work around the "less than perfect" acoustics that most home studios have to deal with. I'm sure you already know about all the different cost effective acoustical options out there, so I won't go into those beyone saying that anyone interested in that should check out Ethan's website and read his classic "Build a Better Bass Trap" article.

 

Put your thinking cap on and get creative!

 

Run a line into a different room of your house for different ambient flavors - bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, living room, garage, whatever! Open a closet door, set the amp facing into it, and mic it (drier tone). Want a "reverb chamber"? Set up a mic at one end of an empty garage, a speaker at the other and run the aux send from your board to an amp, which feeds the speaker, which the distant mic picks up (along with all those reflections) and then return that to another track, or to a mixer channel and blend to taste. Garage isn't empty? Try it anyway - you might get diffusion off all the "junk" and come up with a sound you like. Or try it in a different room instead of the garage. Too much? Not enough? Move the mic around to a different position and try it again. BTW, Mic placement is one of those things that seperates the pros from the novices IMO, and the more time you spend learning about that, the better you'll get.

 

There's lots of ideas and possibilities out there in the typical house. Experiment! Improvise. Make do with what you have available and make it work FOR you. The more you experiment, the more you'll learn, and the more fun you'll have - the possibilities will just open wide for you.

 

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording

Riverside CA

http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

email: pokeefe777@msn.com

[DC]

Hello popmusic,

 

I think I get similar results to what you're going for, the difference in approach being; I use the overall reverb sparingly on toms and maybe just a touch on kick and/or bass guitar and let eq do the rest. It's the snare that really needs it's own effect so if it's bogging down your CPU, print verb on just snare. Or better still, find a smaller resource eating verb for snare. I've got good results out of the freeverb on snare for example.

 

Another thing to try is get the drum kit working in the mix and then sub mix it to two channels WITH all effects happening. This will really free up CPU useage. You can still raise or lower kick and snare with selective eq if need be and if you archive your mix before sub mixing, you can always go back.

 

Actually these days I find myself using in time delay mostly and not so much verb except for ballads and such.

 

davecharles@musician.net

[Ethan Winer]

Neil,

 

> [Mix letter] To my ears, all of the best mix engineers have a unique and extremely musical approach to using reverbs, not only for ambience but for EQ, instrument placement ... <

 

Good points for sure. There's nothing wrong with using EQ on the reverb send or return to create a sound. I was responding to "how do I avoid overloading my computer with all these reverb plug-ins?" and it seemed to me he could get fine results with only one or two reverbs. Am I so old that I remember when even big-name studios had only one EMT plate? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

> When you have a decent room to record in. Not many home studios have that. Sure wish I did. <

 

Even without a great room, just using a hard back wall behind a guitarist or playing a hard floor or whatever, can help a lot to give an instrument the sound of "being there."

 

--Ethan

[-]

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

I was responding to "how do I avoid overloading my computer with all these reverb plug-ins?" and it seemed to me he could get fine results with only one or two reverbs. Am I so old that I remember when even big-name studios had only one EMT plate? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

 

The problem is that many of the mixes/arrangements I really dig use multiple reverbs (they were also mixed on regular consoles with lots of outboard gear). I know that there are more than two reverbs going on because I can hear 'em when I flip the phase of one channel and then sum the mix to mono (see http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000948.html ).

 

Also, I tend to lean towards a heavily produced kind of sound... Maybe not as extreme as Eno/Lanois/Froom, but produced-sounding nonetheless. I tend to look at effects as another instrument in the mix, not just as an enhancement. If I were going for a more natural sound, I'm sure two reverbs would work really well, though.

 

I tried the room miking thing in my previous apartment, but I found that, in order to *really* pick up the sound of the room, I would have had to turn the volume up to a point that I would have been uncomfortable with as a (trying to be good) tenant. However, I *am* starting to house shop, so I *WILL* be able to do this one day...

 

I admit that I'm kind of taken aback by how many people on this thread said they'd use only two reverbs with an entire mix. Maybe it depends on the kind of music and the production style you're going for, but I thought for sure I wasn't the only one who relied on more than two reverbs. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/confused.gif

 

 

 

This message has been edited by popmusic on 05-30-2001 at 01:38 PM

[fantasticsound]

Ethan, I appreciate your suggestions. I have done these techniques, not only in the home studio, but in pro studios as well. (There's a ton

of, "the studios bathroom/stairwell became our reverb chamber..." stories.)

 

But I have to mention, TheMusic's old apartment, next to Northwestern University's football field, is an unreal place to record. He was just coming into his own when he and his wife lived there. Unfortunately, very few acoustic musicians (Read.. ME!! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif )ever recorded there. The main room was approx. 30ft. x 15ft., had 9 or 10ft. ceilings, a large, segmented picture window, and hard wood floors. With their home furnishings, it became a VERY well balanced room. At the time we were recording to a fostex 4 track cassette, then the Tascam 238. 8 tracks on cassette. Not pretty. Shitty mics, too. I just wish I could get that room back. They moved a l-o-n-g time ago. Did I mention It was bright, that large window streaming natural sunlight in. Most comfortable place I've ever had to record in.

 

So you see, the techniques you've mentioned, while I use 'em are not unlike wine in a box, when you can appreciate Chateau Lafitte. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif (I have NO idea if I'm spelling that correctly! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif )

 

Neil

[hiraga]

pop, I'm definitely also into the Lanois/Eno thang, but still I don't use digital 'verbs much.

 

Only if I'm going for that lush thick (unnatural for that's what it is!) reverb, like the preset 2 on a TC M2000 will I use 'em. I don't use short tight 'verbs. I use the room for that. Or the toilet. Or the garage. Or a nearby hall. Or a church.. or that's not tight.. but nice!

 

If I do need digital 'verb, I always use my modified plate presets which tell me I NEED A PLATE! They actually only go for 1500USD (mono EMT 140), but it'll cost me as much getting one to Europe... grrr..

 

Still I'm thinking about dumping my TC M2000 & M3000 and getting one.

[aeon]

Originally posted by popmusic:

I admit that I'm kind of taken aback by how many people on this thread said they'd use only two reverbs with an entire mix. Maybe it depends on the kind of music and the production style you're going for, but I thought for sure I wasn't the only one who relied on more than two reverbs.

 

Don't worry, popmusic! Most of my mixes use at least 6, if not 12 separate reverbs, and then there are the delays...and this is for tracks that sound fairly "dry."

 

And no, I am not doing that evil 80s snare stuff! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Ethan Winer]

popmusic,

 

> I know that there are more than two reverbs going on because I can hear 'em when I flip the phase of one channel and then sum the mix to mono <

 

I'm not 100% sure that's a valid way of proving how many reverbs are used. But that is beside the point. I understand all you said about wanting a "produced" sound, and that's fine. I guess the ultimate answer is you can use as many reverbs as your computer will handle. Of course, for special reverb on a single track you can always print the effect to disk. I'd print the effected track to a new track and save the original version in case you want to change it later.

 

> I tried the room miking thing in my previous apartment, but I found that, in order to *really* pick up the sound of the room, I would have had to turn the volume up to ... <

 

I don't understand that at all. What would you turn up the volume on? All I'm suggesting is to pull the mikes back a bit in the room to get more ambience and less direct sound.

 

--Ethan

[-]

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

> I know that there are more than two reverbs going on because I can hear 'em when I flip the phase of one channel and then sum the mix to mono <

 

I'm not 100% sure that's a valid way of proving how many reverbs are used. But that is beside the point. I understand all you said about wanting a "produced" sound, and that's fine. I guess the ultimate answer is you can use as many reverbs as your computer will handle. Of course, for special reverb on a single track you can always print the effect to disk. I'd print the effected track to a new track and save the original version in case you want to change it later.

 

That's what I'm planning on doing. I did some experimenting the other night and found that my system could handle, without effects, 50 tracks. The most I'd probably ever use for instruments would be 24 tracks, but I'm planning to print reverb on some of the other tracks and simply treat those tracks like effects returns.

 

 

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

> I tried the room miking thing in my previous apartment, but I found that, in order to *really* pick up the sound of the room, I would have had to turn the volume up to ... <

 

I don't understand that at all. What would you turn up the volume on? All I'm suggesting is to pull the mikes back a bit in the room to get more ambience and less direct sound.

 

 

What I was getting at was using the room as a reverb -- playing certain instruments (after they've already been recorded) and then using mics to pick the sound up of the room and then record them back into the DAW, and using those new tracks as *real* room reverb. I used to do that in local studios, but I'm working for fun in an apartment now, so really picking up the sound of the room involves me having to play back the specific instruments a lot louder than I would like.

 

As far as pulling the mics back go when recording the original material... This really isn't very possible. I have a guitar amp, but I can't use it in my apartment, so I use the POD... So I can't pull back with that. I could pull back with acoustic guitar, but I often dig the sound of having the mic very close to the strings and adding artificial ambience later. I could mic the room in addition to miking the acoustic and record them both, but I only have one decent condenser (which I hope will change soon)...

 

The other instruments would be real cymbals (which I don't record at my apartment) and MIDI drum pad-triggered drum samples. Maybe that gives a clearer picture as far as the kind of instruments I'm recording...

 

 

Originally posted by Ethan Winer:

I guess the ultimate answer is you can use as many reverbs as your computer will handle.

 

Yes, but my computer only handles about two or three plus the other effects and 24 tracks. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif

 

I'm thinking printing certain reverbs might be in my best interest, as I've discovered some problems with routing signals the way I'd like to route them. For example, if I wanted to make a particular reverb stand out and I wanted to use some compression *after* the reverb, I found that my DAW (it could be the plugins, not the DAW) will eat up *serious* processor time when there is no audio going through the reverb. It's almost as if the compressor is trying to compress *something*, yet there's no signal going through, and so it's getting flustered and working harder and harder.

 

I dunno -- I thought everyone else here would have experienced similar problems, and would have told me all the gory details about your methods for handling several reverbs with limited processor power, but maybe I'm just a signal processor junkie.

 

I swear my stuff doesn't sound like washed out '80s power ballads, either! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Master Zap]

I have recently begun mixing with three main reverbs.

 

One very bright and very spread, i.e. it *really* sounds left-right-ish, not a thing in the center, and pretty long.

One more normal but EQ'd "fairly" dark and medium length (often on my Midiverb 4 coz it has a more "narrow" steroimage in its reverb).

One short "ambience" ish reverb.

 

These are all hardware units, I might add, ending up either on sends off my mixer or sends from the computer or both, to taste.

 

Anyway, mixing between these tends to give me both some rather nice spacious mixing, as well as some "pseudo EQ tricks" on the reverb by sending various amounts to the longer/brighter/wider and the shorter/narrower/darker reverb.

 

BUT, I also have reverbs in several of the multitimbral synths I use that ALSO get added. And I also use reverbs on sends inside the software, and whatnot, so the reverb-count in my stuff is often rather staggering. But then again I'm a technology-dweeb, so sue me http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

A rather good mix (if I am allowed to say so myself, being an idiot in a garage) created by using this narrow/wide/tight/whatever mix of reverbs can be heard here for the curious.

 

/Z

[-]

Originally posted by Master Zap:

One very bright and very spread, i.e. it *really* sounds left-right-ish, not a thing in the center, and pretty long.

One more normal but EQ'd "fairly" dark and medium length (often on my Midiverb 4 coz it has a more "narrow" steroimage in its reverb).

One short "ambience" ish reverb.

 

These are all hardware units, I might add, ending up either on sends off my mixer or sends from the computer or both, to taste.

 

Anyway, mixing between these tends to give me both some rather nice spacious mixing, as well as some "pseudo EQ tricks" on the reverb by sending various amounts to the longer/brighter/wider and the shorter/narrower/darker reverb.

 

 

Thanks, Master Zap! That's the kind of info I'm looking for. I checked out the song on a crappy computer speaker (only one speaker, not even stereo) at a low volume and I dug what I could hear of the mix. What mic did you use on the lead vocal?

 

Right now I'm getting by with an old Audiomedia III card (2 analog in/out, S/PDIF in/out), but I'm considering getting a card with multiple ins and outs sometime in the future.

 

I sold much of my outboard gear a little while back, thinking I was going to rely mostly on plugins... Now I want some of that gear back! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/mad.gif

[Master Zap]

Vocals are recorded w. a RÖDE NT3 mic, pre'd by my FOSTEX 2440 board and recorded in a EgoSys WaMi RACK 24 thingy. 'tis my wife singing btw http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

As a guy who has both gear and plugins I say that mostly, gear beats plugins. Just as an example, I have a gazillion "analog" synth plugins. I have Kurzweil K2500RS and even a Nord Modular.... but you know my latest gem is my freshly aquired 1983-ish vintage... Roland Juno-60... the warmest synth on the planet, period. The only thing I heard that came close was the Alesis A6, and it was only close.

 

Mostly, digital cuts corners, and digital plugins cut even more corners... I have yet to find a plugin-reverb which sounds "good", they all tend to be metallic-sounding somehow, except possibly the waves TrueVerb but sheeiit does that baby eat processor....

 

Its funny that this wide/spread/bright reverb I'm using is from a (dont laugh) Zoom 1201 fx box. Yes THAT crappy old thing (and a noisy piece of sh*t it is too!). But I just stumbled on this nice spread wide hall reverb in it and went "whoah, this was good". Coz I had recently purchased the MidiVerb4 in the HOPES of finding a lush superwide stereo-reverb only to find that the MidiVerb 4 reverbs are as narrow as a film noir back alley

 

My gear is mostly old crap but I still feal most of that old crap still beats the plugins in sound. Heck my BOSS DD-2 pedal for delay has that certain "something" in the sound that a delay-plugin in all its bit-identical brighness can't capture. And not to mention my best studio GEM, a RockTron Pro-Chorus... ancient, lush, and glorious. I bet the bastard chorus is ANALOG or something. It's the warmest, lushes, most beautiful chorus on the planet bar none (except possibly the chorus in the Juno 60 although I wouldnt be suprised if it is the very same, isn't Rocktron really a "sublabel" of Roland?)

 

Alas, I ramble.

 

/Z

[-]

Originally posted by Master Zap:

Its funny that this wide/spread/bright reverb I'm using is from a (dont laugh) Zoom 1201 fx box. Yes THAT crappy old thing (and a noisy piece of sh*t it is too!). But I just stumbled on this nice spread wide hall reverb in it and went "whoah, this was good". Coz I had recently purchased the MidiVerb4 in the HOPES of finding a lush superwide stereo-reverb only to find that the MidiVerb 4 reverbs are as narrow as a film noir back alley

 

Thanks for the info. The Zoom box story reminds me of an e-mail I sent to a fairly well-known producer (at least in indie music circles) asking about the vocal signal chain he used on a particular song. The mic, preamp, and compressor he used are a bit out of my financial reach for now... But the reverb was a Midiverb II!

 

The kicker of the story is that I sold my Midiverb II a few years ago, even though there *were* some really cool chorusing and short reverb presets on there... It's amazing how cheap gear can sometimes surprise you. (I smell another thread coming on... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif )

[dansouth]

I use outboard reverbs, rarely more than two reverb sounds per song unless I want a special effect on a single drum hit or something of that nature.

 

I don't care for room reverb. It never seems to match the sound of the song.

[Ethan Winer]

popmusic,

 

> I'm planning to print reverb on some of the other tracks and simply treat those tracks like effects returns. <

 

There you go! Yes, if you print the effects only to a new track, no plug-ins are needed later and you can use that as a return. Most compressor plug-ins don't use nearly as much CPU as reverbs, so you could probably patch in a compressor on the reverb-only track.

 

> ... using mics to pick the sound up of the room and then record them back into the DAW, and using those new tracks as *real* room reverb. <

 

I've never actually done that myself, but I know a lot of people have. At that point you might as well use a reverb plug-in, though, since the extra playback and miking change the sound enough that it's not really the same as placing the mikes farther back in the first place.

 

> I often dig the sound of having the mic very close to the strings and adding artificial ambience later. <

 

I designed a reverb preset for the UltraFunk plug-in reverb I use to simulate a small room, and it sounds very close to miking from 3 to 5 feet away in my real room!

 

--Ethan