Radley Reverb tips
Hello fellow 'Axers' - here is a simple technique I use to get 'the best of both worlds' when recording direct - both microphone ambience/air, and rich verb - all by using only one AFX reverb block. The reason this is possible (and so flexible) is because of the recent improvements Cliff has made to the Reverb block, and I am very happy with the changes he has made!
Here's the deal:
As a guy who does a lot of direct recording (straight to the board), I have always found that to get the most realistic results, I needed both a short ambient sound coupled with whatever longer verb I may be wanting. The ambient component gives the tone air and dimension, whereas the longer verb provides whatever 'sweetening' the track may require.
The trick to mastering this effect is understanding that the Early Reflection and Main Reverb signals produce very different effects/sounds, but once you have a clear picture of what they do sonically you can easily put together many different ambience/verb combinations for almost any sound needed.
How it’s done:
IMO, you should first decide on what type of (longer) Verb sound you want to use, and dial it up. Now the fun part - If you scroll thru the Verb's advanced parameter page you will notice these selections: Pre Delay, Tail Delay, Early level, & Reverb level - these are the specific parameters we will be tweaking. Here is a basic description of their effects:
Pre Delay - Adds a delay before both Early reflection and Main reverb signals begin.
Tail Delay - Adds an extra (additive) delay before the Main Reverb signal begins.
Early level - The Volume of the Early reflection signal.
Reverb level - the Volume of the Main (long) reverb signal.
On most standard reverb presets, the early reflections are much softer than the main reverb signal -BUT- for our uses, we want to exaggerate these early reflections to create a ‘close-up’ ambience similar to a mic’ed amp. For this effect, we will turn the early reflection level up higher than the main reverb level, until we hear the desired level of ‘roominess’. Next, we fine-tune the pre delay parameter for the optimum early reflection time & distance - all settings from 0 to 30 ms are effective, and even 70 to 120 ms settings are good for getting a fat, slap-delay effect. Lastly, we will use the ‘tail delay’ parameter to set the additional pre delay for the main reverb signal. Why delay this signal? It is because delaying the onset of the main reverb signal can create dramatic space and depth, with the added benefit of making the sound clearer & more defined by allowing the attacks to be heard before the main verb ‘hits’. Keep in mind that the Pre and Tail delay parameters are additive - the total of the two will be the pre delay applied to the main (long) verb signal.
Normally to obtain this ‘combination effect’, you would need to use an extra delay or reverb, but not with the new AFX reverb ;) Thanks to Cliff’s improvements, almost any ambient texture is attainable within a single reverb block.
