IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | I'm Alex Case. Welcome to Foundations of Audio: Reverb.
| | 00:09 | From caves to cathedrals, amphitheatres to
amplifiers, humans have used reverberation
| | 00:14 | or reverb to augment
sound and music for millennia.
| | 00:18 | Whether it occurs naturally, designed into
the architecture of a space, or is artificially
| | 00:23 | manufactured in the studio, reverb is a
special effect we find very appealing sonically.
| | 00:29 | There are many types of reverb that produce
a wide variety of sounds and in this course
| | 00:34 | we'll look at the most common ones, as well
as some of the more advanced reverb effects.
| | 00:41 | I'll start by covering the fundamentals of reverb,
including the devices that make it and how they work.
| | 00:41 | (music playing)
| | 00:48 | Then I'll break down the common controls of
a reverb effect, showing you how to set the
| | 00:52 | Reverb Time, pre-delay, wet dry mix,
diffusion, density, and other parameters.
| | 00:59 | I'll demonstrate how to use digital Reverbs to
simulate realistic space on your studio tracks.
| | 01:05 | (music playing)
| | 01:08 | I'll then explain how to use springs, plates,
and chambers to modify the timbre of your tracks.
| | 01:14 | We'll take a look at how convolution
Reverbs work so that there's no mystery even with
| | 01:19 | the newest reverb technology to hit our studio.
(music playing)
| | 01:23 | I'll show you how to use gates on your reverb
returns and your room tracks for that obvious
| | 01:28 | '80s flair or for more subtle track enhancement.
| | 01:32 | Throughout this course I'll also provide you
with guided exercise content in the form of
| | 01:37 | Get in the Mix demonstration sessions that you
can open up in your own digital audio workstation.
| | 01:42 | Watch the video about Getting the Mix content to
learn more about this unique learning experience.
| | 01:48 | Now, join me in this high-end professional
recording studio as we continue the Foundations
| | 01:53 | of Audio Series with
Foundations of Audio: Reverb.
| | 01:58 |
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| What you need to know before watching this course| 00:01 | This course digs into reverb, how it works,
the many ways we use it, and the strategies
| | 00:06 | and musical motivations
behind everything we do with it.
| | 00:10 | We cover the basics, but we get to
dig into more advanced applications too.
| | 00:14 | Effective use of reverb is essential to
getting your productions to sound professional.
| | 00:19 | We break the process down step by step so
that all these effects are easily understood.
| | 00:24 | I'll demonstrate some approaches and then
you'll get the chance to do it yourself.
| | 00:29 | I designed this course to be accessible to
everyone at all levels of audio experience,
| | 00:35 | but rest assured, if you're new to this
you will not be left behind, and if you have
| | 00:40 | some experience, I'm confident you'll see
in here some new ways to think about reverb.
| | 00:46 | All viewers will find it quite helpful to have some
basic working knowledge of a digital audio workstation.
| | 00:53 | If you need a refresher on the basics of
digital audio recording, mixing, and signal flow,
| | 00:58 | you may want to check out the essential
training course appropriate for your digital audio
| | 01:02 | workstation in the lynda.com
online training library.
| | 01:06 | reverb processing spans the gamut, from
blatantly unmissable, to very nearly inaudible, and
| | 01:12 | all applications of reverb are made more
meaningful when you have the chance to listen carefully
| | 01:17 | to low-level information in the audio signal.
| | 01:21 | So you'll get more out of this course if you
listen to the many audio examples on the most
| | 01:25 | revealing, highest-quality
system you have access to.
| | 01:29 | Ideally, you'll experience this course on
a computer in a recording studio, hooked up
| | 01:35 | to a great monitoring system,
in a carefully designed room.
| | 01:39 | If not, consider connecting the audio outs of
your computer to a good home stereo for listening.
| | 01:45 | If headphones are your best option, that's
okay just try to get your hands on a great set.
| | 01:51 | Monitoring on laptop speakers or listening
via the built-in speaker on your mobile device
| | 01:56 | simply won't give you the chance to hear the
full beauty, capability, and creative possibilities
| | 02:01 | for the effects we demonstrate.
| | 02:03 | Sure, you can listen to my voice on any
old system, but when it comes time for audio,
| | 02:09 | hook up to the best system you have available,
you'll learn the concepts discussed here more
| | 02:13 | quickly, your mixes will be better for it.
Okay, let's get started.
| | 02:18 |
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| Songs you should listen to while watching this course| 00:01 | This course is rich with audio examples,
clarifying animations, DAW project files, and actual
| | 00:07 | recording sessions, all part of an experience
that I hope you'll find informative and fun.
| | 00:13 | But the best classroom for studying
reverberation is your favorite music.
| | 00:19 | Professionally produced records by the top
talent in our field are rich with sonic examples
| | 00:24 | of the very reverb effects we need to master.
We must listen and learn from them.
| | 00:29 | I keep a reverb listening list at the website,
recordingology.com. Just click your way to
| | 00:35 | the reverb section to see some of the
most iconic examples of reverb effects.
| | 00:41 | The list reflects my research and includes
contributions from many others in our field.
| | 00:45 | I invite you to add to the list.
| | 00:48 | You might notice that many of the
recordings are a bit old, from the 90s and before.
| | 00:54 | There are two reasons for this.
| | 00:55 | First, I believe it's difficult to know the
historic significance of a recording--even
| | 01:00 | a favorite recording--if it's
less than about 20 years old.
| | 01:05 | Classic iconic status is earned by a recording
in part by proving itself relevant for decades.
| | 01:12 | We all have music we absolutely loved three to five
years ago that isn't so interesting to us anymore.
| | 01:18 | We listen to music from before we
were born that still inspires us.
| | 01:23 | To separate the bad fads from the real deal,
the listening list is tilted towards the past.
| | 01:29 | The second reason the list favors older recordings is
because simpler times created more revealing recordings.
| | 01:36 | Before the Digital Audio Workstation--which
is to say before the mid-90s--when the DAW
| | 01:41 | finally became a professional grade
production platform, track count was far more limited.
| | 01:47 | 24 tracks was nearly the peak and the days of 16,
8, 4-track stereo and mono aren't so long ago.
| | 01:55 | Today's track count
regularly exceeds 100 tracks.
| | 01:59 | Those days of fewer tracks gave us mixes where
different effects were more exposed, presented
| | 02:04 | with less distraction and
competition from the other tracks.
| | 02:07 | That makes it easier to hear what's going on.
| | 02:10 | The same mix moves happen in today's
productions, it's just a lot harder to hear it, break it
| | 02:15 | down, and figure out how to do it.
| | 02:17 | So allow yourself to like the older music
and give yourself the chance to learn from it.
| | 02:22 | Read through the listening list, spin the
tunes you already own, consider picking up
| | 02:27 | some of the others, and give them a
listen while you experience this course.
| | 02:31 | The songs make great study breaks and they
can serve as a kind of soundtrack to the course.
| | 02:37 | Hearing the real world realizations of the
reverb effects we study here will accelerate
| | 02:42 | your understanding and
raise the quality of your mixes.
| | 02:47 |
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a Premium Member of the lynda.com
online training library, or if you're watching
| | 00:05 | this tutorial on DVD-ROM, you also have access
to the raw audio material used to create this
| | 00:11 | exercise content, as well as all other
audio examples featured throughout the course.
| | 00:16 | Inside the exercise files folder you'll find
a folder for each chapter containing the WAV
| | 00:21 | files used throughout the course.
| | 00:24 | These files can be imported into your own digital audio
workstation and used to follow along with the material.
| | 00:30 | If you're a monthly member or annual member
of lynda.com, you don't have access to the
| | 00:34 | raw audio files, but you can follow
along from scratch with your own assets.
| | 00:40 | For members at all subscription levels,
I've provided you exercise content in the form
| | 00:44 | of Get in the Mix demonstration
sessions that you can open up in your own DAW.
| | 00:49 | Watch the video about the Get in the Mix content
to learn more about this unique learning experience.
| | 00:54 |
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| Using the Get in the Mix session files| 00:01 | This course features Get in the Mix
exercise content, actual multi-track projects with
| | 00:06 | built-in demonstrations, and practice material
for you to use on your own, using your preferred
| | 00:11 | Digital Audio Workstation or DAW.
| | 00:14 | Using your DAW's video track capabilities I
will guide you through automated audio examples
| | 00:19 | demonstrating a number of the concepts and
techniques discussed in this course, and all
| | 00:24 | you need to do is press Play.
| | 00:26 | Since the files are actual native high fidelity
project files, purpose built for your specific
| | 00:32 | DAW, you can manipulate the audio examples
yourself, so feel free to pause, rewind, repeat,
| | 00:38 | and zoom in on sections during the
demonstrations to solidify and expand your knowledge.
| | 00:44 | Get in the Mix project files also feature
additional practice tracks, so you can explore
| | 00:49 | the techniques you just learned on your own.
| | 00:52 | These tracks are labeled practice and their content
is located at the end of the demonstration material.
| | 00:58 | Before using Get in the Mix content, you must
first download the package prepared for your
| | 01:02 | specific DAW from this courses page in
the lynda.com online training library.
| | 01:08 | Inside this package you'll
find the Get in the Mix files.
| | 01:12 | Throughout the course I'll direct you
to open these files when appropriate.
| | 01:16 | If you're viewing this course on DVD, the
Get in the Mix files are included on the disk.
| | 01:21 | Unlike Premium exercise content, Get in the Mix
content is available to all lynda.com subscribers.
| | 01:27 | If you are a Premium subscriber, you also
have access to the raw audio material used
| | 01:32 | to create the exercise content, as well as all other
audio examples featured throughout the course.
| | 01:38 | So download that content package and Get
in the Mix with Foundations of Audio: reverb.
| | 01:43 |
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1. Understanding ReverberationWhat is reverb?| 00:01 | Maybe you are like me, and when you step into
a stone cathedral or concrete parking garage,
| | 00:05 | you clap your hands to trigger and savor that
wash of sound known as reverberation or reverb.
| | 00:12 | When a sound occurs in a room, we hear the
direct sound, plus the sound of the room,
| | 00:17 | which is made up of the reflections of the
sound from all the surfaces in that room.
| | 00:21 | We call the combined sound of
those many reflections reverb.
| | 00:26 | Let me show you how it works and why we use it.
| | 00:29 | The sound of the room, that reverberant
wash of sound is very much made up of the many
| | 00:34 | individual reflections
created by the room's architecture.
| | 00:38 | Those reflections arrive at our ears
slightly later than the direct sound, but they merge
| | 00:43 | together to produce a single continuous sound.
| | 00:47 | Essentially, when multiple sounds of similar
level are happening within about 20 milliseconds
| | 00:51 | of each other, we can't pick any of them out as
individual sounds, instead we hear the combined whole.
| | 00:59 | In Foundations of Audio: Delay and Modulation we demonstrated
how long delay times create echo-based effects.
| | 01:06 | The delay time is long enough that we hear the
delayed sound as a separate event from the direct sound.
| | 01:12 | This is not what is happening with reverb.
| | 01:15 | Medium and short delay times are used
to create chorus and flanging effects.
| | 01:19 | These effects add several delayed signals
into the original signal, creating a single
| | 01:24 | sound with a new sonic quality built on the
interaction between the sounds within this tight time window.
| | 01:32 | reverb takes this to a whole another level,
presenting our ears with countless delayed
| | 01:36 | reflections arriving one after
another with microseconds in between.
| | 01:41 | They unite into a single sound.
| | 01:44 | The point here is that when our
musicians play, they fill the space.
| | 01:48 | They acoustically illuminate
every visible surface in the room.
| | 01:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:57 | Sound spreads out as it travels, distributing its
energy over a larger and larger area as it propagates.
| | 02:04 | And the energy of the sound wave is
gradually absorbed by the air in the room and by the
| | 02:08 | materials in the surfaces that bound that room.
| | 02:11 | The result is that the sound
grows fainter and fainter over time.
| | 02:16 | So in any space we hear the sound, plus reverb,
and it's always direct sound first, followed
| | 02:21 | by the reverberant wash of
energy as it decays to silence.
| | 02:25 | (music playing)
| | 02:30 |
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| Why do we use reverb?| 00:00 | When we record we can choose to place our
microphones, musicians, and their instruments
| | 00:05 | in environments that have a unique sounding reverberation
or in an environment with very little reverb at all.
| | 00:12 | When you're working in a live room, which
is how we describe rooms that have naturally
| | 00:16 | occurring ambience and reverberation,
you're going to want to capture the sound of the
| | 00:19 | room using a separate microphone.
| | 00:22 | Have a listen to the sound of a close-miked
acoustic guitar in a live room with the sound
| | 00:27 | of this room mike added to the mix.
(music playing)
| | 00:49 | The ambient room contributes to the sound by
adding a bit of shimmer and glow, particularly
| | 00:54 | to the more articulated
notes in David's performance.
| | 00:58 | While recording the unique reverberant quality
of our space can lead to amazing tracks, most
| | 01:02 | of the time we record with little to no natural reverb,
and add artificial reverb later as a separate effect.
| | 01:10 | Here is the sound of the same guitar in a
sound booth, acoustically designed to have
| | 01:14 | very little reverb.
| | 01:17 | (music playing)
| | 01:35 | And now I'll add the reverb.
| | 01:38 | (music playing)
| | 01:56 | There are a few reasons for
recording our tracks with very little reverb.
| | 02:00 | The first has to do with our
desire for isolation among our tracks.
| | 02:04 | Musicians need and like to record together
in the same space to hear each other as they
| | 02:09 | play, but there's some pressure on us as
engineers to record tracks in isolation, so the sound
| | 02:15 | from one instrument doesn't leak
into another player's microphone.
| | 02:19 | We like to manipulate each track giving
them their own distinct effects as we mix.
| | 02:25 | Working in studios that are highly sound
absorptive helps us reduce the so-called leakage.
| | 02:30 | To further that goal we often push the
microphones in closer to their targeted instrument.
| | 02:36 | Another reason our tracks often have no
reverb stems from this close microphone placement.
| | 02:41 | Getting in close enables us to capture
vivid timbres, and that larger than life quality
| | 02:46 | that we've come to expect in sound recordings.
| | 02:49 | Lastly, we don't always know what type of
reverb we'll want on the day we track it.
| | 02:54 | We record it dry so that we can add the
perfect reverb effect later when we have a better
| | 02:59 | sense of the full arrangement and can make the
reverb decisions in the context of the entire mix.
| | 03:05 | All of these forces then conspire to make
us record most of our tracks with little to
| | 03:10 | no natural reverberation we add it in later.
| | 03:13 | In pop music we typically gather sounds with
a microphone up close and personal for maybe
| | 03:19 | 6-8 inches away, to as close as--well as close as we
can get without damaging the microphone or the instrument.
| | 03:26 | This isn't necessarily the case for
classical and some jazz techniques in which we often
| | 03:30 | place the microphones some distance away from
the orchestra or band, simultaneously recording
| | 03:35 | the sound of all the players,
plus the sound of the room.
| | 03:39 | Most of us will likely be doing multi-track
production in the studio and not recording
| | 03:43 | orchestras in concert halls, so recording
with close mikes on individual tracks and
| | 03:49 | adding reverb to them later
will be our standard practice.
| | 03:53 | reverb processing in the studio releases us
from the constraints of real room acoustics
| | 03:58 | and frees us to explore so many options,
realistic, surrealistic, more beautiful, more bizarre,
| | 04:05 | we explore all the options in this course.
| | 04:10 |
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2. Technologies for Creating ReverbCapturing reverb acoustically through room tracks| 00:01 | It's important to understand the tools
and technologies we use for creating reverb.
| | 00:06 | There are many of them so we break them down into
three families, acoustic, mechanical, and digital.
| | 00:13 | As the very idea of reverberation is
born from room acoustics, we'll start there.
| | 00:18 | Allow me to hit you with a bit of math.
| | 00:20 | Here is Sabine's Equation for Reverb Time,
which applies to all large sonically diffuse spaces.
| | 00:27 | This equation quantifies how long it takes the
room to decay to silence, or more specifically,
| | 00:34 | how long it takes the level to fall by 60 dB,
a significant reduction in amplitude and
| | 00:40 | a decent proxy for silence.
| | 00:42 | Let's listen to a snare
drum with 3 seconds of decay.
| | 00:48 | (music playing)
| | 00:52 | The Reverb Time is this constant, 0.05, times
the cubic volume of the room, divided by the
| | 00:58 | total sound absorptivity in the room.
| | 01:01 | So we have two principal acoustic
properties that we can adjust to drive Reverb Time.
| | 01:07 | For a longer Reverb Time, we can work the top of
this equation and seek out a larger room volume.
| | 01:13 | Big spaces are typically more
reverberant than smaller ones.
| | 01:18 | We can also work the bottom of this
equation and make our space less sound absorptive.
| | 01:23 | Removing sound absorptive materials or adding
the opposite sound reflective structures will
| | 01:28 | also stretch the Reverb Time.
| | 01:32 | Concert halls for classical music are
consistently large spaces, some 50 feet wide or more, over
| | 01:37 | 100 feet long, and with a ceiling
height of several stories above the floor.
| | 01:42 | They're constructed entirely of
materials that reflect rather than absorb sound.
| | 01:47 | In fact, only two types of sound
absorption are found in a typical concert hall.
| | 01:52 | The first is the air.
| | 01:54 | Air absorbs sounds, however slightly, but it's
hard to sell tickets to halls that have no air.
| | 02:00 | The second absorber--
speaking of tickets--is the audience.
| | 02:03 | So people and air are the
necessary absorbers in a concert hall.
| | 02:07 | The rest of the materials are stone, plaster,
concrete, wood, steel, glass, and other similar
| | 02:15 | hard nonporous materials
offering high sound reflectivity.
| | 02:20 | Sound is reflected off these materials like
light is reflected off of a white wall or a mirror.
| | 02:26 | You won't find many sound absorptive
materials such as carpets, curtains, and glass fiber
| | 02:31 | panels in most concert halls, though they can
tame the acoustics of the lobby and the stairs.
| | 02:36 | When classical music is the goal for the space,
the architecture also includes bumpy stuff
| | 02:41 | on the walls and on the
ceiling that help diffuse the sound.
| | 02:45 | Sound is preserved, sustained, and
scattered for a beautiful reverb quality.
| | 02:51 | (music playing)
| | 02:55 | In pop recording, large reverberant spaces
typical of classical music are the exception
| | 02:59 | rather than the norm.
| | 03:01 | In the studio we usually work in smallish
rooms, with a tight acoustic quality that
| | 03:06 | deliberately absorbs much of
the sound energy in the room.
| | 03:10 | (music playing)
There are a few exceptions.
| | 03:14 | If you happen to be working in a large room
that's say big enough to park three or four
| | 03:19 | cars, with more than a story in ceiling
height, then you might be working in a room whose
| | 03:23 | acoustic qualities are worth capturing.
| | 03:26 | When you're lucky enough to be recording in
one of those grand studios whose great acoustics
| | 03:31 | suite your tracks, plan to record the room.
| | 03:34 | The typical approach these days is to still
use close microphones on your instruments,
| | 03:39 | getting all the benefits of close miking craft, but to
augment those tracks with other more distant microphones.
| | 03:46 | Send these faraway microphones to their
own tracks, label these tracks room, and plan
| | 03:50 | to mix them in with your
close-miked tracks later.
| | 03:54 | Most of the biggest recording studios still
aren't quite as reverberant as a concert hall.
| | 03:59 | We utilize studio room tracks less for the
long decay and more for the early part of
| | 04:04 | the signal, when the sound is bouncing off
all of the carefully designed sound reflectors
| | 04:09 | and diffusers in the room.
| | 04:11 | The best studio room tracks possess wonderfully
complex, ear pleasing, early reflections that
| | 04:17 | add excitement, energy, and
size to the tracks in our mix.
| | 04:22 | While our Digital reverb Effects Units can
also synthesize an approximation of these
| | 04:26 | spaces with their early reflections,
there's nothing like the real thing.
| | 04:30 | Attentive listeners will hear the difference.
| | 04:33 | In fact, medium and smaller studio spaces are
often carefully designed with sound diffusive
| | 04:38 | treatments offering up reflected energy that
complements the audio, even though they aren't
| | 04:43 | large enough spaces to ring on
like a cathedral or an opera house.
| | 04:48 | So when you notice you're in a great
sounding room, it may not be because of the obvious
| | 04:52 | long wash of reverb.
Studio spaces often have very short decay times.
| | 04:58 | Instead, listen for early reflections
that are enhancing the sounds you hear.
| | 05:03 | In those cases you should mike up the room,
capture that natural acoustic liveness, and
| | 05:08 | take advantage of the many signal
processing capabilities that they offer, and which we
| | 05:13 | cover in the movie, Getting the most
out of Room Tracks later in this course.
| | 05:18 | Natural acoustic reverb makes it into our
production through room tracks whenever we
| | 05:22 | get the chance to work in a great sounding room.
| | 05:25 | And there's another acoustic signal processor we can use
in our projects, the reverb Chamber, which we discuss next.
| | 05:36 |
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| Creating reverb acoustically through a reverb chamber| 00:01 | Room tracks aren't the only way real rooms
contribute reverberation to our studio recordings,
| | 00:06 | we can also use a reverb Chamber.
| | 00:09 | Recall from Sabine's Equation for reverb
time that the Reverb Time increases as the cubic
| | 00:14 | volume, the three-dimensional
size of the room is increased.
| | 00:19 | But this doesn't mean that a
small volume can't reverberate.
| | 00:22 | Small spaces can still offer long reverb times as
long as they have little to no sound absorption.
| | 00:29 | Small sound reflective spaces dedicated to the purpose of
creating reverberation are called reverb Chambers.
| | 00:36 | The focus on sound
reflectivity narrows our options.
| | 00:40 | Most residential construction is sheetrock,
which isn't a full bandwidth reflector.
| | 00:45 | That is sheetrock doesn't reflect all
frequencies evenly, but concrete, stone, tile, these are
| | 00:52 | reflective materials
begging to make some reverb.
| | 00:56 | This suggests we should consider bathrooms
and basements, maybe a garage, or even the
| | 01:00 | kitchen as potentially valid
spaces for creating a reverb Chamber.
| | 01:06 | Here is the sound of a snare
drum using a bathroom as a chamber.
| | 01:10 | (music playing)
| | 01:11 | I know things are starting to sound a
little homemade as I suggest you generate reverb
| | 01:16 | for your mix from a kitchen, a basement, or
a bathroom, but the history of recorded music
| | 01:21 | is rich with examples of doing exactly this.
| | 01:25 | The old grand studios in New York and Los Angeles
often used bathrooms, basements, and attics as chambers.
| | 01:32 | Old-school, high-end recording studios, with
their carefully designed live rooms and control
| | 01:37 | rooms, made reverb Chambers out
of any other odd space available.
| | 01:42 | You've heard it in music recordings that you've
listened to from the '50s and well into the '80s.
| | 01:47 | The short bright glow on vocals from the early
Beatles recordings comes courtesy of a storage closet.
| | 01:53 | That bright shimmer on so many
Motown recordings was created in an attic.
| | 01:58 | Listen to the vocal reverb on Frank Sinatra
and Tony Bennett, and you're hearing glorious
| | 02:02 | all-analog chamber reverb.
| | 02:05 | Seek out recordings from studios such as Abbey
Road, Columbia Studios, A&R, The Power Station,
| | 02:12 | Avatar, United Western, Gold Star, Motown,
and Capitol Studios, to name just a few.
| | 02:20 | Some of the most important recordings in
the history of recorded music came from these
| | 02:24 | studios, and their chambers were
a featured part of their sound.
| | 02:28 | If reverb chambers are good enough for
them, I think they're good enough for us.
| | 02:33 | We need to choose a space that's sound
reflective, and that's quiet enough to do this work.
| | 02:38 | We put a loudspeaker in this space to energize
the chamber and a pair of microphones or more
| | 02:42 | in the space to capture the chamber.
| | 02:45 | In this way your found space becomes a
source of reverb for your multi-track recordings.
| | 02:50 |
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| Creating reverb mechanically using springs and plates| 00:01 | Acoustic reverb for studio recording comes
in the form of carefully designed and cleverly
| | 00:06 | captured room tracks and reverb Chambers.
| | 00:09 | The next class of Reverbs are those that use some
sort of mechanical system to create a useful resonance.
| | 00:16 | Mechanical reverb today comes
in two forms, springs and plates.
| | 00:21 | Spring Reverbs are made of, well just that,
springs, usually a network of interconnected springs.
| | 00:27 | A spring vibrates in a fairly simple way.
| | 00:30 | Give it a shake and the vibration zips back and
forth from end to end along the length of the spring.
| | 00:37 | Multi-spring Reverbs make a mechanical
connection between springs to trigger several interactive
| | 00:42 | resonances among those springs.
| | 00:45 | Let your audio drive the springs into action,
pick up the subsequent vibration, and you've
| | 00:50 | now tapped into the mechanical resonance of the
springs as a kind of analogy for acoustic reverb.
| | 00:57 | The sustained vibration of the springs proves
useful in audio as a specific flavor of reverberation.
| | 01:02 | It never sounds exactly like a room, but it
certainly has a unique and interesting quality.
| | 01:10 | Spring reverb, because it's light and portable and quite
affordable is common in many old organs and guitar amps.
| | 01:17 | Partly for the convenience, but also
because of its characteristic sound, spring reverb
| | 01:22 | remains an essential part of guitar tone.
| | 01:25 | It's a defining element of surf music and
guitar-based blues, but it is by no means
| | 01:30 | limited to guitar alone.
Let's hear a quick example.
| | 01:34 | First, the electric
guitar without spring reverb.
| | 01:38 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | Now let's hear it with some
of the amps spring reverb.
| | 01:53 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | As you'll see later in this course, spring reverb
is a great way to modify the timbre of an instrument.
| | 02:10 | While it may not evoke the sense of a
concert hall or a nice sounding room, it does offer
| | 02:14 | a quality of resonance
that's desirable on many tracks.
| | 02:19 | Plate Reverbs offer an increase in
sonic complexity over spring Reverbs.
| | 02:24 | Where springs vibrate in a relatively simple
one-dimensional way from end to end, a plate
| | 02:29 | reverb, made up of a large plate of metal,
will vibrate in a more two-dimensional way,
| | 02:34 | down the length and across
the width of the sheet of steel.
| | 02:38 | An audio signal feeds a driver, which is
connected directly to the plate, causing it to vibrate.
| | 02:44 | Imagine a two-dimensional room, a room
with length and width, but no height.
| | 02:50 | As with springs, plate resonance doesn't
actually sound that much like a real room.
| | 02:55 | Here's a snare head, first dry,
then through a plate reverb.
| | 03:00 | (music playing)
| | 03:15 | With experience you'll learn to identify the
strong upper mid frequency decay characteristics
| | 03:20 | of good plates and how they sound quite
different from springs, rooms, and halls.
| | 03:27 | Plate Reverbs haven't been
made commercially in decades.
| | 03:29 | The vintage units are highly sought after,
expensive, and frankly, they're quite heavy.
| | 03:35 | So it's quite common use convolution reverb to
accurately get the sound of an actual plate into your mix.
| | 03:41 | We cover convolution in a movie later in this chapter,
but we use it here to add plate to the snare head.
| | 03:48 | Listen carefully for the textured resonant
decay as I gradually add plate to the snare
| | 03:53 | drum while David plays time on a drum kit,
where we've placed kick, snare, and a pair
| | 03:58 | of overhead microphones.
(music playing)
| | 04:21 | The presence of reverb is unmistakable, but
notice also that it doesn't sound anything
| | 04:26 | like a concert hall or cathedral.
| | 04:29 | Like springs, plates are desired for the
distinct sonic coloration that we used to modify the
| | 04:34 | timbre of the instrument's synth.
| | 04:37 | Springs and plates are mechanical systems
that offer their own unique strongly flavored
| | 04:41 | sort of resonance, and while their
mechanical technology is hardly cutting edge--digital
| | 04:47 | is the thing these days--
their sound is still relevant.
| | 04:51 | They're so important to music recording still
that digital Reverbs of today often have presets
| | 04:56 | that emulate these
mechanical Reverbs of the past.
| | 05:00 | You'll see that plates and springs are used often
in the audio examples throughout this course.
| | 05:05 | We study digital Reverbs next.
| | 05:10 |
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| Creating reverb digitally via algorithms and convolution| 00:00 | There are so many different
methods used for creating Studio reverb.
| | 00:05 | Room tracks and chambers are acoustic sources
of reverb, springs and plates give us reverb
| | 00:09 | mechanically, but we're not
done, there are digital ways too.
| | 00:14 | Digital reverbs come in two forms,
algorithmic reverb, which is the type of reverb plug-in
| | 00:19 | in your DAW. And convolution, which takes
advantage of the ever-growing power of CPUs to bring
| | 00:25 | us another form of digital reverb.
| | 00:28 | You'll hear examples of these types
of reverbs throughout this course.
| | 00:31 | We'll take them in order, in an earlier
movie we saw how reverb comes from countless room
| | 00:36 | reflections that follow
any sound made in a room.
| | 00:40 | In fact, those reflections that make up reverberation
could be created in your DAW using a bunch of delays.
| | 00:47 | One of the first digital reverbs ever was
created in 1962 by a clever chap named Manfred
| | 00:53 | Schroeter working at Bell
Labs and he used just six delays.
| | 00:58 | Today's digital reverbs of
course use many, many more.
| | 01:02 | Algorithmic digital reverbs are
simply tricked out digital delay lines.
| | 01:06 | The high-end outboard digital reverbs from
Bert Caskey, Lexicon, TC Electronic, and Yamaha
| | 01:12 | use algorithms consisting of very elaborate networks of
interconnected, re-circulating, modulating, and filter delays.
| | 01:20 | Many, many different digital delays are
combined--intertwined really--so that the sound that
| | 01:26 | goes in is sustained and repeated in a richly
complex pattern, very much inspired by room acoustics.
| | 01:34 | What a Concert Hall does with countless
reflecting surfaces and algorithmic reverb can do with
| | 01:39 | a large, but finite number of delay lines.
| | 01:42 | The number of delays within the delay time
settings of each, the way they're connected
| | 01:47 | to each other feeding back and feeding forward
with their delay times modulated, their phase
| | 01:52 | shifted, their spectral content manipulated,
built of process delays, multiple process
| | 01:58 | delays and algorithmic reverb is a complex
digital system that resonates, the signal
| | 02:04 | goes in and lingers and fades.
| | 02:08 | The sound quality of this kind of digital
reverb depends very much on the skills of
| | 02:12 | the engineers who design and write the code
and seems to be directly proportional to the
| | 02:17 | digital algorithms complexity.
| | 02:20 | So these reverbs are greedy users of
hardware needed to do all the calculations.
| | 02:25 | Outboard digital reverbs have
hardware dedicated to the task.
| | 02:28 | Plug-in reverbs, especially the best
sounding plug-ins, will gobble up a significant share
| | 02:33 | of your DAW's system resources.
| | 02:36 | There are great sounding plug in reverbs for
sure, but you'll do well to have a very fast
| | 02:41 | multi-core CPU with quite a
big chunk of RAM to handle them.
| | 02:45 | Memory and calculation intense, algorithmic
reverb is one of the most important places
| | 02:50 | to consider reaching for
a dedicated outboard unit.
| | 02:55 | Convolution offers an alternative
digital approach to the algorithmic reverb.
| | 02:59 | This curious word convolution simply refers
to a very specific mathematical operation.
| | 03:05 | Leveraging that kind of math lets us take
the impulse response of a room and apply it
| | 03:09 | to any audio track we have.
| | 03:12 | Again, as reverb is in essence that almost
indescribable, complicated, organic pattern
| | 03:18 | of decaying reflections from all the room
surfaces, all we need is a way to find the
| | 03:23 | necessary pattern of delays
and apply them to our audio.
| | 03:27 | This is done by sending an impulse into
the room, a simple single instantaneous spike
| | 03:32 | of energy, a perfect click, and recording
the resulting pattern of spikes that follow.
| | 03:39 | This recorded response of the reverberant
room as it reacts to a simple spike gives
| | 03:43 | us all the data we need to apply the room's
response to any other signal, your vocal track,
| | 03:49 | your snare, your ukulele.
| | 03:53 | Convolution reverb is driven then by a
library of impulse responses, those recordings of
| | 03:57 | how space is reacted to an impulse.
| | 04:00 | The impulse response might be a hall in Japan, while
your track is a close miked vocal from your bedroom.
| | 04:07 | Convolve your vocal track with this impulse
response and your listeners will hear your
| | 04:11 | vocalist sonically transported to
a space you may never have been.
| | 04:16 | Convolution is a relatively new tool in audio,
not because the idea is new, it isn't, but
| | 04:21 | because it's very computationally intense.
| | 04:25 | Convolution didn't really become viable in the
studio environment until CPUs became multi-core,
| | 04:31 | clock speed broke through the gigahertz range,
and RAM started being sold by the gigabyte.
| | 04:36 | We're lucky to be alive in audio today,
because such capability is readily available.
| | 04:42 | Convolution joins algorithmic to give all of us two
very powerful choices for creating studio reverb digitally.
| | 04:53 |
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| Optimizing signal flow, effects loops, and CPU resources| 00:00 | When using any type of effect like reverb, there
are two ways to add the effect on to the track.
| | 00:05 | You can insert a plug-in or outboard unit
on each and every track that needs it, or
| | 00:10 | you can setup an Effects Loop that makes that
reverb accessible by any and all tracks in your project.
| | 00:16 | When using reverb, the preferred choice is
almost always the Effects Loop, for three reasons.
| | 00:22 | One, similar reverb effects are often used
on multiple tracks, that is you'll often want
| | 00:27 | to put several tracks in a mix
into the same sounding space.
| | 00:31 | This can help glue your mix
together making it more cohesive.
| | 00:35 | Second, reverb effects can eat up a lot of
computer processing resources, so utilizing
| | 00:41 | one reverb effect for multiple tracks instead
of dedicating one to each track is much less
| | 00:46 | taxing on your computer.
| | 00:48 | Third, effects loops help with workflow
efficiency when mixing, you can be more creative and
| | 00:54 | more productive when you have several
reverb choices ready at your fingertips.
| | 00:59 | Now let's setup a reverb effects loop on a
vocal track, so you can see how this works.
| | 01:05 | The vocal track is routed to the main Outputs
this is called the Dry or Unaffected Signal.
| | 01:10 | There's no reverb on this track.
Here's what the dry vocal sounds like.
| | 01:15 | (music playing)
Then we create a Send on the vocal track.
| | 01:29 | This Send taps into the vocal track makes a
copy of it and routes the copy with adjustable
| | 01:34 | level to another track.
| | 01:36 | In this case, the signal is routed to an
AUX input that has a reverb effect on it.
| | 01:41 | This is often called the Effects Return,
because it returns the output of the reverb back into
| | 01:45 | the mix in parallel with the original dry track.
The effected signal is said to be wet.
| | 01:52 | Here's what the completely wet track sounds
like it's the source track totally awash in reverb.
| | 01:58 | (music playing)
| | 02:09 | With the unprocessed track on one fader and
the reverb return on another, we can mix the
| | 02:14 | dry and wet signals together to taste.
| | 02:17 | Turn up the return to add more
effect to the mix, turn it down for less.
| | 02:22 | (music playing)
| | 02:34 | reverb affects devices and plug-ins almost
always give you control over the amount of
| | 02:37 | dry signal and the amount of
wet signal at their output.
| | 02:41 | Using either a single Wet/Dry Mix control
or two individual faders, one controlling
| | 02:46 | the dry level, the other the wet level.
| | 02:49 | The Wet/Dry Mix describes the relative
level of effects, versus unprocessed sound where
| | 02:54 | 100% means it's all reverb with no dry signal.
| | 02:58 | While 0% means it's all dry
source signal with no reverb at all.
| | 03:04 | The standard practice is to set the internal
Wet/Dry Mix parameter to 100% wet, when using
| | 03:10 | reverb on an AUX input in an effects loop.
| | 03:13 | That is the signal will be 100% wet when
it comes out of the reverb processor, that's
| | 03:18 | what we heard in the previous
audio example on the wet track.
| | 03:21 | Keeping the dry and wet signals
separate makes the mixing easier.
| | 03:25 | At the dry fader you control the
clarity of the track in the mix.
| | 03:28 | With the wet fader you independently
control the amount of reverb added to the mix.
| | 03:33 | With this effects loop setup, we can use
an effect Send to add the same reverb to any
| | 03:38 | and all tracks in our mix.
| | 03:40 | For example, maybe the snare drum would sound
great with the same reverb that's on the vocal
| | 03:44 | track just create a Send on the snare track,
route it to the same reverb Return, adjust the
| | 03:50 | Send level of the snare
track, and you're good to go.
| | 03:53 | It's an elegant setup, but one that can
take some time to get your head around.
| | 03:57 | In fact, if you're just learning about this
topic, and you like to see detailed instructions
| | 04:01 | on how to setup an effects loop in your
particular DAW, check out the Essential Training Course
| | 04:06 | for your DAW in the lynda library.
| | 04:09 | Here's an example in Pro Tools where
I've got three reverb return tracks.
| | 04:14 | One with a whole reverb, one with a plate
reverb, and one with a convolution reverb.
| | 04:19 | All tracks have Sends setup so that I can
route any of the dry signals to any of the
| | 04:23 | reverb effects, simply by
turning up the Send level.
| | 04:27 | Here's that same setup in Logic Pro.
| | 04:31 | Setting these reverb effects loop up before
you start a mix, means that the most important
| | 04:35 | moments of your mix session, those moments
when you need to solve a tricky problem or
| | 04:40 | create a whole new sound, those
moments can happen without distraction.
| | 04:45 | The DAW will let you hook up a reverb anyway you
want using a Send/Return Effects Loop or an Insert.
| | 04:50 | So I just want to emphasize that while an
Insert is quick and easy and seems fine at
| | 04:55 | first, it's really not the
right way to add reverb effects.
| | 04:59 | Using an Insert instead of an effects loop,
robs you of the chance to share a reverb among
| | 05:03 | multiple tracks, which in turn slows you down
when you really get into your mix and perhaps
| | 05:09 | most importantly, it wastes precious computing
power that will limit you elsewhere in your mix.
| | 05:15 | The Send/Return Effects
Loop is the smarter way to go.
| | 05:18 | You and I, making multitrack recordings have
so many choices and so much control over reverb,
| | 05:25 | we can take our mix to any space in the world.
| | 05:28 | We have the creative freedom to use
acoustic, mechanical, or digital reverbs.
| | 05:32 | We get to view it as an added instrument, we
can compose it into the recording, there're
| | 05:37 | mainly opportunities and few limits.
| | 05:41 | For instance, the drums could live in a
medium room, while the vocal could sound as if it's
| | 05:44 | in an empty oil tanker.
| | 05:46 | We don't make one reverb decision, we make many
dozens of reverb decisions, all for a single tune.
| | 05:53 | To make sense of it, we need to break the vague concept
of reverb into some knowable, measurable qualities.
| | 06:00 | Throughout the next chapter, we'll dig into
the essential properties and parameters of
| | 06:04 | reverb that we can manipulate in
order to tailor reverb to our production.
| | 06:09 |
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|
|
3. Key Parameters and Reference ValuesThe anatomy of reverberation| 00:01 | At first, I think we all have a
pretty intuitive reaction to reverb.
| | 00:05 | The unique reverberant signatures of concert
halls and cathedrals, stadiums and stairwells,
| | 00:10 | are noticed by almost everyone,
not just audio enthusiasts like us.
| | 00:15 | Kids clap in caves, sing in showers,
holler in halls, and shout at subway stops.
| | 00:22 | This intuitive flirtation with reverb is very
much driven by the unmissable sonic reaction
| | 00:28 | of the space to the sounds we make.
| | 00:31 | While a child plays with reverb without
much thought, making musical use of the effect
| | 00:35 | is the much more daunting challenge
presented to us every time we record.
| | 00:41 | It's a tough concept to truly master.
| | 00:43 | To describe reverb we need a set of
parameters, and we need to assign them some values.
| | 00:49 | But let me warn you ahead of time trying to
describe something as ornate and expressive
| | 00:53 | as reverb with just a few numbers is clumsy.
The numbers will never fully define a reverb.
| | 01:00 | Imagine trying to describe the sound of
your favorite piano, the tone of your favorite
| | 01:04 | vocal microphone, or the flavors in your
favorite fish taco, using numbers only.
| | 01:10 | In the end, our understanding of any given
reverb is always an aesthetic judgment, our
| | 01:15 | own individual artistic assessment.
| | 01:19 | Use the parameters as guides, but as
always listen carefully and be opinionated.
| | 01:25 | Go for what you like, never mind the details.
| | 01:28 | One way to gain insight into reverb is to look at how
it reacts to a specific test signal known as an impulse.
| | 01:35 | An impulse is the shortest of clicks, a simple
wave shape that snaps up and immediately snaps
| | 01:41 | back down to silence, short and simple.
| | 01:45 | Play an impulse in a room, record the result, and
you've captured the room's impulse response shown here.
| | 01:51 | It consists of three key
components, landmarks really.
| | 01:57 | First is the direct sound,
that's the original impulse itself.
| | 02:01 | This is followed by some visible spikes of
early energy which are known early reflections.
| | 02:07 | This in turn is followed by a
dense wash of decaying energy.
| | 02:10 | This is the much more complicated energy coming from
the later reflections in the room, this is the reverb tail.
| | 02:18 | Dividing your thinking into these building blocks can
help even as we play music tracks instead of impulses.
| | 02:24 | The direct sound is your original, likely
close to mic to track, the kick, the snare,
| | 02:30 | the vocal, the bass trombone.
It's the dry part of the mix.
| | 02:35 | As we had reverb to these tracks, we are
adding a complex kind of sustain that includes the
| | 02:39 | early reflections and the reverb tail.
| | 02:42 | We will sometimes focus on the properties of
the early reflections and other times focus
| | 02:47 | on the reverb tail, each has sound qualities we
need to get under control as we record and mix.
| | 02:54 | With these three components of reverb in mind,
we are ready to look at the most important
| | 02:58 | adjustable parameters in our reverb devices,
the knobs we turn, the buttons we press, and
| | 03:03 | the sliders we push, as
we add reverb to our music.
| | 03:08 |
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| Mastering reverb time, predelay, and wet/dry mix parameters| 00:01 | There's a long list of essential
parameters that you'll find on most reverbs.
| | 00:05 | Reverb Time, Pre-Delay, Wet/Dry
Mix, these are universal.
| | 00:10 | Most reverbs then offer some form of frequency-based
adjustability to the reverb, and there are
| | 00:15 | a handful of other parameters found only
on certain mix and models of reverb, such as
| | 00:20 | density, diffusion, and room size.
| | 00:23 | These parameters must be understood before
we can take on the high-level musical and
| | 00:28 | technical challenge of making
reverbs an asset in our mix.
| | 00:33 | Top of the list is reverb Time.
| | 00:35 | Reverb Time describes the duration
of the wash of reverberant energy.
| | 00:40 | The industry standard is to
use something called RT60.
| | 00:43 | RT60 measures the amount of time it
takes for the reverb to decay by 60 dB.
| | 00:50 | Let's compare a couple of Reverb Time
settings using this snare drum sound.
| | 00:55 | (music playing)
| | 00:57 | First, let's hear a long
Reverb Time like 2.5 seconds.
| | 01:03 | (music playing)
| | 01:06 | With the Reverb Time of 2.5 seconds, it takes about 2.5
seconds for the snare sound to decay to silence.
| | 01:14 | Now we will shorten the
Reverb Time from 2.5 to one second.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:21 | Clearly the reverb doesn't last as
long, the Reverb Time is shorter.
| | 01:26 | This is one of the most fundamental, defining characteristics
that you'll have to specify when you use reverb.
| | 01:33 | To my ear, the first example seems to have too
much reverb for most music that I can think of.
| | 01:39 | But was that short reverb enough?
| | 01:41 | We will forever be trying to balance too much reverb
versus too little reverb, and it's not easy to solve.
| | 01:48 | If you want more reverb, do you lengthen the
Reverb Time or do you simply raise the faders
| | 01:53 | and make the reverb louder?
| | 01:55 | If you want less reverb, do you achieve that by
shortening the Reverb Time or turning down the faders?
| | 02:01 | It seems so simple at first, but you will
find even this simple question, how much reverb,
| | 02:06 | is tricky to get right.
| | 02:08 | Expect at first to navigate a steep learning
curve, allow yourself to make some mistakes
| | 02:13 | with too much reverb here,
not enough reverb there.
| | 02:17 | We learn from these mistakes when we listen
carefully to our mix the next day, undistracted by the DAW.
| | 02:23 | Eventually I assure you,
you'll get it all under control.
| | 02:28 | Moving on to the next
parameter, we have Pre-Delay.
| | 02:32 | Pre-Delay is that gap in time between the
direct sound and the onset of the reverb tail.
| | 02:37 | You can specify a Pre-Delay as short as
zero milliseconds, which will effectively make
| | 02:41 | the reverb tail happen as soon as the sound
begins, or you can stretch it out to 10,
| | 02:47 | 20, or 30 milliseconds, which is more
typical of a real space like a concert hall.
| | 02:53 | Or you can lengthen it further still up to 50,
100, or 200 milliseconds or more to create
| | 02:58 | an unusual dramatic reverberation effect.
| | 03:02 | See if you can hear the effect as I take
the Pre-Delay on the reverb of this snare from
| | 03:06 | 0, to 20, to 120 milliseconds.
(music playing)
| | 03:44 | It's important to note, we haven't changed
the Reverb Time at all in this example, only
| | 03:49 | the Pre-Delay, only that brief window in time
between when the music happens and the reverb begins.
| | 03:55 | The sound quality that results
is complicated to sort through.
| | 03:59 | In later movies in this
course we will do exactly that.
| | 04:03 | We'll learn how reverb adjusted through Pre-Delay
can be used to fine-tune the timbre of the
| | 04:07 | snare, to create a more realistic spatial
quality around the snare, or to lead to a
| | 04:13 | more theatrical embellishment of the snare.
| | 04:16 | I should make quick mention of the
important parameter known as Wet/Dry Mix.
| | 04:21 | We talked a little bit about
this earlier in the course.
| | 04:25 | The Wet/Dry Mix is essentially the relative
level of the reverb or an output of your processor
| | 04:30 | that's the wet part compared to the
direct sound itself, the dry part.
| | 04:35 | Wet/Dry Mix parameters are provided on reverbs,
because sometimes the recording engineer puts
| | 04:40 | the reverb on an insert on an individual
track and needs to establish the relative level
| | 04:45 | of reverb versus dry signal in the reverb
processor itself, but most of the time we
| | 04:52 | get reverb into our mix using the far
more efficient Send/Return Effects Loop.
| | 04:57 | In this case we set the Wet/Dry Mix to 100% wet.
| | 05:01 | We actually mixed the wet reverb with the dry
tracks in the mixer, not in the plug-in or processor.
| | 05:08 | We have faders controlling the dry tracks,
and we've separate faders controlling the
| | 05:11 | level of the reverb returning to our mix.
| | 05:15 | As you'll see in the rest of this course, we
almost always use Send/Return Effects Loops,
| | 05:19 | so almost always leave
the Wet/Dry Mix at 100% wet.
| | 05:25 | reverb Time, Pre-Delay, and Wet/Dry
Mix are three essential parameters.
| | 05:30 | We also shape reverb in the
frequency domain, we cover that next.
| | 05:35 |
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| Understanding the frequency dependence of reverberation| 00:01 | So far, our discussions of Reverb Time have
been with full bandwidth signals, which is
| | 00:06 | to say we found the time it took for
the entire signal to decay by 60 decibels.
| | 00:12 | Reverb time, however, is rarely the
same at mid, low, and high frequencies.
| | 00:17 | So for instance, the reverb Time at 100 Hz
might be longer than the Reverb Time at a 1000 Hz.
| | 00:23 | The Reverb Time up high at
10,000 Hz might be shorter.
| | 00:26 | This is the frequency dependence of reverb.
| | 00:29 | We take the concept of reverb and divide it
up along the frequency axis to observe reverb
| | 00:34 | times from low to high.
| | 00:37 | Most physical spaces have decay time
that is highly dependent on frequency.
| | 00:42 | In fact, I've never heard a room that
decayed evenly across the entire audible band, so
| | 00:47 | knowing the decay time as a function
of frequency is a great goal. Or is it?
| | 00:53 | Wait a second, we humans can hear across 10
octaves, so this approach would have us trying
| | 00:58 | to keep track of and dial in 10 different
time values in order to specify one frequency
| | 01:04 | dependent reverb program for
perhaps one track in our mix.
| | 01:08 | Now my head is full of Beatles lyrics, Stevie
Ray Vaughan guitar solos, and eBay prices for
| | 01:13 | vintage microphones, so I don't really have
the mental capacity to keep track of 10 numbers
| | 01:18 | for every reverb I want to use.
So instead we simplify.
| | 01:24 | Most reverb units give you some way to
globally reshape the decay time across frequency bands
| | 01:29 | with just one or two parameters.
| | 01:32 | The most common approach is to use a
Bass Multiply or Bass Ratio parameter.
| | 01:37 | When set to a value of exactly 1.0 the
Bass Ratio will cause low frequencies to decay
| | 01:43 | with the exact same
Reverb Time as mid-frequencies.
| | 01:47 | A value less than one causes the low end to
die off more quickly than the mids, perhaps
| | 01:52 | preventing unwanted mix muddiness.
| | 01:55 | A Bass Multiplier parameter greater than one,
coaxes the Reverb Time into a condition where
| | 02:00 | the low frequencies linger on a little bit
longer than the mids possibly adding to the
| | 02:04 | warmth and low end envelopment of the track.
| | 02:08 | The way we push low frequencies to resonate
longer or shorter than mid-frequencies varies
| | 02:12 | by reverb unit and plug-in.
| | 02:15 | Look for some sort of parameter labeled ratio
or multiplier often accompanied by a selectable
| | 02:21 | low frequency so that you can specify the
starting point below which the low frequencies
| | 02:26 | will be affected and the
amount by which they are adjusted.
| | 02:30 | You might reduce everything below 100 Hz one
time, but find reason to pullback everything
| | 02:34 | below 400 Hz in another situation, and a similar
parameter for high frequencies might be available
| | 02:40 | on your devices though this is less common.
| | 02:43 | Again, it's a ratio, set to one the high frequencies
will decay at the exact same rate as the mid-frequencies.
| | 02:51 | Set to a value greater than one, the high
frequencies linger on a little bit longer,
| | 02:55 | perhaps adding polish and some
sort of sparkle to the track.
| | 02:59 | The specifying a value less than one might
soften the reverb a little bit getting it
| | 03:03 | out of the way of the top of your mix, so you
can better enjoy the cymbals, the breathiness
| | 03:08 | of the vocal, and the metallic
shimmer of the 12 string acoustic guitar.
| | 03:12 | I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not
telling you what the right answer is for these
| | 03:17 | bass ratios and high frequency multipliers,
that's because there's not a single right answer.
| | 03:23 | These are simply parameters were given to
adjust the frequency dependence of the complex
| | 03:27 | decay time of our reverbs, it's up to
us to use the parameter effectively.
| | 03:32 | We'll hear them in action later in this course.
| | 03:35 | While these ratios give us control over the
spectral content of the reverb resonance there's
| | 03:40 | nothing stopping us from using equalizers
to directly affect the spectral content of
| | 03:45 | the signal going to the reverb.
| | 03:47 | While we can always patch in our own equalizers
are often provided as an additional parameter
| | 03:52 | within the reverb itself.
| | 03:55 | This gives us two different ways to affect the
frequency content of our reverb effects, Ratios and EQ.
| | 04:02 | EQing the send or the return of the reverb
lets us emphasize or minimize certain frequency
| | 04:08 | ranges by boosting or attenuating the
level within that specified frequency range.
| | 04:13 | EQ is all about level and is
divorced entirely from decay time.
| | 04:18 | Ratios and multipliers on the other hand don't
adjust the level of the frequency band, instead
| | 04:23 | they modify the reverb program to make the reverb
time longer or shorter at the frequency areas specified.
| | 04:31 | The idea of Bass Multiplier, for example is
that it can make the lows easier to hear by
| | 04:36 | making them last a little longer instead
of just boosting their level as EQ does.
| | 04:41 | Think of EQ as the way to determine the
loudness or softness of the signal from low to high
| | 04:46 | within your reverb, while ratios determine how
long the reverb then last at those frequencies.
| | 04:52 | Use both to sculpt the
spectral content of your reverb.
| | 04:57 |
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| Tapping into advanced parameters such as diffusion, density, and more| 00:00 | While reverb Time, Pre-Delay, Wet/Dry Mix,
and the spectral manipulation of Reverb Time
| | 00:06 | are common, nearly universal parameters,
you'll see other terms that are less well defined
| | 00:11 | and aren't particularly consistent from
one make and model of reverb to another.
| | 00:16 | Terms like Diffusion, Density, Room Size, and
similar words sometimes appear as adjustable
| | 00:22 | parameters on our reverbs.
| | 00:24 | Remember, all of the parameters are there
to give us some ways recording engineers to
| | 00:28 | interact with qualities of the reverb, but
reverb is itself such a complex and musical
| | 00:34 | sound, and we savored it in part by
listening to fine details and attributes not captured
| | 00:39 | by the core reverb parameters.
| | 00:42 | The number of individual contributing reflections
within the impulse response is sometimes an audible trait.
| | 00:50 | Surfaces, like the wall behind me, are common
design features in concert halls and recording studios.
| | 00:55 | These highly articulated, geometrically
complex surfaces come in many forms, all with the
| | 01:01 | goal of breaking up the sound.
| | 01:03 | In architecture, bumpy surfaces like this
diffuse sound creating a more complex impulse response.
| | 01:11 | So parameters like Diffusion and Density drive the digital
algorithm to emulate this feature of the architecture.
| | 01:18 | They don't change the Reverb Time or pre-delay, they just
drive the build up of complexity within the reverb sound.
| | 01:25 | I hear the effect of these parameters is
changing the sonic texture of the reverb from open
| | 01:31 | and gauzy to thick and smooth.
| | 01:34 | While Reverb Time and pre-delay are easily defined and
quantified, parameters like Diffusion and Density aren't.
| | 01:41 | One plug-in might have a slightly
different interpretation than another.
| | 01:45 | These are simply adjustable parameters that
go from some low value to some high value.
| | 01:50 | The numbers have no universal
meaning across our industry.
| | 01:54 | The approach is simply to fine tune and listen.
| | 01:57 | A Room Size parameter likely tries to approximate the
qualities associated with the big room versus a small one.
| | 02:06 | Reverb time itself is of course intimately
tied to room size, so adjusting the Room Size
| | 02:10 | parameter often changes your Reverb Time
setting as well, but it may also adjust the timing
| | 02:16 | of the early reflections, close together in
a small room and spread out in a large hall.
| | 02:22 | Depending on the particular make and model
of your reverb a room size parameter might
| | 02:27 | also be available influencing how the
density of the impulse response builds over time.
| | 02:33 | Again, Room Size is a concept with no universal
definition for how it changes a reverb processor's
| | 02:38 | algorithm, we can only fine-tune
and listen for these types of changes.
| | 02:44 | Some reverbs provide an image of a room,
sort of an architectural blueprint of the space
| | 02:49 | and allow you to adjust
qualities in the architecture.
| | 02:53 | You can change qualities of the space like the
number of walls and the dimensions of the room.
| | 02:59 | Maybe there are parameters for changing the
acoustic reflectivity of the materials that
| | 03:03 | make up the floor and the ceiling and the walls.
| | 03:06 | This is all an interesting way to interact
with a concept of artificial reverb, but
| | 03:10 | it's important to realize that this is
just an alternative user interface for driving
| | 03:14 | subtle sonic qualities of your reverb
processor. You're not hearing the actual sound of the
| | 03:20 | variable room you've just envisioned.
| | 03:23 | The reverb output is influenced by the science
of acoustics for sure, but it isn't actually
| | 03:28 | calculating the precise reverberant qualities
of the space you modified with these parameters.
| | 03:34 | While Reverb Time, even as it varies with
frequency and pre-delay, are crisp concepts that are
| | 03:40 | straightforward to understand and relatively
easy for the reverb unit to generate, these
| | 03:45 | other parameters are more abstract.
| | 03:48 | You don't need to worry about hearing the
precise audible changes of a small tweak to
| | 03:52 | a parameter labeled Density or Diffusion, instead we
view them as ways to coax the sound in different directions.
| | 03:59 | The typical approach is to listen to it at
its preset value, then crank it up to an extreme
| | 04:05 | setting and listen for sonic differences.
| | 04:08 | Then crank it down to a value near
the other extreme and listen again.
| | 04:13 | Then return to the middle and listen.
| | 04:16 | If global trends are revealed, and you like
what you're hearing then adjust it to taste.
| | 04:21 | If you don't hear much change, don't sweat
it, it may be too subtle to bother with given
| | 04:26 | the spectral and temporal qualities
of the tracks you're mixing today.
| | 04:30 | In those cases, I just leave those other
parameters at their default values and move on.
| | 04:35 |
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| Reference values from the best orchestra halls| 00:00 | All Reverbs come with presets,
sometimes hundreds of them.
| | 00:04 | It can be fairly daunting to know which reverb
to use, and in turn, the desired values for each
| | 00:09 | of the parameters. With so many
possibilities, where do we start?
| | 00:13 | I find it helpful to compare parameters to
a good icon of acoustics, an orchestra hall.
| | 00:19 | Acquisitionists have researched were it
considered to be the best-sounding halls for romantic
| | 00:23 | orchestral music, and
these three rise to the top.
| | 00:28 | Work done by Leo Branic's found a statistically
significant number of conductors, orchestras,
| | 00:33 | audience members, and music critics prefer
the sound of these three halls over most other
| | 00:39 | halls for romantic orchestral music.
| | 00:42 | Over time, more and more great halls are built,
but the best ones were all highly influenced
| | 00:47 | by the acoustic qualities of these three.
| | 00:51 | So it's useful to look at the Reverb Time,
pre-delay, and spectral multipliers for these
| | 00:56 | halls as a touchstone even if
our music isn't symphonic music.
| | 01:01 | Looking first at the middle frequency here,
we see that these three concert halls have
| | 01:05 | a mid-frequency Reverb Time of
around two seconds or just under.
| | 01:10 | So two seconds is a
really useful reference number.
| | 01:14 | When you set your Reverb Time to 2 seconds,
you have a Reverb Time associated with a space
| | 01:18 | that's quite large, the
size of an orchestral hall.
| | 01:21 | A hall that may seat 2,000 or more people, a
hall that adds lush reverberation to a symphony.
| | 01:28 | No reason not to put it on this acoustic
guitar track transporting it to a concert hall.
| | 01:33 | (music playing)
| | 02:09 | It sounds smaller than the stadium or the
Taj Mahal or a Cathedral, but it sounds larger
| | 02:14 | than a club and probably much larger
than even the largest recording studios.
| | 02:19 | In addition to that approximately 2 second
middle frequency Reverb Time, there's another
| | 02:23 | interesting trend to the successful halls.
| | 02:26 | The downward slope left to right of these
curve shows that for the great halls the low
| | 02:31 | frequencies resonate longer than the mids
while the high frequency reverb times are shorter.
| | 02:37 | Now this isn't the universal right answer,
perfect reverb for all forms of music, but
| | 02:43 | this sort of spectral contour seems to be a nice
way to support the music of Mahler, Beethoven, and Wagner.
| | 02:50 | In fact, the low frequencies have a base
ratio of about 1.1, that means that the low
| | 02:55 | frequencies last about 10%
longer than the mid-frequencies.
| | 03:00 | The shorter decay up high mean time is
most likely attributable to air absorption.
| | 03:05 | Air absorbs high frequencies more
effectively than middle or low frequencies.
| | 03:10 | Because these halls are real halls, not
digital algorithms, and because these halls have,
| | 03:15 | well, air in them, the high frequencies
decay more quickly than the mid-frequencies.
| | 03:21 | So when you dial in a Reverb Time greater
than or less than two seconds, you're essentially
| | 03:26 | starting off with a space that might sound
larger than or smaller than an orchestral hall.
| | 03:31 | That two second mid-frequency
Reverb Time is a useful landmark.
| | 03:36 | In addition when you coaxed the Reverb Time of
low frequencies with the multipliers slightly
| | 03:40 | greater than 1 you're emulating what, in
fact, goes on in the warm, rich, enveloping, lush,
| | 03:47 | orchestral halls that are thought
to be the greatest in the world.
| | 03:51 | You're free to introduce still more low-end
thunder by raising the base multiplied values
| | 03:56 | even greater than 1.1 or tighten up the
low end of the reverb and avoid potential
| | 04:01 | pop rock muddiness through
base ratio of less than 1.
| | 04:05 | When you specify a high frequency ratio
less than 1 you're emulating or beginning to
| | 04:10 | emulate qualities of air absorption, which
could lead to reverberation that's very evocative
| | 04:15 | of a real actual space.
| | 04:18 | Of course, there's no reason you can't push
the high frequency Reverb Time up, maybe even
| | 04:23 | make it last longer than the mids which will
effectively make your reverb sound unnatural.
| | 04:28 | Maybe better than the real thing or
maybe like a reverb from another world.
| | 04:34 | Pre-delay is another essential parameter.
| | 04:36 | The pre-delay of these orchestral halls
all hover very close to 20 milliseconds.
| | 04:42 | Less than 15 milliseconds or greater than
30 and the halls are not considered successful.
| | 04:48 | The halls that are most loved for romantic
orchestral music have a pre-delay of about 20 milliseconds.
| | 04:53 | Again, for our mixes, the pre-delay parameter
can be set to values different from 20, and
| | 04:58 | in fact we almost always do as
you'll see in later videos in this course.
| | 05:03 | But 20 milliseconds is a good reference.
| | 05:06 | That's the amount of time it takes a large,
great sounding orchestra hall to go from direct
| | 05:10 | sound to that full dense
beginning of reverberation.
| | 05:15 | A two second mid-frequency Reverb Time, a
low-frequency multipliers slightly above one
| | 05:20 | and a high frequency multiplier slightly less
than 1 with a pre-delay of about 20 milliseconds.
| | 05:26 | These are reference values
from the best orchestral halls.
| | 05:30 | We deviate from these freely in our productions,
but we should know when were pushing beyond
| | 05:34 | them or holding back, and make sure
we do that on purpose to suit our music.
| | 05:39 |
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| Hearing beyond the basic parameters| 00:01 | While both Stratocasters and Les Pauls are
electric guitars with 6 strings, 22 frets,
| | 00:07 | pickups, and so on, an experienced
guitarist, given a choice, still has an opinion about
| | 00:12 | which one to play in a recording session.
| | 00:15 | There are indescribable differences in tone
and playability not captured by the simple
| | 00:20 | factual descriptions of their features.
| | 00:23 | The same is true for reverb processors,
and we audio engineers need to develop an ear
| | 00:29 | for the nuances that distinguish them.
| | 00:32 | The last few videos have surveyed the most
essential parameters that we will specify as we tailor
| | 00:37 | our reverbs to our production, but it's worth
recalling the technologies used to create reverb.
| | 00:43 | Remember, we walk through a list of acoustic
reverse like room tracks and chambers, mechanical
| | 00:48 | reverbs like springs and plates, and digital
reverbs whose algorithms can create any sort
| | 00:54 | of reverb from real to fictitious.
| | 00:57 | These technologies remind us that parameters
like Reverb Time, base multiply, pre-delay,
| | 01:03 | et cetera, never completely
define the sound of her reverb.
| | 01:07 | A plate with a two second Reverb Time never sounds
the same as a hall with a two second Reverb Time.
| | 01:13 | And it's our job is recording engineers to
specify the full and most appropriate sound
| | 01:18 | qualities in the reverb to suit our tracks, to
satisfy our artists, and to satisfy ourselves.
| | 01:25 | So let's make a comparison of a plate reverb
to a large hall reverb where the parameters
| | 01:30 | are the same, but the technology
creating the reverb is different.
| | 01:34 | I want to make the point that the type of
program whether it's a chamber, a plate, or
| | 01:38 | a hall defines many subtle attributes of the
reverb which transcend any of the adjustable
| | 01:44 | parameters we discussed like reverb Time, Pre-delay,
Frequency, Multipliers, and so on.
| | 01:50 | Let's have a listen to a snare drum to hear the
impact of choosing the type of reverb program.
| | 01:56 | This snare drum gets treated to two
different reverb types, a plate, and a medium room.
| | 02:01 | Both set to a Reverb Time of one second.
You'll hear the plate first, then the Room.
| | 02:07 | (music playing)
| | 02:42 | The Reverb Time should feel like they have the same
decay time, but they have very little else in common.
| | 02:48 | To my ear the plate reverb adds a mid-frequency
texture that emphasizes the buzz and rattle of the snare.
| | 02:54 | The medium room on the other hand evokes for
me an image of the snare drum in an actual room.
| | 03:00 | It's more natural sounding and
doesn't color the snare as much as the plate.
| | 03:04 | Meantime, it's worth noting that the plate
doesn't actually create much illusion of a real space.
| | 03:09 | Its resonant qualities are
more about tone than space.
| | 03:13 | We'll explore this important
concept in an upcoming movie.
| | 03:17 | So we're beginning to see that a reverb
time of one second has no universal meaning.
| | 03:22 | Our choice of reverb type is quite important.
Let's try a similar experiment with this vocal.
| | 03:29 | (music playing)
| | 03:41 | Here we'll reach for a two second Reverb Time,
one is a large warm hall, the other is a chamber.
| | 03:46 | I will play them back to back for immediate
comparison, the hall comes first, then the chamber.
| | 03:52 | (music playing)
| | 04:18 | The hall program creates a convincing
illusion of our singer in a large hall.
| | 04:23 | At 2 seconds it really
sounds like a concert hall.
| | 04:27 | Don't forget this is a simple close mic studio
recording, but at a good sounding reverb like
| | 04:32 | this, and you can transport
the singer to another place.
| | 04:36 | The chamber reverb on the other
hand has a more unusual sound.
| | 04:39 | I hear it is more of a pleasing
decoration than a realistic simulation of space.
| | 04:44 | Recall that a chamber is a much
smaller space than a concert hall.
| | 04:48 | As a result, it has strong resonances that
probably wouldn't work for an orchestra, and
| | 04:53 | there's no guarantee it will be
flattering to your vocal track.
| | 04:56 | With chambers we tend audition them, and if
their spectral pockets of resonance pair well
| | 05:01 | with the track, we go for it.
| | 05:03 | If it turns out that the frequencies
emphasized by the chamber don't fall in the best places
| | 05:07 | for the track, we try another chamber.
| | 05:10 | So again we see that the sound of a reverb
includes many other hard to describe sonic
| | 05:14 | features not captured by the
all-important reverb parameters.
| | 05:19 | In the next chapter of this course we've
created more than a dozen movies on reverb techniques
| | 05:24 | so that you can navigate the decision-making and creative
process of adding reverb to your multi-track projects.
| | 05:33 |
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| Touring the interfaces for six reverb plugins| 00:01 | We've talked about the anatomy of reverb
drawing a distinction between the early reflections
| | 00:05 | and the reverb tail that follows.
| | 00:08 | And we've worked through the essential
parameters of Reverb Time, pre-delay, wet/dry mix, any
| | 00:14 | frequency adjustments, plus the other less
precise parameters like diffusion, density, and so on.
| | 00:21 | Let's review some plug-ins
and see if we can stay oriented.
| | 00:24 | Have patience, the fantastic capability of
plug-ins today means that some of them open
| | 00:30 | to a screen with many
confusing at first parameters.
| | 00:33 | We look for the essentials, then
we look for the bells and whistles.
| | 00:38 | Let's start with D-Verb,
a stock ProTools plug-in.
| | 00:41 | This is an easy-to-use plug-in that lets
you tweak the essential parameters and move on.
| | 00:47 | As we look around, we see nothing that
addresses early reflections separate from the reverb.
| | 00:52 | For this plug-in, as with many others, the
early reflections are still part of the sound we
| | 00:57 | just can't get at them directly.
| | 00:59 | It's a little bit like using a semi-parametric EQ where
the algorithm takes care of the queue parameter for us.
| | 01:05 | And we just work with the
frequency select and gain.
| | 01:09 | Start by choosing an algorithm and a
size to get things in the ballpark.
| | 01:14 | Tailor it by adjusting the other parameters.
So where are the key parameters?
| | 01:19 | Reverb time is presented as DECAY, PRE-DELAY
is just below it, the default wet/dry MIX
| | 01:26 | on this plug-in is the expected 100% wet.
| | 01:29 | We have two ways to get at the frequency
characteristics of this reverb, HF CUT sets the frequencies
| | 01:36 | above which the Reverb Time gets shorter.
| | 01:39 | The LP FILTER equalizes the entire signal
dropping a low pass filter directly into the audio path.
| | 01:47 | Now let's look at True Verb, a plug-in made
by waves and compatible with almost all DAWs.
| | 01:54 | Programs are selected by clicking the Load
button and choosing the best starting point.
| | 01:59 | You then refine it as desired.
| | 02:01 | This reverb has two algorithms running, one
associated with the reverb tail, the other
| | 02:06 | generating early reflections.
We get good control over both.
| | 02:11 | Reverb Time is set using the Decay Time
parameter and Pre Delay is next to it.
| | 02:16 | The wet/dry MIX is controlled through these
three ON/Off buttons and their associated Faders.
| | 02:22 | You can control the Direct sound, the Early
Reflections, and the reverb tail independently.
| | 02:28 | For 100% wet mute the Direct, but we adjust the
Faders for early reflections in reverb to suit our needs.
| | 02:36 | The frequency control in this reverb is
quite comprehensive, there is reverb Damping at
| | 02:41 | both low and high frequencies where you
select the frequency beyond which the Reverb Time
| | 02:46 | is modified, and you dial-in the ratio desired,
extending the Reverb Time with a value greater
| | 02:52 | than one and damping the
time with a value less than one.
| | 02:56 | It's great to have this
control both low and high.
| | 02:59 | EQ is also provided, the parameter called
Rev Shelf is a high-frequency shelving filter
| | 03:05 | applied to the input signal feeding
the reverb portion of the plug-in.
| | 03:09 | ER Absorb is a high-frequency shelving
filter applied only to the Early Reflections.
| | 03:16 | The shelving frequency for both the shelf
gain settings Rev Shelf and ER Absorb is set
| | 03:21 | by the High Freq parameter.
| | 03:24 | Low Cut introduces a high pass
filter down low for the early reflections.
| | 03:29 | So the core parameters are well-represented, this reverb
also offers some more subtle ways to affect the sound.
| | 03:37 | Dimension drives the pattern of Early Reflections that's
supposed to track with the number of dimensions in the room.
| | 03:42 | We live in 3D but this reverb can build
patterns of reflections that might come from one to
| | 03:48 | four dimensions, whatever that might mean.
| | 03:51 | Room size and distance can be adjusted to
modify the spacing and level of early reflections
| | 03:56 | in reverb and the Link button lets it drive
the reverb Time and Pre Delay parameters for you.
| | 04:02 | This plug-in also offers a very nice
visual representation of the impulse response of
| | 04:07 | the whole program, Early
Reflections and reverb tail.
| | 04:10 | Use this visual as a guide to understanding
the logic of your parameter settings but be
| | 04:15 | sure to base your final
decisions on how it sounds.
| | 04:20 | Logic Pro contains several stock
reverb plug-ins, including Platinum Verb.
| | 04:25 | Platinum Verb has a short set of presets to get you
going in the pulldown menu that appears as pound default.
| | 04:31 | It's often good to start here, get the
sound close, and then adjust the taste.
| | 04:37 | You'll see the bottom-third of the user-interface
controls the reverb, the upper-left controls
| | 04:42 | Early Reflections, and the
upper right controls Wet/Dry Mix.
| | 04:47 | Reverb Time is on the bottom-right.
| | 04:49 | Pre Delay gets a modified definition here as
there is the delay before reverb here called
| | 04:55 | Initial Delay, and the delay before
Early Reflections called Predelay.
| | 05:00 | Wet/Dry Mix is controlled through two
faders which control the level of the dry direct
| | 05:04 | signal and the wet reverb signal.
| | 05:08 | The relative level of early reflections versus
reverb is adjusted with this balance control.
| | 05:14 | Frequency Control is driven by the
crossover frequency, this divides the audio at this
| | 05:19 | frequency, and you can push the qualities of the lower
band versus the higher band in different directions.
| | 05:25 | The low ratio is the familiar parameter
that determines how much longer or shorter the
| | 05:30 | lower side of your reverb lasts.
| | 05:32 | At a 100% the low band has the
same reverb Time as the upper band.
| | 05:37 | At values less than a 100% your
low-frequency resonance is shortened.
| | 05:41 | It can be pushed above 100%
to stretch the lows out.
| | 05:45 | The Low Freq Level parameter adjusts the overall
level of the low-frequency portion of your reverb.
| | 05:51 | It's nice to control the level
independently of the reverb Time.
| | 05:55 | High Cut is a low pass filter that pulls the
highs out of the reverb, additional parameters
| | 06:00 | like Room Shape, Spread, Density, and
Diffusion dig into the details of the early reflections
| | 06:06 | and the reverb tail offering variations
in tone and texture well worth exploring.
| | 06:12 | Altiverb is a high-end convolution reverb
made by Audio Ease and compatible with many DAWs.
| | 06:19 | You began by loading an impulse response,
this is the truest representation of the system
| | 06:24 | possible without further processing.
| | 06:27 | If you load up a cathedral you
get the sound of that cathedral.
| | 06:31 | Manipulating any parameters then modifies
your sound from the accurate representation
| | 06:36 | of the space to something that doesn't exist.
| | 06:39 | It is my bias to find the best
sounding impulse response and not touch it.
| | 06:44 | But if you must, you can change the reverb Time,
adjust Pre Delay, and EQ and frequency damp the sound.
| | 06:51 | Feel free to do whatever you wish to get
the sound you want, but recognize that you're
| | 06:55 | introducing processing to the impulse
response that changes it from the actual measurement
| | 07:00 | to one with different properties.
| | 07:02 | You are creating a work of sonic
fiction which is always encouraged.
| | 07:06 | Ableton Live stock reverb also
possesses all the parameters we'd expect.
| | 07:12 | It separates early reflections neatly from
the reverb engine called the Diffusion Network.
| | 07:18 | The decay time is this plug's name for
reverb Time, Pre Delay is on the left.
| | 07:23 | Wet/Dry Mix is on the right with two level
controls above one for the Early Reflections
| | 07:28 | and the other for the reverb.
| | 07:30 | When using an Aux and Effects loop set it to 100%
wet and adjust the levels of the reflections
| | 07:36 | in the reverb called diffusion to taste.
| | 07:40 | Frequency controls exist for both
the Early Reflections and the reverb.
| | 07:43 | The input processing has an adjustable low-cut
and high-cut filter that EQs the signal coming in.
| | 07:50 | The diffusion network has adjustable high and
low shelving EQs that pull those frequencies
| | 07:55 | out of the reverb shortening the
reverb Time beyond the frequency set.
| | 08:00 | The usual culprits of size, density, shape,
and scale are rather unique to this plug-in
| | 08:06 | and can be explored for interesting results.
| | 08:09 | Finally, let's have a quick look
at reasons RV7000 reverb plug-in.
| | 08:15 | Begin by loading in the desired preset, and there are
lots to choose from built on several different algorithms.
| | 08:22 | Once loaded, we find the familiar set of parameters,
reverb Time appears as Decay, Pre Delay is as expected.
| | 08:29 | Wet/Dry Mix is done with the familiar single
knob control which we generally set to 100% wet.
| | 08:36 | The EQ section lets you add a low-frequency shelf
plus one parametric band to further sculp the tone.
| | 08:43 | The EQ process is the
output of the entire reverb.
| | 08:47 | Bass multipliers described as damping
are available on some but not all programs.
| | 08:53 | Some programs also offer independent control
of early reflections versus the reverb tail
| | 08:58 | as we've seen before on other plugs.
| | 09:01 | Other parameters are found
depending on the algorithm you are running.
| | 09:05 | So expect to explore the other parameters like
diffusion, size, and similar through careful listening.
| | 09:11 | The RV7000 also has a built-in gate module, the
default appropriately is that the gate is off.
| | 09:18 | But it's ready and waiting just a click away
if you want to dial up some gated reverb without
| | 09:22 | the fuss of adding more plug-ins.
| | 09:25 | Now all reverbs sound the same and not
all reverbs have the same parameters.
| | 09:30 | While core parameters offer expected results,
plan to dig into the unique and advanced features
| | 09:36 | of the reverbs available to you with a little help
from the manual and a lot of critical listening.
| | 09:41 |
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|
|
4. Reverb TechniquesChoosing the right reverb for each of your tracks| 00:01 | As with all effects, your use of reverb is
motivated by specific strategies, and the list
| | 00:06 | of reasons to reach for reverb
might be longer than you think.
| | 00:10 | Of course, the very idea of reverberation, the
resonant sound of a space, is intimately tied
| | 00:15 | to the spaces where music happens.
| | 00:18 | So we think of artificial reverb as a way to
simulate the sound of a space in our recording.
| | 00:24 | Simulating space is just the beginning.
| | 00:26 | reverb can do so much more, and we
cover all of these in this course.
| | 00:31 | reverb influences the timbre and the texture
of the tracks in our multi-track productions.
| | 00:36 | reverb also creates contrast, drier signals
next to wetter signals so that listeners can
| | 00:41 | hear more depth and detail and
complexity in your multi-track production.
| | 00:47 | reverb is often used specifically to emphasize
certain tracks, phrases, or moments of musical
| | 00:52 | magic, enhancing their own audibility
and attracting the listener's attention.
| | 00:57 | reverb can also do the opposite, it's
sometimes used to blur and obscure elements of your
| | 01:01 | multi-track mix, to shade things in, to make
people work a little harder, piquing their interest,
| | 01:08 | triggering a search for those complexities
in your recording that they may not notice
| | 01:11 | on the first or second listening but that
they hope to find next time they hear it.
| | 01:17 | reverb is also an essential storytelling tool.
| | 01:19 | We can use it to help invoke a scene change
where one part of the song has a very different
| | 01:24 | reverberant quality than another.
| | 01:26 | We sometimes shift the reverb as we go
from bridge to chorus and from chorus to verse
| | 01:31 | and so on so that the features of our mix support
the composition and arrangement as much as possible.
| | 01:38 | Lastly, reverb is the basis for several
sound synthesis techniques, gated reverb, reverse
| | 01:45 | reverb, using convolution to contrive wholly new works
of audio fiction, pitch shifting the reverb, and more.
| | 01:52 | Using reverb is the basis for sort of
sound creation, sound design, or sound synthesis
| | 01:57 | technique knows no bounds.
| | 02:00 | This course dedicates more than a dozen
movies for this long list of reverb Effects showing
| | 02:05 | you how to think about each type of effect and choose
the right reverb with the right parameters for the job.
| | 02:11 | Next we'll start with the most natural and
most obvious use of reverb, simulating space.
| | 02:16 |
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| Simulating space with reverb| 00:01 | As reverb is in essence the sound of a space,
it isn't surprising that we use studio reverb
| | 00:06 | to simulate a space within our recording.
| | 00:10 | Simulating space is itself a rich source of
four families of effects that we talk about
| | 00:14 | here: specific real spaces, generalized realistic spaces,
spatial adjustments, and the creation of unreal spaces.
| | 00:24 | Sometimes in music, our production challenge
is to simulate a very specific real space.
| | 00:29 | We might want to have the sound, the history,
the feeling, the memory, the distinction,
| | 00:34 | the sense of a very specific space with
all the smells and sights that accompany it.
| | 00:39 | We might want our recording to have the
sound of acoustic icons like Carnegie Hall in
| | 00:43 | New York, or huge houses of worship like Notre Dame
in Paris, or small performance clubs like
| | 00:48 | your favorite place down the street.
| | 00:51 | We might pursue other less obvious places,
your high school gymnasium, a London tube
| | 00:56 | stop, the stairs at work.
| | 00:58 | You have in mind a very specific real
space, and you use reverb to make it happen.
| | 01:04 | Any reverb processor can do the job, a
chamber reverb, a spring, or plate can be hooked up
| | 01:09 | and processed to help simulate
the sound of a specific real space.
| | 01:13 | But you are going to find digital
reverbs are best suited to the task.
| | 01:17 | Algorithmic reverbs with all their
adjustable parameters can be tweaked until they match
| | 01:22 | the sound of your actual desired space.
| | 01:25 | But of course, convolution is a great way to go
here if you have the right impulse responses.
| | 01:31 | Drop Carnegie Hall onto the background
vocals of your mix by instantiating a convolution
| | 01:35 | reverb and loading in your favorite
Carnegie Hall impulse response, if you have one.
| | 01:40 | I am sure you could download one if you don't.
| | 01:43 | Note to self, capture impulse responses on
every location recording gig, find some quiet
| | 01:48 | time when the band is taking a
break and grab the impulse response.
| | 01:53 | Use the Convolution reverb's Measurement
feature or record the loudest short click you can
| | 01:58 | using a handclap, popping a
balloon, or even hitting a snare.
| | 02:02 | It will let you create the sound of this
room later when you might want the sound of this
| | 02:06 | room but don't happen to be there.
| | 02:08 | Beyond music production video postproduction
presents another very common audio challenge
| | 02:13 | where we need to evoke the
sound of a specific real space.
| | 02:17 | If you record Robert De Niro speaking his
lines in a taxi during film production and
| | 02:22 | then have to do some dialog replacement in
a booth in a studio later, you're going to
| | 02:27 | have to make the close mike studio
recording sound like the boomed mike taxi recording.
| | 02:32 | So in video production it can be helpful to
capture the impulse responses for all places
| | 02:37 | where the film was shot, indoors,
outdoors, on cars, trains, and planes.
| | 02:43 | And when it's time to dialog replacement
in the studio, we reach for convolution as a
| | 02:47 | tool to help convert those close microphone
studio recordings into something more consistent
| | 02:53 | with the specific sound of
the production recording.
| | 02:56 | A generalized realistic sounding space is the
second motivation for simulating space with reverb.
| | 03:03 | We aren't always tied to one specific space.
Sometimes a similar-sounding space will do.
| | 03:09 | You may not need Boston Symphony Hall, just a symphony hall.
| | 03:13 | You may not require Notre Dame
specifically, just a large cathedral.
| | 03:18 | Here we get to relax a little bit, and we
are permitted to be more creative because
| | 03:22 | we're no longer obligated
to match a specific space.
| | 03:26 | Instead, we get to create a realistic
sounding space, but one with all the sonic features
| | 03:30 | and details we like best.
| | 03:32 | The third spatial motivation for
reverb might be called Spatial Adjustments.
| | 03:38 | Spatial Adjustments can be necessary because we so often
record our sounds using close microphone techniques.
| | 03:44 | The desire for isolation and the creative
motivation to explore the sonic impact of
| | 03:49 | close microphone placement often leaves us with
little to no recorded ambience or reverberation.
| | 03:55 | We might introduce a subtle amount of
reverberation focusing particularly on the early reflection
| | 04:00 | part of the reverb rather than the late reverberant
tail to create the sound of microphones having
| | 04:05 | been a bit further away.
| | 04:08 | This can diminish any unwanted razor-sharp
immediacy in our closed mike tracks pushing
| | 04:13 | them away from a studio sound
towards a more realistic aesthetic.
| | 04:17 | If the artist or producer complains that the
record sounds too multi-tracked, and they wish
| | 04:22 | it to sound more live and more organic,
consider adding some early reflections to your close
| | 04:27 | microphone tracks to take the studio, close
mike, vocal booth sound out of your recording
| | 04:33 | and instead make it sound a bit more realistic.
| | 04:36 | We don't have to decorate the track with a
long lush wash of reverberation to create
| | 04:40 | the sound of air moving.
| | 04:42 | It adds a sense of liveness to the performance, and
it can widen the stereo image between the loudspeakers.
| | 04:48 | There is a fourth category, we've discussed specific
real spaces, generalized real spaces, and spatial adjustments.
| | 04:56 | The fourth motivation is maybe the most fun.
| | 04:58 | We are allowed to create the
sound of a completely unreal space.
| | 05:02 | In these instances we are allowed to freely and
creatively try pretty much any parameter setting we wish.
| | 05:08 | We are not bound by the physics of room
acoustics, we just choose what sounds best.
| | 05:13 | For example, we might create a reverb whose
early reflections are dictated by the geometry
| | 05:17 | of a large hall, while the Decay
time is more indicative of a small room.
| | 05:22 | And we could have extended high-frequency
decay time that essentially suggests there
| | 05:26 | is no air absorption.
| | 05:28 | So that's a large small room with no air.
That's an impossibility for live performance,
| | 05:34 | certainly an uncomfortable place to go.
| | 05:37 | But we can create it in our recordings
anytime we like as long as it sounds right.
| | 05:42 |
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| Hearing space in the mix| 00:01 | Pop and rock tunes might tempt us
to have a very dry view of effects.
| | 00:05 | But many productions like this track by Midatlantic
called Shine invites some simulation of actual space.
| | 00:11 | (music playing)
| | 00:35 | Let's zoom in a bit, focusing on the
lead vocal and the background vocals.
| | 00:39 | There are two complementary reverb
effects here that we should pay attention to.
| | 00:43 | Take a listen to the reverb treatments on
the lead vocal and the background vocals as
| | 00:46 | I play the end of verse 1 into chorus 1.
Let's listen first to the background vocals.
| | 00:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:26 | The production goal here is to make sure there's
an emotional lift in the chorus, that the sincere
| | 01:31 | sentiment--it's a love
song--is supported sonically.
| | 01:35 | So we give these background vocals polish
and airiness and sweetness by way of a reverb
| | 01:40 | set to a large bright hall, replacing the
tight close-miked harmonies in a lush space.
| | 01:47 | (music playing)
| | 02:07 | The rest of the tracks in this mix avoid such
rich treatment, sticking to the expected alternative
| | 02:12 | rock vibe of being forward, in
your face, and relatively dry.
| | 02:17 | The entrance of the background vocals in the
chorus placed in a large space fills the stereo
| | 02:21 | field left to right and envelops the listener.
| | 02:25 | The high harmonies soar, feeling human
and real, the chorus lifts as intended.
| | 02:30 | Have a listen to these background
vocals as I turn the reverb off and back on.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:08 | Too much of this type of reverb and things
get mushy and crowded, but playing it safe
| | 03:13 | and leaving them as dry as the rest of the
tracks in the mix misses the opportunity for
| | 03:17 | a bit of bright hall magic in our mix.
We search for just the right touch of reverb.
| | 03:23 | Meanwhile, there's this lead vocal,
it gets a dose of reverb too.
| | 03:27 | (music playing)
| | 03:47 | You might be tempted to keep it dry,
wanting to avoid a washy, weak sound and trying to
| | 03:52 | keep the edginess in the production.
| | 03:54 | But listen to how the vocal becomes too simple,
too plane, too thin to carry the tune when
| | 03:59 | I turn the reverb off.
| | 04:02 | (music playing)
| | 04:21 | The reverb add subtle but
important sonic traits of a real room.
| | 04:26 | It takes the singer out of the Studio
and puts them back on stage with the band.
| | 04:30 | In fact, it's pretty rare to leave the
lead vocal bone dry. This one gets a splash of
| | 04:35 | a medium room sound.
| | 04:37 | We want to make sure that no matter what the
ban does, no matter how huge the guitars get,
| | 04:42 | we need the emotion in this male
vocal performance to cut through.
| | 04:46 | Whether someone's listening in ear buds on
a subway, or at home on a tricked out hi-fi
| | 04:50 | system, we need the singer's
feelings to somehow be heard.
| | 04:54 | We need to know that this lead singer is
doing something brave and fragile and risky, he's
| | 04:59 | daring to have these
feelings and to sing about it.
| | 05:02 | So we add a bit of realism to the track,
courtesy of a medium room reverb effect.
| | 05:07 | Let's have a listen to the vocal with and
without the liveness to make sure were adding
| | 05:11 | to it but not overdoing it.
| | 05:13 | (music playing)
| | 05:33 | Soloed this may sound like too much reverb,
but as always, it's important to listen to
| | 05:38 | it in the context of the full mix.
| | 05:41 | With the rest of the band playing,
it no longer sounds overly processed.
| | 05:45 | (music playing)
| | 06:05 | Just give him room to breath,
give him some air to push.
| | 06:10 | These treatments on the lead vocal and
background vocals are typical examples of how we use
| | 06:14 | reverb to simulate the sound of a space.
| | 06:17 | If there'd been a need to put a 12-string
acoustic guitar into a cathedral, we would
| | 06:21 | have done that here as well.
| | 06:23 | If the song suggested we should put a string section
into a symphony hall, we would have done that too.
| | 06:29 | We create what ever
realistic reverb the song calls for.
| | 06:34 |
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| Timbre and texture| 00:01 | As we know from our earlier discussion
about the frequency-dependent parameters in most
| | 00:05 | reverb processors, reverb
doesn't treat all frequencies the same.
| | 00:10 | reverb devices have a frequency response
that's not typically flat, and the frequency response
| | 00:15 | varies by design from plug-in
to plug-in and preset to preset.
| | 00:20 | Shown here is a reverb where the low
frequencies get a bit of a boost, they last a little bit
| | 00:24 | longer while the high frequencies roll-off.
| | 00:28 | This is typical of reverbs that
are influenced by actual spaces.
| | 00:32 | The extra low-frequency resonance is known
to be flattering for romantic orchestral music
| | 00:37 | in large concert halls.
| | 00:39 | The high-frequency reverberation decays more
quickly, influenced by the real world property
| | 00:44 | of air absorption in concert halls, and so
many digital reverbs wanting to emulate the
| | 00:49 | sound of the great halls do a good job of
reproducing these spectral features and reverb.
| | 00:55 | But a Spring reverb, a reverb built on the
mechanical system using metal springs, not
| | 01:01 | surprisingly has a very
different frequency response.
| | 01:05 | Shown here is the frequency behavior
of a Spring reverb as decays over time.
| | 01:11 | It's no longer the lows that last the longest.
| | 01:14 | Your mileage will of course vary.
No two spring sound alike.
| | 01:18 | And a Plate reverb offers opportunities
for an unusual frequency response as well.
| | 01:25 | While orchestral halls are carefully designed,
we know our reverb chambers are often found
| | 01:30 | spaces like stairwells,
garages, basements, and bathrooms.
| | 01:35 | As a result, chambers almost always
possess strong spectral coloration.
| | 01:41 | When reverbs with a non-flat
frequency response are dropped into our mix,
| | 01:45 | the frequency content of the reverb merges
with the frequency content of the recorded track.
| | 01:51 | And our sense of the tone and timbre of a
track is now based on the timbre of the track
| | 01:55 | plus the timbre of the reverb.
| | 01:58 | Our listener's sense of how warm or how
bright the track is their enjoyment of any specific
| | 02:03 | mid range details on any recorded
instrument is based on many factors.
| | 02:08 | There's the timbre of the instrument itself,
of course, and the tone is further modified
| | 02:12 | by our choice of microphone and where we
place it, plus any equalizers that are being used,
| | 02:18 | and this is important: the spectral
qualities of any reverb we add to the track.
| | 02:24 | Think of reverb as a further modifier of timbre beyond
instrument selection, microphone selection, and equalizer settings.
| | 02:31 | And while it's logical for us as recording
engineers to think of reaching for an equalizer
| | 02:36 | to change the timbre of an instrument, it's
often the case that reverb is the more powerful
| | 02:40 | way to change timber.
| | 02:41 | An equalizer is a relatively clumsy way to
boost and cut different frequency ranges.
| | 02:46 | If you want a brighter acoustic guitar, of
course you can use an equalizer to boost the highs.
| | 02:52 | But while an equalizer takes high-frequency
information within the track and boosts in
| | 02:56 | level, a reverb with extra high-frequency
emphasis will take whatever high frequency is
| | 03:01 | in your track and let it last longer.
| | 03:04 | An equalizer adjusts the level in a given
frequency range to make it easier or harder
| | 03:09 | to hear, while a reverb structures or
shrinks it in time, sustaining a little longer to
| | 03:14 | make it easier to hear, or letting it
decay more quickly to deemphasize it.
| | 03:19 | When the high frequencies on the guitar
track are made to last longer by way of a bright
| | 03:23 | reverb, the instrument sounds brighter.
| | 03:27 | Using reverb to reshape the timbre of your
tracks in your production is one of the most
| | 03:30 | important advanced uses of reverb.
Let's hear how it works in the next movie.
| | 03:38 |
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| Shaping tone and timbre with reverb| 00:01 | The acoustic guitar is a great instrument
for demonstrating the timbral effect of reverb.
| | 00:05 | Listen out to David as he plays his
acoustic guitar tracked without effects.
| | 00:11 | (music playing)
| | 00:44 | This guitar tone is beautiful as is and
could be further reshaped with compression and EQ
| | 00:49 | and Delay, but we'll take it two
different directions here using reverb.
| | 00:54 | One production approach will make
it sound fuller, deeper, warmer.
| | 00:59 | It's just an acoustic guitar whose
lowest frequency note is around 80 hertz.
| | 01:03 | But now, let's send it to a medium room
whose low-frequency Reverb Time lasts longer than
| | 01:08 | its high frequency reverb times.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:45 | Notice that with the reverb on, the acoustic
guitar sounds fuller and warmer, and this
| | 01:50 | is achieved not with EQ, but simply by using
a reverb whose frequency parameters are set
| | 01:56 | so that the low-frequency reverb times last
longer than the mid and high frequency reverb times.
| | 02:02 | Orchestra sound full and lush by playing in
those big halls with low-frequency reverb extension.
| | 02:09 | Why can't we borrow the concept
for any track in our production?
| | 02:13 | Another approach to take with the same
acoustic guitar track would be to reach for a plate
| | 02:17 | reverb with its strong dense mid-frequency
character, and let that reshape the timbre
| | 02:22 | of the acoustic guitar into
a more present sort of sound.
| | 02:26 | While an equalizer boost in the upper mids
would make the acoustic guitar more present,
| | 02:30 | I fear that it will be too edgy,
it will have too much bite.
| | 02:34 | But sending it to a short plate reverb
instead of reaching for EQ makes the acoustic guitar
| | 02:39 | sound more present in a more gentle way.
| | 02:43 | The clumsy mid-frequency boost of an EQ is
replaced by the mid-frequency resonance of the reverb.
| | 02:49 | Let's hear it. Listen to the acoustic guitar
as I turn the plate reverb on and off.
| | 02:54 | (music playing)
| | 03:30 | So, a warm room and a present plate coax
the guitar tone in different directions.
| | 03:34 | I should note that if you want the effect
to just be timbral without the added sense
| | 03:39 | of space that often comes along with reverb
effects, the goal would be to more directly
| | 03:43 | integrate the reverb with the track, making
it hard for the casual listener to hear the
| | 03:48 | sound of the reverb processor
separate from the acoustic guitar.
| | 03:52 | We connect the sound of the track to the decay
of the reverb by having little to no pre-delay
| | 03:57 | and by dialing in a quite short Reverb Time.
| | 04:01 | That's why I set the pre-delay to 0 and shorten
the Reverb Time to something close to half a second
| | 04:05 | for my plate reverb.
| | 04:07 | My goal here is to make sure that the
presence in the reverb tail adds to the listener's
| | 04:12 | sense of presence within
the acoustic guitar tone.
| | 04:15 | The medium room example, on the other
hand, gave the sense of space and warmth.
| | 04:20 | This way of thinking, where the timbre of
the reverb influences the timbre of our tracks,
| | 04:25 | is a very common mix move.
| | 04:27 | In this full mix of the tune Shine by the
band Midatlantic, I'm using a reverb with
| | 04:32 | low frequency resonance to make the tom sound
fuller, and a plate reverb with mid-frequency
| | 04:37 | presence to make the snare drum edgier, giving
it more buzz, and a spring reverb on the electric
| | 04:43 | guitars to give them a
different mid-frequency flavor.
| | 04:48 | (music playing)
| | 05:41 | Whenever you're motivated to reach for an
equalizer, you should first consider if a
| | 05:45 | reverb might be the more
interesting and effective solution.
| | 05:50 |
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| Creating contrasting sounds for your tracks| 00:01 | Mixes get crowded. It's really difficult to
fit 50 or more tracks into a recording and
| | 00:06 | have them make sense coming out
of only a couple of loudspeakers.
| | 00:10 | Well, Reverb is an essential
tool for overcoming that challenge.
| | 00:14 | We use contrasting reverbs track by track
to make it easier for the listener to enjoy
| | 00:20 | different elements of a multitrack mix.
| | 00:22 | Listen to this tune in which the lead vocal,
the background vocals, the snare, and the
| | 00:28 | guitars are each treated to
a different kind of reverb.
| | 00:33 | (music playing)
| | 01:07 | Of particular interest are the vocals, and
the potential conflict between the lead vocal
| | 01:12 | and the background vocals.
| | 01:14 | This tune includes the typical challenge
that there are several background singers, but
| | 01:18 | just the single lead vocalist, so the
background vocals risk drowning out the lead vocal.
| | 01:25 | This problem is compounded by the fact that
some of the background vocal tracks are overdubs
| | 01:29 | sung by lead singer himself.
| | 01:32 | With such similar tone, it can be hard to distinguish
the lead vocal part from the multitrack background tracks.
| | 01:40 | Reverb offers a great solution.
| | 01:41 | We create contrast between the lead vocal and the
backgrounds by treating them to two different reverbs.
| | 01:48 | The lead vocal has this Medium Room Reverb.
| | 01:51 | (music playing)
| | 02:25 | Meantime, the background
vocals have this large bright hall.
| | 02:30 | (music playing)
| | 03:03 | Placing the lead vocal in a different
space gives it enough distinction to get heard.
| | 03:09 | The Reverb on the snare is a Plate program.
| | 03:12 | (music playing)
| | 03:33 | The Reverb on the electric
guitars includes Spring Reverb.
| | 03:37 | (music playing)
| | 04:11 | The main reason for choosing those Reverbs
for snare and guitar, as discussed earlier
| | 04:16 | in this course, has to do with
reshaping their tone and their timbre.
| | 04:20 | But an additional goal I have in mind when
allocating so many different Reverbs across
| | 04:25 | the tracks is creating contrast, in order
to give the competing tracks in this tune
| | 04:30 | at least slightly different Reverb signatures.
| | 04:33 | It's easier for listeners to pick out each
individual performer's contribution to the
| | 04:37 | tune by applying track-specific Reverb effects.
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| Using nonlinear reverb to help a track cut through| 00:01 | Another humble tactic for the use of
reverb is to simply help tracks be more audible.
| | 00:06 | To do this, we often reach for a curious
type of reverb program called Nonlinear reverb.
| | 00:12 | Nonlinear reverb doesn't decay the silence.
In fact, the Nonlinear reverb starts at silence,
| | 00:18 | and it sort of undecays. It gets louder instead of
quieter while it decays, and then it abruptly ends.
| | 00:26 | On a snare, it sounds like this, first
the dry track, then with Nonlinear reverb.
| | 00:32 | (music playing)
| | 00:41 | No space can make that sound, but our studio
Reverbs can, and while it sounds quite unusual
| | 00:46 | on its own, it's actually quite a useful
treatment for sounds which are short in duration.
| | 00:51 | I'm thinking here of sounds like drumheads
and hand percussion tracks such as shaker,
| | 00:57 | tambourine, clave, bongos, and congas.
| | 01:00 | Sounds that are short in
duration can be frustrating to mix.
| | 01:04 | Trying to place these short transient
sounds in the mix, we're always tempted to push the
| | 01:08 | faders up, higher and higher just so we can
hear the fine detail of that percussion part.
| | 01:14 | But a Nonlinear reverb, which gives this
extra burst of energy after each hit can make
| | 01:19 | those hits easier to hear, which could mean
that we get to pull the faders down and still
| | 01:24 | enjoy the percussion part.
| | 01:26 | Whenever I can get away with pulling a fader down,
doing so without undermining that track, I go for it.
| | 01:33 | Pulling faders down unclutters the mix, making
everything else in the mix easier to hear and enjoy.
| | 01:39 | Check out this percussion groove.
| | 01:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:56 | Kick, snare, hi-hat, some tom fills
and shakers, there's a lot going on.
| | 02:01 | And I am particularly eager for this track
with snare and shaker to cut through better.
| | 02:07 | (music playing)
| | 02:16 | Cut through isn't exactly the right phrase.
I want this groove to have its own identity
| | 02:21 | among the many elements that make up the loop.
| | 02:23 | I want to feel the rhythm and expressive
dynamics in the performance, but I still want it to
| | 02:27 | sit in the ensemble, contributing to
the overall feel across all the tracks.
| | 02:33 | Listen as I add a touch of
Nonlinear reverb to the featured loop.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
| | 02:52 | The result is a strategic blurring in time where
each hit of the snare and gesture in the shaker
| | 02:57 | track lasts a little bit longer,
making it a little bit easier to hear.
| | 03:01 | A room or a hall type of reverb would wash
out the track very much as if the snare and
| | 03:06 | shaker were performed in a larger space.
| | 03:09 | Nonlinear reverb has this contrived shape
that gives it a good dose of reverberant energy,
| | 03:15 | but by shaping the envelope of the energy
into this crescendo, it separates the dry
| | 03:20 | part of the signal so
that things don't wash out.
| | 03:23 | It's odd at first, but the
Nonlinear reverb is a powerful effect.
| | 03:28 | And if you feel like you can't get away with it,
if it sounds too synthetic and too artificial,
| | 03:33 | well, I sometimes agree.
| | 03:36 | One way to back off on this sort of
startling sound is to add a bit of more traditional
| | 03:40 | reverb to this Nonlinear reverb.
| | 03:43 | Soften the end of the Nonlinear reverb with
a bit of short plate reverb, for example.
| | 03:48 | Here's the snare again, first dry, then with
Nonlinear reverb only, and then with added plate reverb.
| | 03:56 | (music playing)
| | 04:09 | That takes the edge off of the overly abrupt
ending without sacrificing the effect added
| | 04:14 | to the track by a Nonlinear reverb.
| | 04:16 | There will be times when it's just not
the right choice, it's too unnatural.
| | 04:20 | So, we pursue a slightly
different approach in the next movie.
| | 04:25 |
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| Emphasizing the reverb using predelay| 00:01 | If you stretch the pre-delay parameter of
any reverb longer and longer in time, it makes
| | 00:05 | it easier to hear the reverb itself.
| | 00:08 | Let's return to that snare shaker track, and
instead of adding nonlinear reverb as we did
| | 00:13 | in the prior movie, I'll add a short plate
sound and gradually increase the pre-delay
| | 00:18 | from 0 up to 100 milliseconds and beyond.
| | 00:22 | (music playing)
| | 00:52 | Pushing the reverb 'til later in time away
from the dry track itself makes sure that
| | 00:56 | the track isn't obscured by the reverb.
| | 00:59 | It makes the reverb itself easier to hear.
| | 01:02 | Before we tailor this into a more
musical effect, it's worth noting
| | 01:06 | if you want to increase the sense of reverberation
on any track, you have a few choices to make.
| | 01:11 | You can turn up the reverb, make it louder
by raising the send to the reverb, or raising
| | 01:16 | the faders associated with
the returns from the reverb.
| | 01:19 | Another approach is to increase the reverb
time. By letting the duration of the resonance
| | 01:24 | last longer, you add more reverb to the mix.
| | 01:27 | But a third more subtle and often more
productive way to give your listeners the sense of more
| | 01:32 | reverb is to stretch pre-delay to a slightly
longer time so that it better reveals the reverb itself.
| | 01:39 | A snare hit can make it hard
to hear the reverb that follows.
| | 01:43 | Increasing pre-delay pushes the reverb away in
time from the distraction of the loud snare hit.
| | 01:49 | We usually push it just a little bit, 20
to 40 milliseconds is generally enough.
| | 01:55 | But pretty dramatic effects are found
when you take it to 100 milliseconds or more.
| | 02:00 | Working the pre-delay parameter lets you
get your reverb heard without the mix crowding
| | 02:04 | techniques of turning it up
or cranking the Reverb Time.
| | 02:09 | Pre-delay can be stretched to a musically
useful rhythmically valid duration as well.
| | 02:13 | In production styles that embrace
technology, like electronic, house, trance, and other
| | 02:19 | kinds of dance floor music, you might
stretch the pre-delay so that the reverb happens in
| | 02:23 | a way that is rhythmically interesting.
| | 02:26 | And popular styles of music, file this under
special effect, it's not an everyday occurrence.
| | 02:32 | For this type of effect, you tune the pre-
delay time to a musically-relevant time, a 16th
| | 02:37 | note or an 8th note are common.
| | 02:40 | Adjust Pre-delay until the pulse of the
reverb offers a bit of syncopation to the groove.
| | 02:46 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | So ultimately, even though reverb comes to
us from actual physical spaces, we're free
| | 03:19 | to take it in unnatural
directions for the sake of our music.
| | 03:24 |
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| Strategically blurring and obscuring tracks| 00:01 | Artists often live on the edge,
and musicians are no exception.
| | 00:05 | There is something to be said for music when
it gets almost out of control, when it's on
| | 00:09 | the edge of what we can comprehend, what
we can keep up with, what we can understand.
| | 00:14 | And so while reverb can be used to bring
clarity and emphasis as discussed in the prior movie,
| | 00:19 | we sometimes deliberately use reverb for the
opposite, to blur and obscure elements in a mix.
| | 00:26 | Putting too much reverb in a mix
is a well-known and messy problem.
| | 00:29 | A lot of reverb on the snare can create a
sustained rumbling mess that covers your entire
| | 00:34 | mix, making it hard to understand the vocals,
hear the genius and the guitars and worse.
| | 00:40 | So too much reverb is certainly a challenge,
but a greater challenge for us as recording
| | 00:44 | engineers is to try sometimes when the
music calls for it, to flirt with that limit of
| | 00:50 | what counts as too much.
| | 00:52 | There are times when the music wants to
spiral out of control, and so there are times when
| | 00:56 | we allow our mix to get a little too
reverberant, too messy to help enhance that feeling.
| | 01:02 | It can help listeners feel the loss of control
as they struggle a little bit to hear what's
| | 01:06 | going on in your mix too.
| | 01:09 | It creates some mystery so that there's some wonder,
leaving the listener to ask what was that line?
| | 01:13 | Is that actually a guitar making that
sound? Are there two guitars there?
| | 01:19 | No, wait, I think I hear three.
| | 01:21 | Most of us who do this love listening to
other recordings and discovering details in
| | 01:25 | a mix that we didn't even hear until just now, even
though we've heard the tune more than a hundred times.
| | 01:32 | Of course we have to be careful here.
| | 01:34 | Too much reverb accidentally
muddying a mix is unacceptable.
| | 01:38 | But deliberately pushing the boundaries for
how much reverb we can safely enjoy in a mix,
| | 01:43 | well, that's a limit to be explored.
| | 01:48 |
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| Get in the Mix: Changing the scene by changing reverb| 00:01 | It would be a mistake to think of reverb as
an effect only to be applied track by track.
| | 00:06 | We've got a long list going of all the
reasons we reach for reverb, but we don't make those
| | 00:11 | decisions based on the snare and
then the vocal and then the guitars.
| | 00:16 | We really have to serve the song.
We have to serve the artist.
| | 00:19 | We have to serve the art.
| | 00:21 | So a critical motivation for reverb is tied
not to the tracks, but to the song itself,
| | 00:26 | to the song writing, to the story,
and to the structure of the song.
| | 00:31 | reverb is a very powerful way to
create a change of scenery sonically.
| | 00:35 | We create different but appropriate reverberant
signatures for different sections of the tune.
| | 00:40 | As the mix plays, the sonic
environment advances as the song progresses.
| | 00:46 | Obvious opportunities for a reverb-driven
scene change are when the song moves from
| | 00:50 | intro to verse or verse to chorus
or chorus to bridge, and so on.
| | 00:55 | Let's see how that works and how it sounds
in an actual mix using a song by the artist
| | 01:00 | Iyeoka called Millionaire.
It's time to get in the mix.
| | 01:04 | Pause this movie and open the
appropriate file for your DAW.
| | 01:07 | If you don't have access to a DAW right now,
you can continue watching this video to see
| | 01:11 | the Get in the Mix demonstration.
Here is verse 1 into chorus 1.
| | 01:21 | Notice the pronounced shift in reverb when we hit
the chorus? Our Mix is changing pretty radically here.
| | 01:28 | (music playing)
| | 02:11 | The verse has been mixed rather dry with
lots of lo-fi elements where vocals and vocal
| | 02:16 | effects are aggressively filtered,
over-compressed, and distorted.
| | 02:21 | This sets up a terrific contrast with the
chorus where things are allowed to get better
| | 02:25 | sounding, cleaner, brighter,
fuller, and far more reverberant.
| | 02:31 | (music playing)
| | 02:53 | This is motivated entirely
by the sentiment of the song.
| | 02:57 | She isn't a millionaire, but she feels
like one because, you know, life is good.
| | 03:02 | That millionaire feeling of the lyric is
magnified sonically through the lushness, the exaggerated
| | 03:07 | lushness of a large hall
reverb appearing in the chorus.
| | 03:11 | It wasn't much there in the verse.
| | 03:14 | And the Reverb Time far exceeds
the typical 2-second concert hall.
| | 03:18 | Here it's pushed to 4 & 1/2 seconds.
| | 03:21 | We get away with it, because we only put
this large hall sound on certain key tracks.
| | 03:27 | The entrance of the background vocals in the
chorus is a common occurrence in pop music,
| | 03:32 | and treating these vocals to a good
bit of ear candy is often appropriate.
| | 03:36 | So while the lead vocal in the verse includes
filtered and natural sounds for her voice,
| | 03:41 | they all remain quite dry.
| | 03:43 | When the background vocals enter, supported by
more than 4 seconds of flattering resonance,
| | 03:48 | the song is transformed, mission accomplished.
| | 03:51 | Listen to the background
vocals with all that verb.
| | 03:55 | (music playing)
| | 04:07 | These background vocals aren't the sole
indicators of our millionaire reverberation.
| | 04:11 | The arrangement of the song offers us some
supporting tracks to help us assert the scene change.
| | 04:17 | There's a synth that enters in the chorus
offering great timbrel interest to the mix.
| | 04:22 | The songwriters and producers built in
tracks like this to give the listeners new sounds
| | 04:27 | of the chorus and advance
the meaning of the song.
| | 04:30 | As mixing engineers, we should follow their lead
and give this synth the lush reverberant treatment.
| | 04:37 | (music playing)
| | 04:49 | Acoustic guitars made edgy with guitar amps get
softened in the chorus with a dose of large hall reverb.
| | 04:56 | (music playing)
| | 05:08 | Tambourine and other minor parts also move
into sweeter, more reverberant sounds as we
| | 05:13 | go from verse to chorus.
| | 05:16 | We've orchestrated a crescendo of reverb so
the chorus transports us to a new place so
| | 05:21 | that we feel like millionaires
and don't mind if we aren't.
| | 05:25 | (music playing)
| | 05:59 | The tune rewards us with some
great moments for this scene change.
| | 06:03 | For example, there is this nice
breakdown right before the last choruses.
| | 06:07 | We let it return to the dry or more direct
sound, the more forward sound quality, and
| | 06:12 | when the chorus hits, it's huge.
| | 06:15 | Listen to the moment when the
background vocals come in singing their Oh-Oh-Ohs.
| | 06:20 | (music playing)
| | 07:27 | That might be my favorite moment in this song.
| | 07:29 | The scene change is pretty
compelling, and her vocals deliver.
| | 07:33 | It is a millionaire feeling.
| | 07:35 | Of course, it would be silly,
distracting, and annoying to overdo this mix move.
| | 07:40 | We aren't required to change scene with each
change of song element from verse to chorus
| | 07:45 | to bridge, but as a mixer, it's important
to notice when the song invites this sort
| | 07:49 | of a treatment, deliver it.
| | 07:54 |
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| Get in the Mix: Gating reverb to emphasize any track in your production| 00:01 | Gated reverb might be one of the
least intuitive uses of reverb.
| | 00:05 | Whether it was deliberately invented or sort
of accidentally discovered, we'll never know,
| | 00:10 | but whatever its origins, Gated reverb is
an essential part of music production today.
| | 00:15 | So let's make sure we know how to do
it on the all-important snare drum.
| | 00:19 | The signal flow isn't trivial.
| | 00:21 | We run the output of the reverb through a
compressor and then a gate to abruptly truncate
| | 00:25 | that compressed reverb
so it doesn't last so long.
| | 00:28 | It takes the mess out of our mix.
| | 00:31 | The output of the reverb after compression
is itself a long slowly decaying signal, and
| | 00:35 | it would be difficult for the
gate to know when to open and close.
| | 00:39 | So we use the key input to open the gate.
| | 00:42 | The close mic on the snare drum feeds this
key input by way of a bus, instructing the
| | 00:46 | gate when to open and when to close.
| | 00:49 | But the signal running through the gate, the
signal that is in fact to being gated is not
| | 00:53 | the snare drum, it's the reverb signal.
| | 00:56 | So compressed reverb passes through the gate,
but the gate is open and closed based on the
| | 01:01 | snare drum's signal itself.
| | 01:03 | If you haven't already, plan to watch
Foundations of Audio: Compression and Dynamic Processing
| | 01:08 | for more context on compressors,
gates, and their side chains.
| | 01:12 | This Gated reverb sound
creates a completely new snare sound.
| | 01:16 | I think of this sort of reverb move as a
sound synthesis gesture, not really reverberation.
| | 01:22 | Let's get in the mix and explore the
pop rock cliche known as gated snare.
| | 01:32 | I think we can layer in some
Gated reverb, and this tune.
| | 01:35 | It's got the old rock thing going, but
there's a little bit of '80s influence here.
| | 01:40 | The '80s gave us over the top gated snare.
| | 01:43 | We'll build up to that and then rein
in it for a more contemporary sound.
| | 01:48 | The drums are an ideal candidate here, because it is largely
a strong backbeat, plus the occasional very deliberate fill.
| | 01:55 | We can augment this sort of
performance with gated reverb pretty easily.
| | 01:59 | Brushes, ghost notes, flames, drags, and
other more complex parts are too dynamic for us
| | 02:05 | to chase with this sort of effect.
Here's the groove.
| | 02:10 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | Now we add plate reverb to the snare.
| | 02:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:52 | The plate reverb is in turn compressed.
| | 02:56 | (music playing)
| | 03:05 | That compressed reverberation, of course,
would have troubled fitting in to any mix.
| | 03:10 | This motivates the next
essential step, the noise gate.
| | 03:15 | (music playing)
| | 03:20 | We run the output of the reverb through a
gate to cut off that reverb, so it doesn't
| | 03:24 | last so long, taking the mess out of our mix.
| | 03:28 | But the Gate will never open at the right
time unless we key it open by feeding the
| | 03:32 | close microphone signal on the
snare into the side chain of the Gate.
| | 03:36 | The resulting sound is now a
completely modified sort of snare sound.
| | 03:40 | I think of this sort of reverb move as the
sound synthesis move, not really reverberation.
| | 03:46 | (music playing)
| | 03:56 | There are a lot of directions to go when
you're synthesizing a completely new sound, and this
| | 04:01 | is just using compression and reverb.
| | 04:03 | I wouldn't hesitate to instantiate an amplifier
simulator to add some distortion, and I should
| | 04:09 | point out that any reverb will do.
| | 04:11 | We used plate program here, but there's no
reason not to try spring, chamber, or any other
| | 04:16 | reverb you have access to.
| | 04:18 | You can push this sound
to pretty radical extremes.
| | 04:22 | Snare drum invites this sort of behavior.
| | 04:24 | Snare drum is a broadband mid-rangy messy
sort of signal that responds well to this
| | 04:28 | kind of aggressive signal processing, but
the same approach can be used on any percussive
| | 04:33 | sound, tom fills, kick drum, hand percussion
are common tracks for this effect, but it's
| | 04:39 | got to fit the style of the music.
| | 04:42 | For acoustic jazz trying to evoke
realism, gated reverb would be a sin.
| | 04:46 | But for highly processed dance music,
this is required entry into the club.
| | 04:51 | The effect doesn't have
to always be this obvious.
| | 04:54 | It can also be mixed in at a more
subliminal level with a more natural character.
| | 05:00 | (music playing)
| | 05:30 | Have you ever encountered a snare drum track
whose tone is difficult to hear, it just won't
| | 05:34 | cut through no matter how hard you
push it with level, EQ, and compression?
| | 05:40 | Gated reverb might just rescue that snare.
| | 05:43 | Tucked into the mix with a more natural
sound, the snare is made easier to hear because
| | 05:47 | the gated reverb adds spectral character,
some stereo width, and a longer decay time.
| | 05:52 | It makes the snare a little
bit more interesting to listen to.
| | 05:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reversing reverb to highlight musical moments| 00:01 | We know that reverberation is the sound
that comes after the sound our musicians make.
| | 00:06 | It's the sound of their musical
performances as it decays in the space.
| | 00:10 | But while reverberation is what happens in
a real room after a sound, in the recording
| | 00:14 | studio we can persuade it to happen before
the sound. We can reverse the reverberation.
| | 00:21 | Have a listen to this groove changeup as
we go from a 4-bar half time A section to
| | 00:27 | an 8-bar B section at twice the tempo.
| | 00:31 | (music playing)
| | 00:58 | Reverse reverb might be a nice way to
emphasize the tempo change here at the beginning of
| | 01:02 | the B section, I'll start just before it.
| | 01:08 | (music playing)
| | 01:16 | For the reverse reverb, any early strong sound
at the top of the B section will do, a snare
| | 01:22 | hit, a tom fill, or a kick drum
would all be good candidates.
| | 01:26 | But there's a unique overall texture to this
groove so I'm looking for a less obvious choice.
| | 01:31 | I listen to all the multi-track elements
that make up this groove, and I'm drawn to this
| | 01:36 | track labeled Snr/Clp/Shk.
| | 01:44 | (music playing)
| | 01:51 | This track has a bit of shaker and a hard
unusual cracking sound that sounds like it's
| | 01:56 | made up of a small snare and handclap.
| | 01:59 | The first hit of the Snare/Clap sound in the B
section is a great choice for reverse reverb.
| | 02:06 | (music playing)
| | 02:09 | It's this first hand clap only that gets our
reverse reverb at the top of the B section,
| | 02:14 | so I'll pull a copy of it onto a new track.
| | 02:18 | First, I'll create a new stereo track,
because the source samples a stereo.
| | 02:24 | And with the clap highlighted, let's call this
temporary track with the featured sound THE HIT.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | It's a good practice to clean the top and
the tail of the edit piece, so even though
| | 02:43 | I'm not hearing any artifacts at the beginning
or end of our sample I'll slip in quick cross
| | 02:48 | fades to silence and make
sure I've got a clean hit.
| | 02:52 | (music playing)
| | 02:54 | It would be straightforward to add reverb
to it now and the reverb tail would simply
| | 02:58 | follow to the right of the waveform.
| | 03:01 | But we want reverse reverb that
ultimately will happen before the hit to its left.
| | 03:07 | To do this, we are going to reverse the hit
in time, then we'll record reverb from that
| | 03:13 | backwards hit onto a different track.
| | 03:16 | And then we'll reverse both the
backwards hit and its associated reverb.
| | 03:21 | In the end, we want to hit to be restored to
its original place and direction in time while
| | 03:26 | time reversing the reverb we recorded.
| | 03:29 | It's confusing at first, but it will
all make sense when you see and hear it.
| | 03:33 | It I'll do a quick and simple way
so you can see how it works first.
| | 03:37 | But there are some disadvantages to this
particular technique, so afterwards I'll show a more
| | 03:42 | foolproof way to get this done.
| | 03:45 | I want to reverse the hit and have it feed a
reverb and record that reverb to a new track.
| | 03:50 | And here's where I make a small mistake.
I'm going to select this hit and reverse it.
| | 04:01 | (music playing)
| | 04:03 | Next, I'll create a destination
track for the reverb.
| | 04:10 | And as this is just a temporary setup, a
printed effect not something that runs continuously
| | 04:14 | in our mix, I'm going to out of convenience
insert the reverb on our HIT track, set it
| | 04:20 | to a short plate, and make sure it's 100% wet.
| | 04:26 | Now I'll disconnect THE HIT track with reverb
from the mix and assign it to any two available
| | 04:31 | buses, buses 17 and 18 are available.
| | 04:36 | Now I'll label the track where I am recording
this reverb breveR, which is reverb backwards.
| | 04:44 | The input of the breveR track needs to be the
buses that have the reverb, buses 17 and 18.
| | 04:50 | I put this track into record, mute everything
but the backwards hit, and record the hit reverb,
| | 04:57 | being sure to roll the record
the full decay of the reverb.
| | 05:07 | (music playing)
| | 05:11 | Now I reversed them both in time, and
when I do so I get reverb before the hit.
| | 05:18 | (music playing)
| | 05:23 | That's all mostly right, but, as you can see,
the hit itself is no longer in the right place
| | 05:28 | in time, let me undo the reverse and redo it.
| | 05:34 | When I undo the reverse we see that THE HIT
lines up where it should be, but when we do
| | 05:39 | the reversal while we get reverse reverb,
our hit has moved to a new location.
| | 05:46 | When I reverse the waveforms, they are time reversed
so that the start and end times of my selections are swapped.
| | 05:52 | So let me get rid of this
backwards reverb and try again.
| | 05:56 | We improve on this process by being sure that
our original selection before any time reversal
| | 06:02 | starts far enough before the hit that the
full decay of the backwards reverb when it
| | 06:06 | ultimately occurs before
the hit will be included.
| | 06:09 | I'll show you what I mean.
| | 06:11 | Working in your DAW, snap to Grid Editing mode
and selecting a Course Grid time like a full
| | 06:16 | second or a full bar makes it easy to
grab enough time in a repeatable way.
| | 06:22 | Now I try again, reversing time for the hit
with this full region selected, knowing that
| | 06:27 | I'll select the exact same block
of time when I unreverse it later.
| | 06:36 | (music playing)
| | 06:42 | Unreverse time to restore the hit to the right
place and time and so that it no longer plays
| | 06:46 | backwardsm and notice how now our reverb is
backwards happening before the hit with the
| | 06:52 | hit right where it should be.
| | 06:57 | (music playing)
| | 07:04 | Have a listen to it in the full mix.
| | 07:05 | I'm muting THE HIT track because it lives
in its original place, I just pulled out an
| | 07:09 | isolated copy to create the reverse reverb.
| | 07:14 | (music playing)
| | 07:20 | This gives us a real acceleration
into the tempo change at the B section.
| | 07:26 | (music playing)
| | 07:33 | So many instruments make sounds that
begin rather strongly but can decay slowly.
| | 07:37 | A piano or a guitar strum, for example.
| | 07:40 | There's something quite interesting, quite ear
grabbing about a sound that starts slowly and ends abruptly.
| | 07:47 | Reversing the slow decay of reverb so that it
slowly undecays makes a bold sonic statement.
| | 07:54 | (music playing)
| | 08:19 | Now, of course, the fun part. Was that the
right Reverb Time, was that the right reverb type?
| | 08:25 | To change it, you've got to
step through all this again.
| | 08:28 | so a bit of advice, when you want to try
reverse reverb on your mix, print three, four maybe
| | 08:34 | a dozen different versions all at once.
| | 08:37 | Then unreverse them
globally and audition each one.
| | 08:40 | You can hear what works best for your project, a
plate or a hall, a long Reverb Time, or short Reverb Time.
| | 08:47 | Like the nonlinear reverb and gated reverb
we discussed in earlier movies in this course,
| | 08:52 | reverse reverb can't happen in the
real room, it's a studio-only concoction.
| | 08:56 | I hope that fact alone tempts
you to experiment further with it.
| | 09:00 | That unmistakable ear-grabbing sound of a
reverse reverb as it accelerates into a note
| | 09:06 | can be placed front and center as an aggressive
mix move suitable for electronic styles of music.
| | 09:11 | It can be put on a single note or a single
word to draw emphasis and attention to that
| | 09:15 | one instance in the mix, or it can be
tucked in at a low level to less aggressively take
| | 09:20 | your mix in a new direction, or it can be
added to an entire track to make a mix sound
| | 09:24 | unnatural, swirly, psychedelic.
| | 09:27 | This used to be a fairly tricky effect to
do on analog tape, but it's so easy in a
| | 09:32 | DAW that I think we are all sort
of honor bound to give it a try.
| | 09:37 |
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| Synthesizing new sounds through reverb| 00:01 | I hope you have seen that reverb is the basis
for some pretty out-there effects, from nonlinear
| | 00:06 | reverb, to gated reverb, to reverse reverb,
we've see how reverberation can be the basis
| | 00:10 | for synthesizing wholly new sounds.
| | 00:13 | While the idea of reverb comes from real rooms, the
reverb we create in a studio take some left turns.
| | 00:19 | But we're not even close to done yet.
| | 00:22 | Let's take a look at some other unusual
uses of reverb that fabricate new sounds.
| | 00:27 | The goal here is to show you that
there are many avenues to explore.
| | 00:30 | If you're feeling inspired, go for your own
modifications, variations, and entirely new inventions.
| | 00:37 | Convolution offers a really exciting opportunity
for using reverb processing to manipulate our sounds.
| | 00:43 | Recall that convolution allowed us to take
the impulse response of any space and apply
| | 00:48 | it to any of our audio tracks to create the
illusion of our tracks having been performed in that space.
| | 00:54 | But convolution isn't limited to impulse
responses for fancy halls and performance spaces, we
| | 01:00 | can also use convolution to create the sound of
our tracks in other innovative or alternative spaces.
| | 01:06 | If you don't feel like a symphony hall or an
opera house will do, you can use convolution
| | 01:10 | to create the sound of your track in a pipe, a
water tank, a power plant, a chimney, or a shoebox.
| | 01:18 | If you have the impulse response of any other
sort of space, you can convolve it with your
| | 01:22 | tracks to get an entirely new sound.
| | 01:25 | And you can also convolve your
tracks with non-space waveforms.
| | 01:28 | That is why not involve your vocal with a
snare drum, or your snare drum with the sound
| | 01:33 | of breaking glass, or your ukulele
with the waveform of didgeridoo note?
| | 01:39 | Convolution as an application can convolve
any audio track with any other short waveform.
| | 01:44 | Let's take a listen to one example.
| | 01:46 | This percussive groove has room
for a bit of wacky convolution.
| | 01:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:55 | (music playing)
| | 02:05 | Hidden in the loop are some quick muted strums on
guitar, offering a very short percussive detail.
| | 02:14 | And because someone was kind enough to put
the resonance of an empty 5-gallon glass water
| | 02:19 | bottle in a convolution reverb, we can
convert the strum into an interesting new percussion
| | 02:24 | sound, rounder and fuller.
| | 02:27 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | Add some interesting echo...
and drop it in the mix.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
| | 02:50 | Convolution can be taken
to rather absurd extremes.
| | 02:53 | I love this stuff, so I'm
counting on you to explore this further.
| | 02:57 | And speaking of absurd extremes,
let's return to reverb Chambers.
| | 03:01 | reverb Chambers can be a beautiful, honest,
acoustic way to introduce reverb to your production.
| | 03:06 | But there's nothing stopping us
from processing those reverb Chambers.
| | 03:10 | What if you introduced pitch
shifting to your Reverb Chamber?
| | 03:13 | For example, here's a Reverb Chamber in
which the return from the reverb was pitch shifted
| | 03:17 | down by one octave.
And I also allow it to be time stretched.
| | 03:22 | So now the reverb tail is an octave
lower, and it lasts twice as long.
| | 03:26 | A snare becomes a kind of gong.
| | 03:31 | (music playing)
| | 03:37 | You can shift it up or shift it down.
| | 03:39 | You can increase the duration, preserve the
duration, or shorten the duration of that reverb.
| | 03:45 | When you're synthesizing new sounds,
aggressively manipulating any reverb can lead to outrageous
| | 03:50 | and sometimes inspiring tracks,
whatever suits your production goals.
| | 03:55 | All too often reverb effects are dialed up,
tweaked, set, and left to run on their own,
| | 04:00 | static for the entire mix.
| | 04:02 | I'd like to encourage you to fiddle around
a bit more. Why not apply a reverb effect
| | 04:07 | to a single note, hit, fill, word, or phrase?
| | 04:11 | Listen to this groove as we transition
from an A section to a double time B section.
| | 04:16 | (music playing)
| | 04:27 | The first snare hit here as we transition
from the A section to the B section is begging
| | 04:31 | for an extra kick of reverb.
| | 04:34 | We don't want this much reverb every single
time to snare hits, that would clutter our
| | 04:38 | mix, but we can get away with
a little extra just this once.
| | 04:42 | Listen to the extra kick of reverb
when the tune jumps into double time.
| | 04:47 | (music playing)
| | 04:58 | And just as the reverb can come and go when
we need it, we can also use the automation
| | 05:02 | in our Digital Audio Workstation to manipulate the
reverb parameters themselves during the course of our mix.
| | 05:08 | The Reverb Time can be allowed to get
longer or shorter, to get brighter or duller, to
| | 05:13 | get warmer or thinner, it's up to you.
| | 05:16 | Listen carefully, because the manipulation of
certain reverb parameters can lead to audible artifacts.
| | 05:21 | Listen for clicking and zipper noises
as the reverb parameters are changed.
| | 05:26 | When that happens, you're out of luck.
You'll need to reach for a different parameter or
| | 05:30 | a different reverb or make the parameter
moves more slowly or do the move when the reverb
| | 05:34 | is muted, if the music allows.
| | 05:37 | But many reverb devices pride themselves on
letting you massage and manipulate and modulate
| | 05:42 | various parameters within the presets,
live, without unwanted sonic side effects.
| | 05:48 | So you can manipulate the spectral content of
the reverb in tempo with the tune, or change
| | 05:52 | the Reverb Time in a way
that's tied to the groove.
| | 05:55 | All the tracks in your mixes are probably
quite dynamic, you ride faders, muting and
| | 05:59 | unmuting tracks as you wish.
| | 06:02 | Your effects, especially reverb,
can be just as dynamic as your tracks.
| | 06:06 | There's nothing to stop you from changing
the reverb from verse to chorus to bridge,
| | 06:10 | and even from bar to bar and beat to beat.
| | 06:14 | This sort of dynamic reverb that changes so
often can be an intriguing kind of ear candy
| | 06:18 | that pulls listeners into
your mix and sets it apart.
| | 06:23 | Convolution craziness, chamber reverb creativity,
and dynamic reverb all drive home one essential point:
| | 06:30 | reverb is a rich effect that loves to be part
of a more elaborate signal processing scheme.
| | 06:35 | I hope you're feeling creative, because there's much
to explore, and that's what we'll do in the next movie.
| | 06:40 |
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| Get in the Mix: Supporting a track with regenerative reverb| 00:01 | The sonic appeal of lush
reverberation does have limits.
| | 00:05 | Too much reverb can definitely be disappointing,
but there are times when we want to push somehow
| | 00:10 | for more of that ear tingling
experience without clouding a mix.
| | 00:13 | In a down tempo moment in any song, or on
the lead vocal in a ballad, or with any string
| | 00:19 | pad horn section or choir, we
have another way to add pop polish.
| | 00:23 | I like to call this next effect Regenerative
reverb, where we allow the reverb to interact
| | 00:28 | with some carefully chosen delays so
that it pulses on underneath the track.
| | 00:34 | It's a bit of a complicated setup, so
let's get the signal flow right first.
| | 00:39 | Our background vocals feed a long
reverb running a long-haul preset.
| | 00:44 | The background vocals also feed a delay processor with
multiple delays, each tuned to a rhythmically useful delay time.
| | 00:52 | Then the Output of the delays
themselves are fed to the same long-haul reverb.
| | 00:57 | The goal is to have the background vocals trigger a
reverberant event that isn't simply a single room decaying.
| | 01:04 | Instead, we want these delays to feed the reverb, so
we get a rhythmically pulsing extra push of reverb.
| | 01:11 | This reverb effect is fairly subtle.
| | 01:13 | On first listen it might
just sound like regular reverb.
| | 01:16 | Using a single reverb that lasts as
long as this effect would clutter the mix.
| | 01:21 | It's the delays that let us use a shorter
Reverb Time and coax it into a longer effect.
| | 01:26 | Let's hear it in action.
It's time to get in the mix.
| | 01:35 | Here's a chorus in the
tune Millionaire by Iyeoka.
| | 01:38 | Pay attention to the reverb on the
harmony vocals behind and around the lead vocal.
| | 01:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:09 | For reverb, we'll use a simple large haul and
set the reverb Time to 4.5 seconds and push
| | 02:15 | the Pre-Delay into the mid 30s.
| | 02:18 | A little High Frequency roll
off keeps it natural sounding.
| | 02:22 | The regenerative reverb also includes
this multi-tap delay using three of the taps.
| | 02:28 | I set two taps to a Delay time very
near a half note and hardpan them.
| | 02:33 | The left delay lands a tick ahead of the
half note and the right delay is a hair late.
| | 02:39 | That gives a wide, slightly left-
leaning impact at the half note point.
| | 02:43 | I set the third delay to a dotted half
note and Pan it slightly to the right.
| | 02:49 | In its typical use, this sort of delay
effect would create crisp echoes on the vocal.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:08 | To create the regenerative reverb effect,
the mix is adjusted so that the delays are
| | 03:13 | very wet, presenting a moving bed of reverb.
| | 03:17 | Without this regenerative reverb, those
background vocals would be disappointing.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:34 | Let's listen to the reverb effect on the
background vocals without the other tracks.
| | 03:39 | (music playing)
| | 03:54 | The vocal still sound reasonably natural
but somehow hyped, that's because in part the
| | 03:59 | reverb is sustaining and supporting what they
sing without obscuring or clouding what we hear.
| | 04:05 | Listen now as I stop the background vocals
abruptly, so you can hear the regenerative
| | 04:10 | reverb linger on in isolation.
| | 04:13 | (music playing)
| | 04:19 | This is a tricky effect to balance, too much
and your mix becomes messy, awash in too much
| | 04:24 | reverb, too little and we fail our artist.
| | 04:27 | We fail to make these vocals
even better than the real thing.
| | 04:32 | This is the sort of effect where you push
it up, and you pull it back down, and you
| | 04:36 | push it back up, only not as far and pull
it back down just a little, until you
| | 04:40 | find the right placement in the mix
where you can just barely hear it.
| | 04:45 | (music playing)
| | 05:11 | In fact, for this sort of effect you place
it so that you aren't even sure it's audible.
| | 05:15 | You want to be able to hit the Mute buttons on the
reverb return and feel disappointment when it's gone.
| | 05:21 | And when you unmute it, you want to hear the
background vocals getting wider, more interesting
| | 05:26 | and more intriguing without getting the least bit blurry,
without getting the least bit difficult to understand.
| | 05:33 | (music playing)
| | 05:58 | We don't want it to sound like it has too
much of an effect, we want it to have a whole
| | 06:02 | lot of almost undetectable effect.
It's a tricky balance.
| | 06:07 | This Regenerative reverb is a common mix
move for ballads, perfect for the lead vocal,
| | 06:13 | and it's great for any simple slow moving
solo instrument that's musically rather simple
| | 06:17 | but needs added sonic interest.
| | 06:20 | Built on reverb and delays, it's a
complicated patch of effects to get under control.
| | 06:25 | It requires a bit of time, practice, and
careful listening to build it into the sort of magic
| | 06:31 | dust we like to sprinkle on some of our mixes.
| | 06:36 |
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| Getting the most out of room tracks| 00:00 | Room Tracks, where you record the room that you are
recording in to its own separate track, deserve special mention.
| | 00:07 | We've talked about so many signal
processing strategies that are really built on reverb
| | 00:11 | processors, patching in a
reverb and manipulating it.
| | 00:15 | Let's make sure we get the most out of
every room tracking opportunity we can.
| | 00:19 | We'll talk about some specific mix ideas,
but allow me to offer some suggestions for
| | 00:23 | the Tracking Phase.
First, plan to experiment.
| | 00:27 | Miking a room is difficult, it's a big space, and it can
be hard to find the best sounding spots for microphones.
| | 00:34 | Second, while a one-track mono room has some
usefulness, plan to set up stereo pairs instead.
| | 00:41 | And if you're working in surround sound use
four-, five-, and seven-mike techniques suitable
| | 00:46 | to your surround sound format. You can
always use a subset of what you track if desired.
| | 00:51 | Third, all of the stereo and surround techniques
you've learned about for recording an orchestra,
| | 00:56 | a horn section or a drum kit, and I'm thinking
MS, X-Y, spaced Omnis, ORTF, Decca trees and
| | 01:05 | so on, all of those mike
techniques are valid for room tracks.
| | 01:09 | Plan to use omni directional,
cardioid and bi-directional pickup patterns.
| | 01:13 | Condenser microphones, both large and small
diaphragm, are the most common choice, but
| | 01:18 | ribbons are often a great choice.
| | 01:20 | Lastly, it's okay to go for quantity of tracks your first
few times out if you have enough gear and enough inputs.
| | 01:28 | That is set up several sets of microphones
for the room, a closed pair, a distant pair,
| | 01:33 | a high pair by the ceiling, a
low pair by the floor et cetera.
| | 01:38 | Audition them when you mix and hear what works.
| | 01:40 | Then through experience you'll find the room
track techniques that help out your mixes the most.
| | 01:46 | Now let's dive into a session
and put some room tracks to use.
| | 01:50 | Here's a project with good
opportunities to manipulate room tracks.
| | 01:54 | Have a listen to a bit of the chorus.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | While the room tracks here labeled RoomStereo
exists for the entire tune, I think it might
| | 02:35 | be a good idea to just have them enter in the chorus,
so I'll trim the start of the room track file accordingly.
| | 02:46 | There's a fill heading into chorus 1, let's grab part
of it, let's just grab these two hits and check it.
| | 02:56 | I want to make sure it
sounds appropriate soloed as well.
| | 03:01 | That is going to be close enough.
| | 03:05 | We'll give it a short cross fade to silence,
to minimize any clicks or unwanted artifacts.
| | 03:12 | Over at the end, we'll just
have a nice long cross fade.
| | 03:19 | (music playing)
| | 03:28 | With the room tracks now confined to the chorus,
let's listen to those room tracks and assess their sound.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:51 | The very first thing I check when I listen to
room microphones is their balance left to right.
| | 03:56 | I adjust them in level and sometimes slide one
track earlier or later until the room stays centered.
| | 04:03 | In particular, I focus on the snare sound
within the stereo room tracks and try to center
| | 04:07 | it or get as close as I reasonably can.
| | 04:12 | (music playing)
| | 04:15 | Yeah, these are sounding
perfectly balanced to me.
| | 04:19 | Rooms can be a bit of a mess to sort out with
the sound of the entire kit splashing all around.
| | 04:25 | With practice, you'll get good
at hearing through the chaos.
| | 04:28 | Satisfied with the left-right balance, the
second thing I check is the tone of the room tracks.
| | 04:34 | I'm most interested in their presence. I
want good mid-range detail so that I get a wide
| | 04:40 | live sense of each drum hit,
particularly the snare.
| | 04:44 | I have some concerns about these
room tracks in their raw state.
| | 04:47 | I'm liking the snare, but I'm worried about
the level of kick and hi-hat in the tracks.
| | 04:53 | (music playing)
| | 05:02 | There's a lot of low kick
leakage in these room tracks.
| | 05:05 | While it might sound thunderous and
exciting at first, it's really hard to use the kick
| | 05:10 | sound in a room track.
| | 05:11 | A tight low end in your mix is usually best
achieved by having the low frequencies come
| | 05:17 | from a single track for each low-
frequency instrument like kick and bass.
| | 05:22 | When the kick hits your mix from multiple
tracks, the kick track and the room tracks
| | 05:27 | plus leakage from the snare, hat, toms, and
overheads, the slow changing large wavelength
| | 05:34 | low frequencies can collide with out-of-phase
relationships among all of these views of the kick.
| | 05:40 | So most of the time, I mike up the room with a
goal of getting minimal kick and maximal snare.
| | 05:46 | In this case we'll have to filter out some lows.
| | 05:50 | The hi-hat is more than loud enough in the
overhead tracks closer to the kit, so I'm
| | 05:54 | not looking for more of them in the room either.
| | 05:58 | So I've inserted a four band EQ on the
room tracks, and now I'm going to pull out the
| | 06:02 | lows associated with a kick and the highs
most associated with a hi-hat, hopefully without
| | 06:08 | killing the sound of the snare.
| | 06:11 | Over in the Mix window it's easy to see that
I've already pre-instantiated a few effects
| | 06:15 | that we're about to walk
through, including this Equalizer.
| | 06:19 | I use this to pull out the lows and pull out
the highs, focusing on the snare and trying
| | 06:26 | to minimize the distraction
of the kick and the hi-hat.
| | 06:31 | (music playing)
| | 07:27 | It's always a compromise.
| | 07:29 | To reduce the kick and hi-hat as much as we
might wish, we end up losing too much snare tone.
| | 07:35 | Obviously kicks don't just live at low
frequencies and hi-hats up high, they're broadband sounds,
| | 07:41 | they all overlap with each
other on the frequency axis.
| | 07:44 | But I think I found a
decent place for the filters.
| | 07:47 | We can now place these room tracks in the
mix and add a bit of excitement and contrast.
| | 07:52 | Remember, they enter in the chorus.
| | 07:58 | (music playing)
| | 08:35 | You adjust the level of the room
tracks to taste. There's no right answer.
| | 08:40 | Try to suit the mood of the
tune and create a sound you like.
| | 08:44 | We could stop there, but I'm feeling greedy.
| | 08:47 | Another common step we take with room
tracks is to gate them so that they emphasize the
| | 08:52 | snare hits and get out of the way in between.
So I've inserted a gate with some messy results.
| | 08:59 | (music playing)
| | 09:30 | No amount of fidgeting with the parameters will
get this gate to open naturally for each snare hit.
| | 09:35 | The kick and the hi-hat keep opening the gate.
| | 09:38 | This is always a problem, and the convenient
solution is to open the gate on the room tracks
| | 09:43 | with the close mike on the snare.
This is done using the key input on the gate.
| | 09:49 | I'll feed the snare to the key of the gate by
sending it to any available bus. I like Bus 3.
| | 09:55 | My snare track is here labeled
Snare-close, let's send it to Bus 3.
| | 10:05 | I'll raise it to unity gain to get the full
snare, I'll make it a pre fader send so that
| | 10:10 | later when I solo the room tracks which would
mute the snare itself, it won't mute this send.
| | 10:16 | So my gate will still open on the snare hits
even when the snare track is muted from my mix.
| | 10:22 | Over on the gate I need to set the key input to
this Bus number 3 and set a SIDE-CHAIN to this key.
| | 10:33 | Now the gate should have an easier time
opening on snare hits because it isn't looking at
| | 10:38 | the messy room track to know when the snare
hits. Instead, it's looking at the closed mike
| | 10:42 | snare track. Let's hear how we are doing.
| | 10:47 | (music playing)
| | 10:56 | Well, it still won't open reliably, but we've
got another gadget in our gated room sound toolkit.
| | 11:05 | We can filter the Side-Chain signal to pull
out some of the non-snare leakage that keeps
| | 11:09 | misfiring our gate. Note we aren't EQ-ing
the room tracks themselves just the Side-Chain
| | 11:15 | signal that tells the gate when to open.
| | 11:19 | (music playing)
| | 12:00 | That Side-Chain filter has further helped us stop
the gate from misfiring on hi-hats and kick drums.
| | 12:07 | Let's check it out in the full mix.
| | 12:11 | (music playing)
| | 12:35 | To get the gate on room tracks to cooperate,
it's pretty much always necessary to feed
| | 12:40 | the close mike snare track into the
Side-Chain and to filter that Side-Chain.
| | 12:45 | We can actually audition this Side-Chain if
we want to hear what the gate hears when it's
| | 12:49 | trying to decide when to open.
| | 12:53 | (music playing)
| | 13:19 | We've stripped away as much as we can to
find the spike of energy on each snare-hit and
| | 13:23 | use that to open the gate so that we get
gated snare in the room tracks in every chorus.
| | 13:31 | (music playing)
| | 14:01 | Still feeling greedy? Me too. The next step,
compression, naturally. I've patched one up.
| | 14:07 | You can take this sound a lot of directions.
| | 14:16 | (music playing)
| | 14:55 | Let's see how that works as
we transition into the solo.
| | 15:02 | (music playing)
| | 15:39 | That could be a good path to follow if
we want to make the effect more obvious.
| | 15:43 | Room sound, particularly compressed room sound
always has a raw exciting quality. Not done?
| | 15:50 | Well, you could still throw more
signal processing at the gated snare sound.
| | 15:55 | Here's a bit of guitar amp.
| | 15:58 | (music playing)
| | 16:31 | Now our chorus enters with a bit of caffeine.
| | 16:34 | (music playing)
| | 17:12 | Room tracks are an important source of short natural
reverberation that we often aggressively manipulate.
| | 17:20 | Here we just used EQ, a keyed filter
gate, plus compression and distortion.
| | 17:26 | Be sure not to overdo it.
We have to serve the music.
| | 17:30 | But you'll find some styles of music beg you to
take it further, add delay, flanging, and some wah-wah,
| | 17:36 | whatever you feel inspired to do.
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|
|
5. Advanced Reverb TopicsSetting up your own reverb chamber: The architecture| 00:00 | Thinking of repurposing a nearby
space to be your reverb chamber?
| | 00:04 | All I can say is, do it.
| | 00:07 | Anyone can buy the same plugins you can,
but no one will have the same chamber you do.
| | 00:11 | The engine willing to go to the trouble
to set up an experiment with the chamber
| | 00:15 | to get a great sound will also
find they've created a unique sound.
| | 00:20 | Find a space that's highly
sound-reflective. Concrete, brick and tile are common
| | 00:26 | materials to look for.
| | 00:27 | Be aware that carpet, curtains,
closets with clothes, these are all sound-
| | 00:32 | absorptive materials that will
undermine the sound of the chamber.
| | 00:38 | Look for a space where concrete,
brick, and/or title dominate.
| | 00:43 | You also want your architecture to be
irregularly shaped to offer some sound diffusion.
| | 00:48 | Stairs, columns, bumpy stuff,
nonparallel walls, these are all desirable things
| | 00:55 | in reverb chambers to help you get
a unique sound without ugly-sounding
| | 00:59 | acoustic anomalies.
| | 01:01 | Lastly, and this can be tricky in a
lot of studios, we need a space that is
| | 01:05 | as quiet as possible.
| | 01:07 | That is, you don't want to hear
extraneous ambient noise in the chamber.
| | 01:11 | When you send the snare drum to the
chamber, you want to hear the decay of the
| | 01:15 | snare drum down to the lowest level of sounds.
| | 01:18 | You don't want to hear the hum, buzz,
and whoosh of refrigerators traffic
| | 01:22 | and other distractions.
| | 01:23 | So we look for a space that's quiet.
| | 01:26 | The same thing that makes the room
sound reflective also improves the sound
| | 01:29 | isolation, so thick concrete walls and
sound-isolating doors, to at least doors
| | 01:35 | with some weather stripping and gasketing to
make something of an airtight seal, are helpful.
| | 01:40 | A room without windows is probably going
to be quieter than a room with windows.
| | 01:45 | And as the reverb chamber isn't a
place for people to hang out, we don't
| | 01:48 | actually need heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning equipment in there,
| | 01:52 | which is good, because
those are noisemakers as well.
| | 01:56 | With the space arranged,
it's time to add the audio ins and outs.
| | 01:59 | We do this in the next movie.
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| Setting up your own reverb chamber: The audio| 00:00 | Let's speak now of the audio
equipment within the chamber.
| | 00:03 | We've got loudspeakers and microphones.
| | 00:06 | Loudspeakers are the sound source in the
chamber, and microphones are the sound receivers.
| | 00:13 | You might think that we need super
tweaky high-end loudspeakers and microphones.
| | 00:17 | While that would be great, history
teaches us we can get away with using more
| | 00:21 | average quality gear.
| | 00:23 | For the speakers, dynamic range is
more important than frequency response.
| | 00:27 | That is to say, it's less important
that the loudspeaker be accurate and flat
| | 00:32 | from low to mid to high frequencies, and
it's more important that the loudspeaker
| | 00:36 | be capable of high sound pressure levels.
| | 00:39 | We choose loudness over accuracy.
| | 00:42 | We need to energize the room fully,
so sound reinforcement loud speakers are
| | 00:46 | probably more useful than
consumer hi-fi speakers.
| | 00:50 | In fact, if you happen to have extra
stage monitors or small loudspeakers on
| | 00:55 | sticks used for small sound
reinforcement situations, those could be ideal for
| | 00:59 | setting up a chamber.
| | 01:01 | A nice thing about live sound
loudspeakers is that they are often horn-loaded
| | 01:05 | drivers making them quite
directional on how they radiate sound.
| | 01:09 | Having a directional radiation pattern
makes it productive for you to re-aim the
| | 01:14 | loudspeaker within the chamber and find
a different sort of reverberant sound.
| | 01:21 | So, any loudspeaker radiation
pattern will work, but a directional
| | 01:25 | horn-loaded loudspeaker makes it
possible for you to tune the chamber by
| | 01:29 | reorienting the speaker.
| | 01:31 | There is an analogous
situation with microphones.
| | 01:34 | You can certainly use very
high-fidelity, very flat omnidirectional microphones.
| | 01:40 | But directional microphones are useful
because they also reward the engineer who
| | 01:44 | is willing to experiment with placement.
| | 01:46 | While any the microphone is fair game
for a reverb chamber, the most popular
| | 01:51 | ones these days are cardioid
condensers, and more specifically ,small diaphragm
| | 01:56 | cardioid condensers, like the Neumann
KM 184s, AKG 451s, Shure KSM 137s, and
| | 02:05 | Audio Technica 4041s. In terms of the
placement of microphone and loud speakers
| | 02:11 | you'll have to do some
experimentation, but here are some rules.
| | 02:14 | First, you want to avoid a direct
on-axis line-of-sight connection between the
| | 02:19 | loudspeakers and the microphone.
| | 02:21 | You don't want the loudspeaker to have a
way to fire directly into the microphones;
| | 02:26 | you want some sort of obstruction.
| | 02:28 | Put a sound-reflective barrier in
between or place them around the corner from
| | 02:32 | each other if it's an L-shaped room.
| | 02:34 | Otherwise, you can point the
loudspeakers and microphones into different corners
| | 02:38 | so that they face away from each other.
| | 02:44 | The reason for this is that there's
the risk of a direct acoustic connection
| | 02:48 | between the loudspeaker and the
microphones, which will give you not reverb, but
| | 02:53 | essentially a direct sound with delay,
which will cause comb filtering, plus the
| | 02:58 | coloration to the sound introduced by
your loudspeaker and your microphones.
| | 03:03 | When you're placing your speakers,
orient them so that they energize the room.
| | 03:07 | That is, think of the loudspeakers as
a way to acoustically drive the space
| | 03:12 | and position them so that you get the most
scattering of sound as quickly as possible.
| | 03:17 | Aiming the loudspeakers straight at a
flat wall will energize that wall and
| | 03:22 | the wall opposite, but aiming the
loudspeaker in a corner will cause the sound
| | 03:26 | to bounce around with more complexity,
energizing more of the surfaces in the room sooner.
| | 03:31 | Similarly, place the microphones in an
orientation that you think captures the
| | 03:36 | full complexity of the reflections and
reverberation in the room without getting
| | 03:41 | too much of the sound from the speaker directly.
| | 03:44 | It's going to take some experimentation.
| | 03:46 | Of course, anything goes.
| | 03:48 | All that matters is what sounds best.
| | 03:50 | But as you explore the possibilities
and capabilities of your chamber, stay
| | 03:55 | oriented to the essential goal of
having reverb returns from the chamber that
| | 03:59 | are themselves 100% wet.
| | 04:02 | That means they'll have as little
direct sound from the loudspeaker to the
| | 04:05 | microphone as possible.
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| Using convolution correctly| 00:00 | Convolution brings a major
capability to our studio.
| | 00:04 | Any track we record using typical close
miking techniques can be sonically transported
| | 00:09 | to sound as if it were
recorded in any space in the world.
| | 00:13 | All you need is the
impulse response of that space.
| | 00:16 | We use convolution to put our pianos in
the finest concert halls in Europe, our
| | 00:20 | drums in the best recording studios in
Los Angeles, and our vocals in the most
| | 00:24 | thunderously awesome caves in Africa.
| | 00:27 | But convolution does have limits, so we
take a look under the hood in this movie
| | 00:31 | and the next, so that we're better
informed users of the technology.
| | 00:36 | Recall the convolution is done by
sending an impulse into the room, a simple
| | 00:40 | single instantaneous spike and recording
the resulting pattern of spikes that follows.
| | 00:46 | This pattern of spikes
defines the sound of the room.
| | 00:49 | It's called the impulse response,
as it is the acoustic response of the room
| | 00:53 | to an impulse signal.
| | 00:55 | The process of convolution applies the
room's response to any other signal we feed it.
| | 01:01 | But the process doesn't work
for things that change over time.
| | 01:04 | Imagine a room where the walls move.
Such spaces are very rare, but it
| | 01:09 | illustrates a critical point.
| | 01:11 | If the walls move, then the pattern
of spikes that make up the impulse
| | 01:15 | response will change too.
| | 01:17 | But convolution only has the ability to
apply a fixed impulse response to your audio.
| | 01:22 | So a system that changes simply
can't be re-created through convolution.
| | 01:27 | Fair enough, the spaces I
care about don't change much.
| | 01:31 | The walls don't move in most symphony
halls, cathedrals, and famous reverb chambers.
| | 01:36 | Convolution is great for these spaces.
| | 01:39 | What about springs and plates?
| | 01:41 | They too don't change the resident
behavior during the course of a mix,
| | 01:45 | so convolution is a terrific way to bring
vintage springs and plates into your productions.
| | 01:51 | You'll also see convolution use to
simulate other algorithmic digital reverbs.
| | 01:56 | This usually doesn't work.
| | 01:58 | The oldest digital reverbs ran simpler
static algorithms that can be represented
| | 02:03 | by fixed impulse response.
| | 02:05 | But the high-end algorithmic reverbs
since the 90s pretty much always use
| | 02:09 | changing delays within their algorithm.
| | 02:12 | So convolution can't convey the
full rich complexity of their sound.
| | 02:17 | To use convolution where appropriate,
make sure that the space or device it is
| | 02:21 | stimulating exhibits steady behavior.
| | 02:24 | It's ideal for reproducing the sounds of
springs, plates, and every glorious space
| | 02:29 | you want to hear in your mixes.
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| Getting great impluse response| 00:00 | Convolution relies on measured impulse
responses to bring the sound of another
| | 00:04 | space to our tracks.
| | 00:06 | We need to recognize that every
impulse response we load into our convolution
| | 00:10 | engine was measured by someone else.
| | 00:12 | Mistakes might be made, and a flawed
impulse response will produce flawed reverb.
| | 00:17 | We must seek out the best impulse
responses and watch out for poorly measured ones.
| | 00:23 | No single impulse response
describes an entire hall.
| | 00:26 | The impulse response, that signature
pattern of reflections for a hall, depends on
| | 00:31 | the location of the sound source and
the location of the receiver and the state
| | 00:35 | of occupancy of the hall.
| | 00:37 | Picture a concert hall with a stage for
all the musicians and about 2,000 seats
| | 00:42 | out on the orchestra floor for the audience.
| | 00:44 | The impulse response is unique from
each and every instrument location on stage
| | 00:49 | to each and every seat location.
| | 00:51 | So while someone might offer you the
impulse response for your convolution
| | 00:55 | reverb from some famous hall that you
know and admire, there is no guarantee that
| | 00:59 | the impulse response is from a good seat.
| | 01:02 | You need to know something about the
methods used when measuring the impulse response.
| | 01:07 | Where do they put the sound source to
trigger the pattern of reflections, and
| | 01:10 | where do they put the
measurement microphone to capture it?
| | 01:13 | Moving either one of these, the sound
source or the receiver position, gives you a
| | 01:17 | different impulse response.
| | 01:20 | With 2,000 seats and, say, a 100
stage positions, there are 200,000
| | 01:25 | possible impulse responses.
| | 01:28 | So we have this constraint on
convolution. No single impulse response describes
| | 01:33 | an entire hall. It's not enough to know
you have an impulse response for a great
| | 01:37 | hall; you need to also know that the
impulse response is for a good seat for
| | 01:42 | sound sources and a sweet spot on stage.
| | 01:45 | And those coveted halls might sound
great at a sold-out concert, but are the
| | 01:49 | seats full when they
grabbed the impulse response?
| | 01:51 | Occupancy certainly
influences the reflection pattern.
| | 01:55 | A seat with someone in it reflects
sound differently than an empty seat.
| | 01:58 | There is more. The measurement quality used to
obtain the impulse response is also important.
| | 02:04 | If shoddy equipment is used or poor
technique is employed, it absolutely pollutes
| | 02:09 | the impulse response,
leading to a poor sounding reverb.
| | 02:13 | Convolution reverb is only as
good as the impulse response itself.
| | 02:17 | For the impulse responses you use it
really helps to know something about their
| | 02:21 | measurement history,
| | 02:22 | the placement strategies, the occupancy
of the hall, the skills, and experience
| | 02:27 | of the people who captured the impulse
response, the gear they used, et cetera.
| | 02:32 | Be an informed user of convolution.
| | 02:34 | Listen carefully for flaws every
time you load up a new impulse response.
| | 02:39 | Seek out the best reviewed impulse
responses, so that you can bring the other
| | 02:43 | spaces of the world into your mix with
confidence and great-sounding results.
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ConclusionNext steps| 00:00 | Reverb is one of the easiest effects to hear.
But that doesn't mean it's easy to use.
| | 00:06 | The idea of using reverb to simulate space
is perfectly intuitive, but getting it right
| | 00:11 | requires some thought,
practice, and careful listening.
| | 00:15 | Accidentally having too much or too little
reverb in a mix is a common problem.
| | 00:20 | Don't worry, we've all been there.
| | 00:22 | But you really elevate the sophistication
of your productions when you master the other
| | 00:27 | families of reverb effects, timbre, contrast,
emphasis, blurring, scene change, and synthesis.
| | 00:35 | Now that you've completed this course, I'd
like to encourage you to do a few things.
| | 00:39 | First, start every mix with at least a large
hall, medium room, and plate reverb already set up.
| | 00:46 | Have them handy for quick audition
whenever you want to give them a try.
| | 00:50 | You'll find over time that you use reverb more
and more without necessarily swamping your mixes.
| | 00:56 | Also practice. Yes, I'm asking you to practice setting
up some of the more complicated reverb effects,
| | 01:02 | nonlinear, gated, reverse,
and regenerative reverbs.
| | 01:07 | Learn how to get them working and
explore how to make them musical.
| | 01:11 | In addition, come visit me and contribute to
the audio conversation at recordingology.com.
| | 01:16 | Finally, check out the other foundations
of audio courses and the rest of the audio
| | 01:22 | channel here at lynda.com.
| | 01:25 | Thanks for watching
Foundations of Audio: Reverb.
| | 01:30 |
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