If I were to be thrown into a song production scenario in which I was only able to use one genre/type of plugin to enhance the track, without a doubt, I would chose reverb. If at this point I’ve already lost you (and you’re asking questions like “What is a plugin?” or “What even is music production?”) don’t worry, I will make an effort to cover all the bases of music production throughout a span of several articles. For now, though, I want to talk to you about reverb.
Back to the scenario I mentioned earlier, you might be wondering why I would pick reverb as my one tool. For one, reverb is one of the most well-known sound-effects present. You probably know what reverb is, or you may have at least heard the term in passing. Even if you have no knowledge of the word, the sound of reverb should still be somewhat familiar because of its inescapable presence throughout the natural world. Put simply, reverb is one of the interactions sound has with the space it is being produced in. Specifically, it is when the sound waves reflect and bounce off of the surrounding space and produce a prolonged decay. The most common example of reverb in action is a choir singing in a cathedral. In this case, reverb is the effect that makes their singing seem so “large” as the sound waves are acoustically allowed to fill the whole room. Importantly, reverb is related to, but discernible from, an echo or a delay because it signifies the size of a room a sound is being played in. The biggest effect of reverb is that it provides space to a sound. Without any reverb, naturally produced or artificially generated, a sound will very clearly seem unnatural. For this reason, it’s difficult to come across any genre (from pop to indie-rock) that lacks reverb.
The effect of reverberation is one that spans almost every single genre of music, unlike other enhancements such as hard-compression and distortion. For this reason, more than others, I think reverb is the safest sound-tool. No matter what type of song I’m working on, be it hip-hop or electro, reverb is typically the first tool I use and the tool I end with. This brings me to the final reason why reverb is my favorite sound-tool: versatility. While the versatility of reverberation generator programs can vary depending on which one is in use, generally, the noticeable range of effects reverb can have on a track is innumerable. Rooted in the human brain and how our ears cue us in to size and distance, messing around with different types of reverberation can lead to some widely different results. Most (if not all) reverb generators have a “size” knob to emulate the size of room, allowing a user to control the listeners' perceived soundstage. More complex reverb tools go even further, and have other knobs that help to emulate the type of structure the sound is bouncing off of (metal or wood). Even without the extravagant sound design though, a simple “one button” reverb tool is enough to bring any sound to life.
