Great questions ADAMFARR
I will answer your questions but in a different order to hopefully help you have that "Eureka Moment" that you are so close to as you clearly understand the individual bits but just need a little nudge to link the concepts together
Here goes...
And what's an Auk's end anyway?
Lets start here
AUX SENDSAn "Auk's end" is actually an "Aux Send"
In a traditional sense you would set up a "Reverb Bus" and then send a bit of signal to this bus from the tracks you want to add reverb to
So what is a "Reverb Bus"?
This is usually a BUS within your DAW where you would add a single reverb FX and set the setting to 100% WET
Then you would use a "send" (sometimes referred to as an "Aux Send") from your track (eg your Vocal) to send some of the signal to the reverb bus
You will then hear the dry signal of your original track along with the bit of signal you have sent to the reverb bus
The more signal you send to the reverb bus the more reverb you will hear
You can then send any other tracks to this same reverb bus by using their sends to add reverb to them as well
The major benefit of using this approach is that you have a single reverb FX running, which achieves 2 things:
1 - The reverb you choose will be consistent across all of the sends (because you are sending them to the same reverb)
2 - You are only running a single instance of your reverb plugin so it will be much lighter on your system resources
This is a great approach for adding the same reverb effect to lots of tracks - bearing in mind you can adjust the
amount of reverb by changing the send level so a single reverb can be really versatile
You can add other "FX Busses" and use sends to send part of the track's signal to these - and of course you can use multiple sends from a track to different busses - eg on your vocal you might want to add a send to the "reverb bus", another send to a "delay bus", another send to a different "reverb bus" etc. etc.
TYPES OF FX BUSSESI have a template saved with the main REVERB and DELAY Busses already set up and ready to send tracks to
I use the following FX busses:
VOX VERB - a medium sized Plate reverb with a Predelay of around 100ms. This gives a bit of a delay to keep the vocal clear before the reverb kicks in
VOX AMBIENT - a small room type reverb (think vocal booth) using a different plugin for a bit of variety
VOX PLATE - a large Plate reverb with a "big space" sound
BIG VERB - a "big space" natural reverb (eg a large hall)
GENERAL AMBIENCE - a large room reverb - eg a live room within a studio
SHORT DELAY - a 1/4 (quarter note) delay that is in sync with the BPM of my track
LONG DELAY - a 2 x delay that is in sync with the BPM of my track
This is my basic palette of FX and I would use sends to send part of the signal of my tracks to these busses
Eg - my lead vocal will often be sent to most of these busses in varying amounts to provide some interest and variation - but I will only use a very little of each to prevent a "mush" of sound
My general rule of thumb is to use the send until I can hear the effect clearly and then back it off a bitI get it. The idea is make things more natural sounding (especially if close mic'ed, directly input etc.). And can make things hang together by making them share a space.
Correct - and using a reverb bus is definitely the way to go for this
I use my "GENERAL AMBIENCE" reverb bus for all of the tracks I want to be in the same space (which is sometimes all of them)
However, I will be very careful with the amounts used - and I use the "send level" to control the "front to back" space so something I want to send back will have a higher send level (and therefore more reverb) than something I want "up front"
But this is also confusing - if I want my vocal upfront, is that compatible with putting it into a shared space with the other instruments that I have just carefully separated by panning and EQing? And if reverb makes things sound further back in the space, do I want to do that to my intimate vocal (for example)?
In this case I would add a light amount of my "VOX VERB" bus - the key to the reverb I have set up here is the predelay setting. I want there to be a slight delay between the "dry vocal" and the reverb kicking in, which will help keep the vocal clear and intimate but also add some space
I would then add very tiny amounts of the other reverbs to give some "depth" to the vocal but be very careful to maintain the intimacy
The other key to an intimate vocal is COMPRESSION or careful VOLUME AUTOMATION, which will level out the vocal (make the loud bits quieter and the quiet bits louder) enabling you to keep the level up and keep everything "in yer face" - but COMPRESSION is a discussion for another day...
And why do most reverb presets sound absolutely terrible to my ears? Is it just a question of the correct quantity?
Presets are great starting points but it helps to know what you are trying to achieve with the reverb first, which will help you choose the right preset
The correct quantity is key - if you can clearly hear the effect you have probably added too much
Another good general measure is to set your FX send levels so you can't clearly hear them in the mix and then hit stop - if you can then hear the reverb/delay tails you have a good general level
And aren't effects just for covering up defects?
NO NO NO - NEVER!
A surefire "rookie error" with mixing is to hide behind FX - eg "I am not a very good singer so I have added loads of reverb"!
I can't play guitar very well so I will add lots of delay
This will just be a bad vocal with lots of reverb or a bad guitar solo with double the mistakes!
So should I be thinking about reverb on every single mix...? But different types for different tracks...?
As a general rule I would say yes - but small amounts
I have listed the different types I use above
I personally like the idea of having a single "GENERAL AMBIENCE" bus that you send a bit of everything to to put everything in the same space
And another type for the master to make it all sit together?
If you have used reverb correctly your shouldn't need much (or any) reverb in the mastering
But reverb on reverb must be even harder to make sound good?
Not if you are careful
I like the sound of lots of different reverbs on a track - especially a lead vocal - as it adds a bit of depth and interest
The key is to use just enough and not too much
The other advantage of using a reverb bus is you can also use other FX on the reverb bus - eg you could use an EQ to add a High Pass Filter so you don't add reverb to the bass frequencies to keep the mix clearer - especially if you have lots of instruments in the mix
I am sure there are no rules and it's a question of trial and error and experimenting and listening (and not going overboard with it). But I wondered if anyone had any good examples of songs with great use of reverb on them - or ones that are really dry but still good too?
Correct - but I hope the above gives you some general pointers
AUTOMATING SEND LEVELSI would use the above as a good starting point to get a good "static mix" (ie a mix where everything stays the same throughout) but there is another key advantage of using FX Busses and Aux Sends as most DAWs will allow you to automate the send level
This allows you to get a bit more creative:
Eg:
- you could drastically increase the send level to a reverb bus at the end of a word to get that "falling off a cliff" effect
- you could drastically increase the send level to a delay bus on certain words (eg the last word in a phrase) to get only some words to have delays. This can give the impression of a track having more FX than it actually has
- you could increase the amount of reverb in the chorus sections to make the song sound "bigger" for these sections
etc. etc. etc.
USING TRACK EFFECTSThe other approach to using FX Busses is to insert the FX into the track itself instead
This is really useful if you want to add a "special effect" to a particular track - eg a more "whacky" reverb or other FX such a distortion, flanging, phasing etc.
You can also mix 'n' match - eg add a weird reverb to a track (eg a "reverse reverb") but still add a send on this track to the GENERAL AMBIENCE bus to put it into the same space as your other tracks
I hope this answers your questions and gives you some ideas to try out
This thread might also help you understand a little more as I give a few different examples of how to use reverb using a "real world" space example and how you can layer reverbs using track FX and "aux sends":
http://www.songwriterforum.co.uk/recording/confused-by-reverb/msg66502/#msg66502 If you have any questions on any of the above just add it here
