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Reverberation (or 'reverb') effects are omnipresent, both in the real world and in music production. Judicious use of reverb can make the difference between a professional recording and something that sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom, adding depth and fullness to the sound.

So what exactly is reverb? Simply put, it's the sound of a space. You see, every space has a sonic signature. Think about the sound of footsteps inside a huge cathedral, for example. Now, imagine your footsteps in a tiled bathroom. These are two very different sounds, and the thing that makes them different is reverb.

When you make a sound in any space, the sound waves travel around that space, bouncing off the walls before returning back to your ears as a series of delayed echoes. These echoes will have different characteristics, depending on the size of the room, the surface materials within it and all sorts of other variables. This produces a sound far more complex than a simple echo (which is why a plain ol' delay line makes a poor substitute for reverb).

When we say that every space has a unique sonic signature, we mean it - even the smallest room has some reverb. This is why studio designers spend so much money on acoustic treatments. There are, of course, purpose-built reverb-free rooms (called anechoic chambers), but pretty much any environment you encounter in the real world will have its own 'sound'.

"When we say that every space has a unique sonic signature, we mean it - even the smallest room has some reverb."

Many recordings are made in exotic locations to exploit the sound of the space, and some recording studios (especially older ones) have dedicated reverb chambers into which audio signals are piped to impart a bit of ambience to the recording.

Obviously, such luxury is not available to most musicians and producers. Fortunately, there are plenty of artificial solutions, and you'll need to explore some of them if you want your tracks to sound like those of the pros.

Reverb types

Studio reverbs tend to come in one of four flavours. There are the aforementioned reverb chambers, and there are also massive devices called 'plate' reverbs that emulate the sound of a space by bouncing the signal off a suspended metal plate. Plate reverbs don't sound terribly natural, but they have been employed on a lot of classic recordings and as such are considered a classic studio sound.

Most modern reverb units will offer patches that imitate the sound of a plate reverb. They are especially useful for vocal tracks, since they do not wash the vocal in syrupy ambience but instead allow it to maintain some of its clarity.

If you're a guitarist, you will already know about 'spring' reverbs - in fact, many combo amps come with them built in. Like a plate reverb, a spring reverb is an electromechanical device, but instead of using a metal plate, it pumps the signal through a box filled with loosely suspended metal springs. This produces a characteristically metallic sound that is even less natural than that of a plate reverb.

Still, spring reverbs remain a popular choice for certain instruments and musical styles. Indeed, they have been making something of a comeback in recent years, riding the current wave of nostalgia for all things retro.

The most popular source of reverb in modern studios is undoubtedly the digital reverb processor. These units might be standalone reverb boxes, or might include reverb among many other common effects. Most of them are 'algorithmic' in nature, using delay, pitchshifting and filtering techniques to simulate real-world spaces. You might recognise the name Lexicon, by far the most famous purveyor of algorithmic reverb devices.

Not all modern reverbs are algorithmic. Recent advances in computing power have led to the introduction of 'convolution' or 'impulse' processors. These devices use recordings of natural spaces (or even other effects processors) to mathematically recreate the response of that space and apply it to an audio signal, and they can be uncannily realistic. Most of them are software-based, though a few companies have produced hardware variations.

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