Reverb for live use

ishockyou

ishockyou

Member
Quick question regarding reverb for users that utilize the Fractal product in a live setting. I understand that spring and plate reverb have a specific sound that should be recreated in a live preset. However, should I be using room reverb settings for sound that goes to the front of the house and to my FRFR? I obviously understand using the room reverb at home preset settings to give the tone some ambiance, but am I gonna run into mushy sound as a result of too much reverb in a mix when I’m feeding it through the mains
 
ishockyou said:
Quick question regarding reverb for users that utilize the Fractal product in a live setting. I understand that spring and plate reverb have a specific sound that should be recreated in a live preset. However, should I be using room reverb settings for sound that goes to the front of the house and to my FRFR? I obviously understand using the room reverb at home preset settings to give the tone some ambiance, but am I gonna run into mushy sound as a result of too much reverb in a mix when I’m feeding it through the mains
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Use what sounds good for your rig.

I use hall reverbs for pretty much everything, I really like the ‘mechanics hall’ setting for my high gain tones, and I usually have it in parallel with my delay to keep both effects clear for live use. On high gain tones I use reverb vary sparingly, usually to the point that I have to bypass it to compare and make sure it’s audible.

I’ve never really bonded with room and spring types, with the former being a bit too dry and the latter too, well, springy for my use.

Any reverb will make your sound mushy and indistinct when over-used.
 
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As a sound man, I would caution you to talk to your sound man before committing to a lot of reverb of any kind. It can make it a lot harder to “glue” together the mix if everyone on stage has their own reverbs competing with each other. Delays tend to work better live for overt effects on guitar in a live setting, IMO. Reverbs should be subtle unless you’re after something pretty specific, like a spring reverb on the guitar for surf music.
 
greiswig said:
As a sound man, I would caution you to talk to your sound man before committing to a lot of reverb of any kind. It can make it a lot harder to “glue” together the mix if everyone on stage has their own reverbs competing with each other. Delays tend to work better live for overt effects on guitar in a live setting, IMO. Reverbs should be subtle unless you’re after something pretty specific, like a spring reverb on the guitar for surf music.
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Thank you. That is what I am thinking.
 
greiswig said:
As a sound man, I would caution you to talk to your sound man before committing to a lot of reverb of any kind. It can make it a lot harder to “glue” together the mix if everyone on stage has their own reverbs competing with each other. Delays tend to work better live for overt effects on guitar in a live setting, IMO. Reverbs should be subtle unless you’re after something pretty specific, like a spring reverb on the guitar for surf music.
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Second this. I both play guitar and run sound and there's been several times I've asked the guitar player to turn down the reverb because they were getting buried. When I play I usually don't use much reverb unless it's an ambient or 'volume swell' type of sound where it's supposed to be smeary and wet.
 
My experience is that whatever reverb setting I use when building a preset will need to be reduced once I hit the stage and turn up to stage volume. EVERY time I had to reduce the reverb volume. Once I do that then I might reduce it a tiny bit more the next time.

The same is true with gain. At home, whether I have sound coming through my speakers or through headphones, once I'm on stage where I can really turn it up, the gain is too much and I have to cut it back.

That's why Fractal tells us to set up our EQ and sound at stage volume, because the guitar and amp/modeler behave differently when it's loud.
 
For live use I toggle the reverb manually, as needed, for intros, etc. where it's only the guitar to fill in the space when there are chord/note gaps but only on distorted/gainy tones.

I use a bit of reverb on clean/mild OD/bluesy tones but otherwise 95% of the time I don't use reverb live.

At times I've used a slight bit of ducking reverb for my lead tones but am currently not...I go back and forth with that.

I use delay for leads (I have two lead scenes, one with delay, one without) and rhythms that require it. Lately I've been using a bit of diffusion on the tails of the delays (~6% -> 10%) as I like how they start to fade into each other...almost reverb-like.
 
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ishockyou said:
Quick question regarding reverb for users that utilize the Fractal product in a live setting. I understand that spring and plate reverb have a specific sound that should be recreated in a live preset. However, should I be using room reverb settings for sound that goes to the front of the house and to my FRFR? I obviously understand using the room reverb at home preset settings to give the tone some ambiance, but am I gonna run into mushy sound as a result of too much reverb in a mix when I’m feeding it through the mains
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I keep the "global reverb mix" parameter in my performance knobs and adjust it depending on the venue,

use the "South church" which I Iove set at 9% average and sometimes during soundcheck I set the Global to 50% to make things clearer
 
The thing which annoys me most about a live band is where different individuals use different reverb settings. I don’t mean reverb as an effect, which you might use for selected songs, but room reverb which you need at home in a small room. The band’s reverb needs to be common, and set at the desk.
 
Like everything else, it depends on the situation.

Bar room gig? You bet I’m using reverb, especially for my clean tones, I know the ‘desk’ is not.

Larger room with a real FOH or laying tracks? No. Reverb. Ever.

Reverb is like compression or noise gates, it’s easily abused. I use the bare minimum or avoid it altogether.

With that said, if you’re going for that surf thing, rock those springs and dime that reverb knob!
 
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