On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 03:06:38PM +0100, Yves Potin wrote: > Using a global reverb in the final stage of a mix, especially when > using Jamin in Ardour, may improve tremendously the global quality of the > sound. But I wonder what kind of reverb can be used to obtain the most > neutral and most efficient effect, considering that, by definition, I > don't know on what audio system my mix will be heard. > ... Using reverb is part of the mixing operation, not of mastering. Global reverb (the same on all sound) is usually a bad idea. It all depends on the kind of music you are making, and what you want to achieve with the recording - recreate something that sounds as if it was played in a real acoustic space, or a soundscape that is completely abstract. If you want to recreate a natural acoustic space the reverb is not used as an effect. If well done, the listener will in most cases not even notice that any reverb has been added. This will be the case for classical music, jazz, folk, ethnic music, etc. For classical music, if recorded in a well sounding hall, often no extra reverb is used and the whole perspective is created by microphone placement. For close-miked multitrack recordings you will need to add reverb to individual tracks, how much depends on where you want a particular instrument of vocal track to be situated in the mix. In other words you use the reverb to create depth, placing some tracks in front and others in several layers behind each other. The type of reverb you need here is one that corresponds to a real acoustic space, with early reflections and a reverb tail, often adjustable separately. The other extreme you will find in any form of 'electronica' where you can do more or less what you want with reverb, since there is no natural reference, and often the intent is to create something that sounds unnatural in the first place. Anything goes here. Mainstream pop falls between these two, using reverb both for creating ambiance and depth, and as an effect. The tradinional way is to use one or more post-fader auxiliary sends, each of them feeding a particular reverb or other effect unit. The reverb signals are mixed in just as extra tracks. A reverb used as an effect on a single track can also be wired as an insert. Now using aux sends in this way is a pain in Ardour since each send is in a separate window. It's a problem both for effect sends and foldback mixes. This is IMHO one of Ardour's design flaws. On old-style analog mixers you had a number of aux sends and a knob for each of them on each channel. Very practical but of course expensive. Hardware digital mixers often have a large number of aux sends and use either assignable knobs or faders to control them, or allow for any the aux busses to be controlled by the main faders - you push a button and the faders jump to the gains for an aux send, push another one and they control again the main mix. Ardour would benefit much from such a system, either using the main faders or a smaller assignable one. -- FA Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa.
