The Big Benefits Of Plug-in Reverb
In Summary
A few engineers remember the days when real artificial reverb was either plate or spring-shaped. Now with the absolute dominance of modern digital reverb, here we remind ourselves of just how totally indispensable this modern mix marvel really is…
Going Deeper
Helloooooo
What is it about walking through a subway, tunnel, or cavernous church that makes so many of us want to clap our hands or shout “HELLOOOOO!”? One thing’s for sure, and that is that this compulsion doesn’t just affect those who live in front of speakers or microphones. It could be said that natural reverb still has a unique ability to rekindle the child-like wonders of just making a bit of noise because we can!
Back in the grown-up world of mixing audio, the need to create reverb for fun and/or profit hasn’t gone anywhere; this time however, our space-making is all in the name of conjuring spaces for the mind’s eye. Whether that is total realism for picture, or a more impressionistic tail to elevate voices and instruments, almost exclusively these sounds come from audio plugins. Yes there is the odd rack box still in use that is much bigger inside than out, but however spaces are generated, modern artificial reverb is quick, easy, and on-tap with virtually no limits.
Could it be that we’ve forgotten just how amazing this studio tool really is? Here we talk about some of the things that make one of the studio’s oldest tricks so much better in audio plugin form.
1 - Reverb That Takes Up Less Space
Plate reverb unit
Before digital reverb, getting the sound of large surfaces reflecting energy was done by using the real thing. By using dedicated rooms or sheets of metal, along with speakers, mics or other transducers, the deed was done, but that took lots of physical space to do.
The only compact solution before digital reverb were the spring flavours found in guitar amps and desktop boxes. The drawback was that these mini-Slinky-type objects sounded less like a real room, and more like, well, a spring.
Gone are the days of dark chambers, gargantuan plates, and saggy springs. Not only does audio plugin reverb sound more convincing, but also it makes your studio bigger.
2 - Reverb That Is Much More Affordable
Compared to how things used to be in decades gone by, equipment is cheap. Engineers know this by way of gear that has never been better or more affordable, but sounds that only exist in software are even cheaper.
Take any stock reverb that lands with your DAW, and consider how much it would cost to replace with the things it replicates. Even the most basic offering is packed with everything from electro-mechanical relics, through to digitally canned reverb boxes. Your boring bundled reverb is packed with reverb doppelgangers from every era and genre. Many of these would have cost months or even years’ worth of income to afford in the Bad Old Days. Software reverb makes you richer.
3 - Controllable Reverb Decay
Not to sound all pessimistic, but things inevitably decline. I’m not talking about luck or politics, but about the fact that anything physical is destined to lose energy and become more chaotic. In the days before digital reverb, all reverb followed this inescapable truth.
Before digital, reverb had a fixed length from ‘loud’ to silent (or RT60). Too short? No problem just click or spin that wheel for some free energy. Be it Freeze, infinite decay, or stretching effects, digital reverb laughs in the face of physics.
4 - Easy Reverse Reverb
Reverb’s rule-breaking chops can do more than just make the room bigger without calling in the builders. We all know that reverb is louder just after the trigger event and gets quieter from start to finish. Making it go the other way has lots of cool artistic potential. Reverse reverb is beloved of post-production mixers who need something to send a shiver up the audience’s spine, or music mixers who dare to be different.
In the pre digital days, getting this effect was possible by turning the tape over; backwards-playing audio was treated, with the forwards result printed on a spare track. Flip the tape back and all was back to normal apart from the reverb itself. Unless you just recorded over something else by mistake by not flipping the track numbers as well…
Reverse reverb in the digital age is anything but scary. Just reverse and print inside the DAW, or use a reverb that lets you click a button in the GUI. It turns out that digital reverb’s non-linear chops can turn back time with ease.
5 - Reverb With Built-In Dynamic Processing
Changing the level of reverb to fit in around musical events is nothing new, and doing this with dynamics processing allows the engineer to weave its tails into the music in a complimentary way.
Ducking the reverb can be especially useful on things like vocals. Here the effect can be set to drop away around the lyrics before blooming into its full splendour in the gaps. Gating the reverb is another creative trick where long tails are brought to an abrupt end. Before audio plugins, both of these effects could be achieved by patching a hardware compressor or gate across a hardware reverb.
Many hardware digital reverbs had dynamic processing built-in, although many more simply did things like gating with the algorithm itself. Now that audio plugin reverb is everywhere, proper built-in dynamic processing is here, with some like the one below adding twists of their own for total flexibility.
6 - Reverb With Total Realism
Whether it was shaking a metal plate, a metal spring, or sticking a mic in a chamber, reverbs from the old days could only ever sound like themselves. These inevitably became sounds in their own right, just like the Mellotrons and M1 pianos in the instrument world that followed them.
Modern convolution-based reverbs and those based on other tech offer something different. These inject totally believable atmospheres for music and for picture, allowing engineers to mimic spaces with complete realism.
Music mixers can use them as a new way of building the mix’s sense of perspective. In the cinema, along with ever-better immersive playback systems, audiences can find themselves sitting in the middle of soundscapes that come from multichannel convolution reverbs.
Celebrating Audio Plugin Reverb
Before digital reverberators, most studios up until the 1970’s were filling their buildings with purposed-designed rooms (with varying success), as well as plate units that were often moved into the very same rooms sometime later! Those who have ever stood inside a famous chamber to hear it for themselves might agree that their real world sound can be anything but legendary…
Artificial reverb has come a very long way thanks to the thing that has transformed everything: DSP. It’s so easy to forget that modern ‘fake’ reverb is pretty remarkable in what it can do, from artistic enhancement to true recreations of existing spaces. Although we luxuriate in the marvel of audio plugin reverb every day, maybe we’ve been too busy using it to take a step back to sing its praises.