How do you process your reverbs?

What tricks do you have to make your reverbs more interesting apart from obvious stuff such as EQing?

I use lots of shitty reverbs in conjunction with/contrast to 'nice' reverbs. 

Also gating reverb like you're putting effects on the new 1987 Madonna track's snare is fun, when I do this I usually bury it under other effects tho so it often become more something to excite the effect or as 'noise' than as reverb.

I also sometimes compress the post-reverbed sounds, but that shouldn't be a surprise because I compress literally everything and do not care. :)

She was all like "Baby, did u just compress that sound AFTER you put reverb on it?"

And I was like "U damned right I did sugar, what's it 2 u?"

And so she goes "Shit boy u are fucking WILD and u know I love that"

So I says "yeaaahhhhhh I know u do, how about u comepress that ass up on me"

Ableton reverb.

  On 10/4/2018 at 12:43 AM, Stickfigger said:

Lots of cool options with the octatrack like setting Reverb trail lengths to triggers or LFOs

Yeah these kinds of tricks are really cool with the Monomachine trig tracks because you can apply one-shot LFOs to the reverb params, and they auto-trigger at the exact same time as your notes.

Honestly half the time I just throw random FX on top, close my eyes and listen. I don't really have a process, because when I start getting one, after a while I notice the downsides of said process.

  On 10/4/2018 at 12:45 AM, auxien said:

I use lots of shitty reverbs in conjunction with/contrast to 'nice' reverbs. 

This always.

Also aux sends on your reverbs leading into other reverbs, maybe ore example send a dry track to reverb A and reverb B but also send some of reverb B's wet signal back into reverb A.

Some gentle sample rate reduction after a nice reverb plugin can help keep it from sounding too good.

autopan before the reverb

autopan into pingpong delay into reverb

Sidechain compression on reverb can be good

Run it through a wah pedal

In Reaper it's easy to use the dynamics of any audio track to modulate any parameter of anything in a mix, so that can definitely be abused. Use the dynamics of the snare to increase the stereo width and input gain of the signal feeding a reverb on a completely different instrument, so every time the snare hits the reverb gets louder and wider.

knock on the springs with a pencil

Just generally using too much of too many different reverbs at the same time.

Also, drop the price of a couple pizzas on an Alesis Wedge and keep the faders moving constantly.

  On 10/4/2018 at 4:16 AM, Stickfigger said:

Conditional trigless trigs too allow the reverb swells to only occur sometimes which is a neat trick too.

 

Would love a MnM but have heard its a bit of a clusterfuck to learn and would be super suspicious about picking one up now given the age of the units.

Ah, yeah definitely, 

I didn't find the MnM any harder to learn than the OT. If anything, it was a bit easier, but I think once you learn one Elektron you've learnt ~80% of the whole lineup. There are a couple concepts unique to the MnM, a number of particular limitations/gotchas, and a handful of things that it can do that the OT can't. And, as you'd expect, plenty of fun tricks :)

The MnM build quality is just fine. Actually I think my MnM is faring better than my OT, though to be fair the OT is a couple years older.

I think the only thing about the MnM that makes it a bit of a challenge is that it's not an immediately satisfying machine in terms of sound design; you often have to do some unorthodox things to get the really great sounds. I'm still not even there after having mine for over three years, which is why I go back and forth on trying to decide whether to sell it or not. Ultimately I prefer the Nord Lead for synthesis, but as an all-in-one sequenced synth, the Monomachine is pretty great. I just wish someone would reverse engineer the OS and give us some of the newer Elektron sequencer features. I'd sacrifice song mode or the voice synth for individual track lengths/microtiming/trig conditions.

Most of the times I'm lazy, but every now & then some (lfo)modulation on different parameters, at least variation through automation, experimenting with different samples as input for convolution also gives more flavor.  

  On 10/4/2018 at 5:10 AM, modey said:

I think the only thing about the MnM that makes it a bit of a challenge is that it's not an immediately satisfying machine in terms of sound design; you often have to do some unorthodox things to get the really great sounds.

Very true, basically all of the machines sound a bit weak with default settings. Though the SID is probably the best all-rounder, especially with parameter locks, and all the DigiPro (wavetable) and FM machines are good fun.

I did something interesting once, where I had the end of the tale getting more bitcrushed as it faded out. Can't remember how I did it though, maybe using side-chaining?

Got this for £40, amazing value given that it has stereo in/out and 3 different reverb settings (hall, spring, room) as well as the blend/time.

It is obviously only a £40 pedal though as you can get some nasty artifacts if you play around too quickly. 

Will probably upgrade to something else some day, but this does what I need for now, especially when mixed in with my Boss super octave...

^controllable nasty artifacts sounds like a feature not a bug :)

I like combining algorithmic reverbs with convolution reverbs and reverb like delays (high feedback, short delay time), I also like having some chorus on them and even a tiny bit of slow moving flanger if I want to make it sound metallic. This kind of delay can make a dense mix sound really muddy so it's probably best to only use more complex delays in more sparse soundscapes

  On 10/4/2018 at 7:42 PM, auxien said:

^controllable nasty artifacts sounds like a feature not a bug :)

well yes, its bonus noise which I approve of. But sometimes I like just want the verb

If you have a reverb that lets you disable the early and late reflections independently you can have one instance with only early reflections enabled, send that through some other kind of processor (stereo chorus is a natural choice) and then into a second reverb that only has late reflections enabled.  I haven't actually tried this particular thing myself (I've done all the stuff in my longer post at least a couple of times before) but it seems like a good idea.

Also putting something like Airwindows Distance or TDR Proximity before or after a reverb on an aux send can sound really good.

I've been using Airwindows Capacitor for a bit of lowpass and highpass in the first position on just about every reverb send in every mix I've done since it was ported to VST.  Yeah, this is standard stuff that people have been doing since the 50s and you could use any filter at all for it, but Capacitor happens to sound extra good to my ear.

I've had one of these since I was in college (universities throw out so many amazing things; mine is actually a 1202, but basically identical) and it always had a similar kind of transparency to what I hear from Capacitor, where you can aggressively lowpass or highpass a signal and it will sound different but it won't sound like it has been run through a filter, if that makes sense.  At some point I'm planning to use it for HP/LP duty on hardware sends but I checked this morning and one of the power supply caps has started to vent a little, so no dice until I recap it.  But if you can find something like that cheap or free, it can sound REALLY good if you're looking for a filter that's "invisible" rather than something to add character.

HOFA IQ Reverb and Audio Ease Altiverb 7 seem to be pretty sophisticated convolution reverbs, no? They cost hundreds of € but you could pirate them easily, theoretically, but that's not recommended of course, too illegal.

2CAudio Aether seems to be a really good choice for a very high end and adjustable algorithmic reverb.

Haven't used those extensively yet but it looks like they offer a rich variety of possibilities