How To Sidechain Reverb

Reverb sidechain is a technique that provides greater clarity to a mix by reducing the masking effect of reverb tails and preventing frequencies from clashing. This masking reduction allows the reverb to be attenuated in the presence of the original sound, giving a “ducking” effect that makes it more audible and clear.

It’s highly beneficial to use this technique with vocals to reduce the masking effect the reverb has on the dry source of the sound. The amount of sidechain that’s applied to the reverb depends mainly on the compression’s threshold and ratio, as well as how strong the transients of the waveforms being affected are

 

Here’s A Step-By-Step Guide to Sidechaining Reverb:

 

1. Create A Reverb Send Channel

To begin, you’ll need to route the reverb plugin of your choice to a mixer channel. It doesn’t matter which channel, but avoid placing it on the master or tracks that might interfere with other sounds routed to it.

 

 

 

2. Set The Wet/Dry Balance

Within the chosen reverb plugin, we’ll need to adjust the wet/dry balance to be 100% wet and 0% dry. Change any other parameters you’d like, such as the hi-cut and low-cut, if you want to modify your reverb further while simultaneously sidechaining. You can make adjustments later when you get a better idea of how the final product sounds.

 

 

3. Route The Sound You Want To Sidechain To A Separate Mixer Channel

Once you’ve added reverb to a mixer channel, route the sound you want to sidechain to a different channel. This will be the sound that the reverb sidechain is applied to.

 

4. Route Your Chosen Sound To The Reverb Send Channel

For the reverb to affect your sound or sample, we need to link it to the channel where we added our reverb plugin. Once connected, we should hear the reverb affect the dry sound.

 

 

5. Add A Compressor To Your Reverb Channel

Add a compression plugin such as a fruity limiter or fruity peak controller to the same channel as your reverb. Make sure to place the compressor below the reverb when ordering your plugins, as this will allow you to precisely control the sidechain of the reverb for the “ducking” effect. 

 

6. Adjust the Compressor’s Parameters For Better Reverb Control

You’ll primarily want to adjust the threshold, ratio, attack, and release. The threshold is the level at which the compressor acts. A signal that exceeds the set threshold level will cause the compressor to activate and implement gain reduction based on the other compression parameters.

The ratio will control the amount of compression applied and uses an input-to-output ratio (meaning if you have a 2:1 ratio, 2db of the signal passing the threshold is reduced to 1db of the signal.

The attack is how fast the compressor acts after the signal passes the given threshold, while the release is how long the compression takes to reduce to its normal state after a signal has passed the selected threshold.

 

7. Adjust the Volume Fader To Your Liking

Adjust the volume fader to increase the reverb to an adequate level. This level will be relative to the other sounds in your mix, so mess around until you get the desired balance.

 

8. Set the compressor to respond to the sidechain input:

Ensure the compressor is set to react to the audio from the trigger track. This can be done by selecting the appropriate sidechain input within the compressor plugin’s settings.

 

 

9. Adjust the compression settings

Set the compressor’s threshold, ratio, attack, and release to control how the reverb responds to the sidechain input. The idea is for the compressor to be triggered by the original sound source (most commonly vocals) to maintain better reverb control and reduce overlap for a clearer, less muddy sound.

 

10. Refine and fine-tune the settings

Listen to the mix and adjust the sidechain compression settings as needed. Fine-tune the threshold, ratio, attack, and release parameters to achieve the desired amount of reverb reduction in response to the sidechain trigger.

 

 

11. Balance the wet/dry mix

Adjust the send level from the original audio track to the reverb send/return track. This allows you to control the amount of reverb applied to the sound while maintaining the desired balance between the dry and wet signals.

 

12. Finalize and tweak

Listen to the mix in the context of the entire song and make any necessary adjustments to the sidechain reverb effect. You may need to refine the sidechain settings further or adjust other parameters to ensure the reverb sits well within the mix.

It’s worth noting that the specific steps and plugin parameters may vary depending on your DAW and the plugins you’re using. However, this general workflow should give you a starting point for sidechaining reverb in your future productions!