Reverb

H

harsh

Inspired
I'm curious - why do most presets, inluding the metal ones have reverb activated? I mainly use the high gain amps (5150, Mesa, Powerball sims). When I used an amp and cab, I built my patches without any reverb on them (except the cleans, of course). I've gone FRFR now, and still build my patches the same way. Am I wrong - am I meant to have some reverb on my patches? Sorry if this sounds noobish, but I haven't played a show FRFR yet, and am not sure if using reverb translates to a better tone, FoH?
 
there's no right or wrong..
for riffing tones, some folk like it bone dry...
others prefer a more 'in the room' tone either via the room settings in the cab block or a reverb block...

it's up to you...
personally I like the 'in the room tone' to a bone dry tone..
but that's just me..
 
I think clarky nailed it... some folks listen with just headphones, for instance, and the verb adds a little space to the sound. My best guess is whoever dialed in that preset just liked it that way!

As noted, turning the verb up, down, or off is a snap. Set it how it works for your setup, and let 'er rip!
 
I no longer have reverb on my live presets. Maybe a touch of delay, but no reverb. It's mostly lost in the average club venue and doesn't help to cut thru in the mix. For recording, it's simple to turn it on.
As mentioned, the choice is yours tho'....
 
Reverb is totally a personal choice/stylistic thing. In phones, no verb is super dry and sounds "unrealistic" and harsh. In a club, reverb can cause sound to be more diffuse. As previously noted, judicious use of delay can give a sense of space/breadth without the "washed out" effect that reverb can have. My general sense is that the harder rocking the music (or the funkier), the less reverb there is typically. Also, the faster the music and the more the attack needs to be defined, the less reverb.

Personally I love reverb and am really looking forward to checking out the V 7.0 verb.

In one of my fav used gear music stores, I'll often think, "wow, great verb, great sense of space" until I realize there's no reverb turned on. It's just the room and it's a really great sounding room. I've gotten stuff home and thought, "this doesn't sound nearly as nice as I thought" because my house doesn't sound nearly as great as the store's space. Fortunately, I don't need to buy any amps anymore, so it's not much of an issue now, but I have to think thousands of dollars of gear has been sold because that room sounds so good.
 
i tend to not use reverb live either .. i try to give the FOH guy a signal he is used to and in most cases this is just guitar with no reverb on it
 
I like a touch of reverb if I am using wedges.

On a loud stage, a totally dry electric guitar in the wedges has an attack that I don't care for. Almost like a piezo pickup quack.
 
Any room you're in will add verb to your sound if you're using an actual cab. So technically even "bone dry" will include all kinds of spacial cues with an actual cab.

Listening in cans without verb doesn't do it for me for that same reason. It feels like the spacial cues are missing.

If you had just an Axe then (no power amp or cab) then it makes sense to have verb on since the first thing you might do to audition it would be to plug in some cans.

Not that this answers the question... ;)
 
Clarky already said what really needs to be said about this - do whatever suits your style.
Live I use no or only very sparse reverb except for a few patches, that are deliberately "wet & washy".
No or just a touch of 'verb translate better live IMO, and also gives our FOH tech more room (no pun intended) to operate according to different venues.
Also listen to seminal AC/DC albums like i.e. Back in Black and notice the overall very "dry" production and the almost bone dry guitars, which makes these albums very hard to pin to a certain year or period.
They don't sound like 80's rock, they sound like classic timeless rock 'n roll. Then check other mayor rock releases from the same time and notice how much chorus and reverb are all over most of those productions, and how "time stamped" (good or bad) they sound in comparison.
Listening to the production on classic albums thought me a lot of lessons on things like this.
Hope this helps
RB
 
If your playing metal which it sounds like you are, you will get a tighter sound without reverb. Personally I don't use reverb on high gain sounds unless I have a specific reason to do so.
 
a thing to note about playing live is that most often you'll not hear the room..
if you do it'll be during the sound check when the venue is empty..
when the venue fills up, all those soft bodies will soak up the reflections
even when you play a pretty big place with a high ceiling, you'd be surprised at how much the audience will effect the tone

when you play open air you get no reverb at all of any kind
sure you may get an echo from something in the distance [which can sound quite scary] but no reverb
once we played in a huge oval shaped plaza in Italy that was completely enclosed by tall buildings
the echo was really strong from the snare drum especially [which is scary when you play outside of 4/4 a great deal]
but come the gig we didn't notice it at all
the lack of reverb open air can produce the most sterile sound

I always use reverb on all tones live
my riffing tone is quite wet but the reverb is very very short
the reverb is almost too short to be heard.. it's just enough to prevent the tone from being too sterile
my clean and soloing tones are much less wet but the reverb is much longer
you need the length for that smoothness and ambient mood but there's just enough that it does not make things cloudy
what you can't get away with [unless it's a specifically ambient / atmospheric tone] is a long and very wet reverb at high volume
 
Clarky, do you use the reverb block for this "basic" reverb or is the room ambience in the cab block sufficient in your opinion?
 
I'm using the 'room' page in the cab block...
I set the room size to a fairly small value..
but set the amount of wet signal quite high... heading toward 40%..
this only works because the room is 'small' and the reverb tail is therefore short
if you wanted the cab to be in a bigger room it'll start sounding 'distant' so it'd need to be less wet..

my ambient reverb though for soloing and cleans is done in the reverb block using cathedral reverbs...
I do know that to make a reverb sound 'authentic' you need to have the early reflections etc set right...
I don't want that... because this will add a shortish delay and muddy up my lil' shredz...
so I dial all that stuff low so you hear more of the tail, and then set the wet to a moderately low value..

with my soloing tones I use a delay with long time settings [400ms to 600ms area], very low feedback and lowish to moderate wet settings and a gentle but long cathedral reverb
the delay provides a single moderate repeat followed by a very soft one and pretty much nothing more..
the reverb fills the spaces

the thing with reverb [both digital and convolution] is that there are two approaches to it..

1 - creating an 'authentic' space
there are times when you want to do this... amp in the room, drums, sound effects [like in a movie] etc

2 - creating an appropriate tone
sometimes an authentic reverb works and other times the early reflections can get in the way [mostly for shredders, but not at all for ambient presets]..
a shredder will just want a nice long silky smooth tail to add colour, warmth and width

there's a lot of info about reverb on-line
most of it describes the authentic use.. such as "this is how we made this Lexicon sound just like St Paul's Cathedral"
which is great if you need to add this type of reverb to a choir recorded in a recording studio, or a church organ patch in your keyboard or soft instrument..
not so good if you are John Petrucci and can play quick enough to squeeze a couple of notes in between the early reflections... lol..

reverb is a phenominally powerful sound shaping effect...
get it right and you almost don't notice it... it's like it's supposed to be there and makes everything sound natural and spacious
get it seriously wrong and you'll kill your tone completely...
 
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Wow, good post, thanks!
You answered alot more than what I asked :)

I rarely use the reverb block for my own tones, only when a special sound is needed à la acoustic guitar in concert hall or old Fender combo + spring reverb.
For the "basic" natural reverb (avoiding the too direct and dry sound) I also resort to the room sim in the cab block. I'm glad Cliff left it there for v. 7, as I thought about removing it.
 
here's another important point... at least so far as I'm concerned...

I never reamp with fx of any kind
and that includes having the room in the cab block shut off
everything else I add later in the DAW
I like convolution reverb for "the room" [Logic: Space Designer]
and prefer digital reverb for "the clean / solo tone ambients" [Lexicon or Sony Oxford - where I'd dial down the early reflections / stretch the tail etc]
 
Thank you all for the brilliant answers. One question - shouldn't the Air and Room options in the cab block be sufficient to cover the "in the room" effect? Essentially, they are the same as having a tiny amount of reverb with a very short tail, right? One could add more reverb to build an ambient sound, but I feel that adding it to your main rythm sound (especially if you're playing technical, high bpm stuff) would probably take the definition away, and have the guitars go lost in the live mix.

That's what I think. However, I would like to hear from people who use it live, especially for Metal.
 
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I'm a metal merchant, but would always advise to stay away from it. I sometimes like to use a touch of room sound just to open things up a little for a more live feel but that is it. Most pro producers would probably advise to stay away as well unless using for specific effect.
 
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