Lesson 14 - Posted on 2013-05-10 by Vanessa Agosto

Lecture: May 7th, 3 1/2 hours

Reverb!

Steve set something straight for me: the main reason for reverb is it makes a common space for all the individual recordings. Historically reverb was used to cover up mistakes by mushing up the track. The other main reason for reverb is to make instruments sound better.

We also talked about reverb's effect on sound staging: no reverb (all direct, "dry") puts the recording up front in the mix. The track will sound close to the mike. Adding reverb moves that track back in the soundstage. You can even make the recording sound like it's coming from behind the speakers. The amount of reverb added is expressed as % wetness, and the term "wet" comes from how adding reverb makes things sound like they're under water. Which is pretty cute.

For the Pro Tools mechanics of it all: it's best to set up a reverb bus, and just send the desired tracks that way. The bus itself will be 100% wet and will play simultaneously with the dry track, so you don't end up with all-reverb mush. You can control how much reverb you want on a given track by adjusting how much of it you send to the bus. 

I also learned how to format a hard drive for Mac! Every little thing helps...:) The one I had was backup only, and I also had to format it "extended journalled".

And, side note: I experienced first hand, after much gnashing of teeth and Googling, the difference between grouped clips and locked clips.