I’ve previously expressed my love for reverbs. I’ve also shared how I used to think of reverbs less as a textural tool and more to just create space/depth in a mix. Reverbs are great by themselves but you can spice them up even further with some judicial use of other effects before or after the reverb.
Here are some combinations I like:
Logic Pro’s Clip Distortion
This is a more recent approach I’ve been enjoying the results of. Generally I’ll pop clip distortion after the reverb. As saturation does, it increases the perceived loudness and clarity of the reverb by adding in harmonics. How much you want to add is up to you but subtle is better for enhancement. I’ll try and match the output volume of the saturation with the non-saturated signal and flip the saturation in and out to really see how the saturation is affecting the overall feel of the reverb in the mix.
You can get wild with this but watch out for nasty resonances. You might need to employ some EQ into the mix or something like Baby Audio’s Smooth Operator to take out the nasties.
Logic Pro’s Bitcrusher
This might seem a similar effect to saturation but I like to use Bitcrusher in a slightly different way. I like to bring the resolution down to 12 bits and apply 0.5dB to 1dB of drive – we’re not looking for dirt. I’ll then adjust the down sampling to see how it changes to the tone of the reverb. I’ll also start to play with the mix to find a good balance.
If I’m still not finding what I’m looking for I’ll try flipping between the fold, clip and wrap buttons to adjust the tone of the reverb even further.
I got this idea off the 12 bit output that a lot of late 70s and 80s digital reverbs had. For them it was a limitation of the technology available but it also added a sound to those reverbs which is gritty and pretty.
Logic Pro’s Delay Designer
This one is a lot of fun. I often use this before the reverb to create a shimmer in the verb by making the delay nodes pitch shift to an octave up and then pan them left and right in increasing degrees.
Tweak the cutoff to filter out any nasties. You can also throw some saturation of a more aggressive nature in between the delay designer and the reverb for a bit more harmonic interest and attitude.
The Takeaway: Reverbs are fun in themselves but when you get some of the friends above involved you can really start to draw out more from your reverbs. We didn’t even touch on modulation here but if you’re working in logic, these few ideas will give you some creative ideas to throw at your next mix!
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