The Five Main Types of Reverb, and How to Mix with Them

“Just put some reverb on it.”

The EMT 140 plate—a classic way to reverberate your audio.

That request just pisses me off. What reverb? Which style? Hall? Room? Plate? Chamber? Spring? Tunnel? Cave? Well? Gated? Phased? Flanged? Real Space? Analog? Digital? Plug In?

There are so many choices that it can be daunting to pick the right reverb for the right job.

The many considerations needed to decide which reverb to use will be discussed in this article: I will present the points that I use to determine what reverb I employ in the mix process, that conveys the feeling for the particular emotion I wish to invoke in the listener. I will also discuss the many types of natural reverb and reverb simulators that exist in today’s world of music production.

REVERB

Reverb is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

re•ver•ber•a•tion
noun
: a sound that echoes
: an effect or result that is not wanted

I think this is a lame definition. Reverb is a sound that echoes, but the echoes that create reverberation are extremely complex – from the onset of the initial reflection to the last heard decay is a multitude of echoes that have variations in time, repetition and frequency response.

Secondly, in the world of mixing, reverb is definitely a sound that is wanted and useful in the creation of a wonderful listening experience!

The type of reverb depends on the size and shape of the room that the sound echoes in. A square room provides many less reflective surfaces than a cathedral. The material of the reflective surface determines the frequency response of the initial reflections and subsequent echoes that result in the tail or length of the reverb. The harder the surface, and the more surface angles and lengths of the room, the longer the repetition of echoes occur, resulting in a longer tail or reverberation time.

The first “REVERB” observed by humans was probably heard in a canyon or a cave when we were known as Neanderthal. The repetition of echoes in an enclosed or open space was probably quite frightening and intriguing.

I remember as a kid a place in the mountains called Echo Rock where I would yell something and hear it echo after 1 or 2 seconds. Further down the mountain where the walls were closer together, I would shout and hear a rapid repetition of echoes that I later learned was “reverb.”

The main difference between echo and reverb is the number of repetitions of sound per millisecond. A reverberation is perceived when the reflected sound wave reaches your ear in less than 0.1 second after the original sound wave. Since the original sound wave is still held in memory, there is no time delay between the perception of the reflected sound wave and the original sound wave. The two sound waves tend to combine as one very prolonged sound wave.

For the purpose of this article I will define some terms that I use to describe reverb:

Sound reflections, and their variations, shape our perceptions of reverb.

Once a sound event occurs, the first echoes are called “Early Reflections.” These are generally 5 to 20 milliseconds in length.

After that the sound has had a chance to bounce around the room and becomes the “Body” of the reverb. This can last anywhere from 20 milliseconds to infinity.

The last part of the reverb I will call the “Decay or Tail.” This is the last perceptible sounds and can be from .1 to several seconds. The end of the tail occurs when the sound pressure level of the echoes reaches 60dB – close to inaudibility for human ears.

Without getting too technical it should be mentioned that the reverb time of a space has been defined as the time it takes for the initial sound pressure level (SPL) to be reduced by 60dB (for example if the initial SPL is 100 dB, the time it takes to go down to 40 dB would be the RT60 time).

Types of Reverb

The most basic types of reverb fall into five categories.

HALL
CHAMBER
ROOM
PLATE
SPRING

The first three are naturally occurring phenomena within a physical space and the last two are manmade devices. Though there are many other types that could be mentioned, I will focus on the aforementioned reverb types and their typical uses in today’s music mixes.

The optimum reverberation time for a space in which music is played depends on the type of music that is to be played in the space. Orchestral music is often written with a particular reverb time of the hall to utilize the decay to enhance harmonic structure.  Rooms used for speech typically need a shorter reverberation time so that speech can be understood more clearly.

You can hear some academically-oriented examples of reverb in action here.

HALL

This term refers to the reverb heard in a concert hall.

Generally the construction of a music hall attempts to produce a reverb that lasts anywhere from 1.2 to 3 seconds or longer. The characteristics include an audible cluster of initial reflections followed by a full body and a decay that ends with a rolloff of high-frequency content.

There are many well-known great sounding Concert Halls throughout the world. Boston Symphony Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Walt Disney Concert Hall are a few noted for their accurate and tasteful reverberation characteristics. The most obvious use is for Symphony and Orchestral performance.

If you can’t afford to rent one of these Halls, turn to the digital world.

A Lexicon 224 trademark was a particularly lush reverb tail.

The Lexicon 224 and 480 were my favorite boxes years ago. Today there are numerous plug-ins that model hall reverbs including Lexicon, Waves and convolution reverbs (convolution attempts to simulate actual physical spaces using impulse responses).

I used the Waves TrueVerb plug-in on a recent mix for the artist Riley Goldstein. On the song “Everything,” which you can hear on her ReverbNation page, the string recording utilized the Vienna orchestra in GigaStudio and I added a touch of 2.4 second Waves Hall Reverb during the mix.

CHAMBER

A chamber is usually a smaller physical space than a hall that results in more clarity yet still provides a blend of harmonic content and dispersion of sound.

A chamber is usually rectangular and can be constructed from cement or wood. I also include a stairwell or hallway in the chamber family. The frequency response and decay is dependent upon construction material and size. The typical chamber reverb varies from .4 to 1.2 seconds.

The original use of these type of rooms was for small ensembles that came to be known as Chamber Orchestras. I was in Vienna for a wedding and had the good fortune of listening to a chamber orchestra in  the castle up on the hill.

The room was all natural wood and glass windows behind the stage. The eight musicians played very interesting counterpoint and the shorter reverberation allowed me to hear each instrument’s line clearly without becoming muddy. The warm reflections of the wood softened the overall tones of the violins and violas and allowed the low end of the contrabass to be heard clearly.

In pop music, the Beatles used the chambers built below Abbey Road Studios for vocal effects — you can hear an example of that that here.

If you mute the right channel (direct vocals,) you can hear the chamber effect in the left channel. Another great example of using a chamber to get a specific sound is quite apparent on the drum sound on “When the Levee Breaks.” John Bonham was recorded at the base of a stairwell in the poorhouse, Headly Grange.

ROOM

This term refers to a shorter RT60, typically from .2 to 1 second.

Imagine yourself in a conference room where you have a strong initial reflection followed by a quick series of echoes that constitute the body and a tail that decays quickly with minimal frequency rolloff. Then again, imagine being in a gymnasium where the hard reflective surfaces provide a great deal of initial reflections while the decay lasts longer as the reflections get lost up in the high ceilings and corners.

Again, the room reverb characteristic is varied depending on physical size and construction material. Common uses of room reverb can be heard on many rock recordings from Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin.

In that era, many engineers would close mic the guitar amp using a dynamic cardiod as well as place a distant mic around 8 – 15 ft back from the cabinet in omni , to pic up the room sound. The two mics were either separately recorded or combined and recorded to one track.

When Jamey’s in the box, the Audio Ease Altiverb convolution plugin is a go-to.

A great example of this can be heard in the opening riff of this song.  “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin. One of my favorite digital reverbs dedicated to room reverb is the Lexicon PCM 60. There are quite a few plug-ins that produce room reverbs, but the ones I use the most are TrueVerb and Audio Ease Altiverb.

PLATE

The plate reverb is a manmade device that implements a sheet or plate of metal that vibrates when a sound wave strikes the surface.

At one end or corner is a transducer that emits the sound wave. As the wave propagates through the metal, another transducer receives the sound at different times and levels depending on the construction material of the plate. My observation is that there are minimal initial reflections but a full bodied reverb and a smooth tail. The RT60 can be manipulated using mechanical dampers that touch the surface and reduce vibration of the plate.

In the late 1980’s and 1990’s I used the EMT 140 at Greene Street Recording, Soho NYC extensively on vocals and drums (snare in particular.) It is also interesting to put a delay in front the plate to get a predelay – great for lead vocal in a ballad.

When I don’t have an actual plate I love the Lexicon PCM 70, and a plug-in that emulates the EMT 140 quite well is the Universal Audio version.

I used the Waves plug-in RVerb Compact with a plate setting of 1.7 sec for the chorus vocals on the newly released Luscious Jackson song “Show Us What You Got” and can be first heard at 00:20 — check it out on YouTube below.

SPRING

A spring reverb is similar to a plate reverb in that it is a manmade device that utilizes transducers to produce and receive the sound waves via the physical device – in this case a spring.

Spring reverbs have noticeable frequency characteristics such as resonances in the body and filter changes throughout the decay. These have variable RT60 times controlled by spring tension, construction material and dampers. They are often found in guitar amplifiers.

A classic spring reverb is the one found in the Fender Twin Reverb Amplifier. Engineers have taken them out of the cabinet to use for mixing. Also the Furman RV-1 and Orban 111B have very cool sounds.  I built a spring reverb from a garage door spring with fairly good results.

Spring reverbs are great for electric guitar and vocals as well as woodwinds. You can hear the spring bouncing in this song by The White Stripes:

For a complete discussion on Spring Reverbs visit Amplified Parts here.

Summary

This discussion is a basic introduction to reverb. There are many other types that deserve exploration such as gated, phased, flanged, non-linear, tube, ductwork, trash can, reverse to name a few as well as some that have not been invented yet.

The use of reverbs is crucial in mixing music and dialog. Whether you are able to use natural occurring spaces or manmade devices, reverb adds ambiance, tone and emotion to your mixes. They can define a mix wholly or just be used as an effect for a section or a single snare hit.

Whether you are mixing the New York Symphony or a vocal and guitar, the right reverb will bring your mix alive and take it to a place you’ve never been. So if you want to add some special sauce to your mix… NOW you can just throw some reverb on it.

Jamey Staub is a Producer/Mixer that loves analog gear and is amused by the attempt to copy and emulate it. He recently mixed the new album by Luscious Jackson, Magic Hour.

For more great insights into both mixing and mastering, try our full-length courses with SonicScoop editor Justin Colletti, Mixing Breakthroughs and Mastering Demystified.

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