Studio 101 – Reverb

Last month I talked about long delay effects like echoes; this month, we pick up from there and move into reverb. Reverb (reverberation) is the ‘sound’ of a physical space—multiple reflections (echoes) bouncing off various surfaces like the walls, ceilings, floors, etc.

In a recording, sometimes, the sound of the space is part of the initial recording, bleeding into the main mic or purposely added through the use of room mics. However, since a lot of tracks today are recorded with close mics in dead spaces, they often have a very dry character. In this case, artificial reverb processing is utilized (most often at the mix stage) to impart the illusion of ‘space’ to the recording, which will be the primary focus of my discussion.