Improve Your Mix with the 3D Reverb Trick

Your tracks probably consist of many elements like rhythm, bass, guitars, vocals, etc., and at some point, you'll want to separate these elements in the stereo field. Reverb is undoubtedly the right solution since it shifts our perception of how much something is close or far from us. Check out the following tutorial and learn how to improve your mix with the 3D reverb trick.  

Get 3D Depth

In the following tutorial, I will show you how to use the reverb effect to get 3D depth in your mixes. You can use this trick on almost every audio source, including bass. Of course, in that case, you should use it in reasonable amounts. Essentially, I will show you how to combine more than one reverb effect with different settings in order to achieve nice sound coloration of the instrument. This short guitar sequence is a part of a short loop I made in SoundBridge. It sounds too dry for now, so I will try to apply this 3D reverb trick in order to make it sound better.

~ Guitar - Unprocessed  

Let's Start

Firstly, you need to create a couple of return tracks in Soundbridge. As you can see from the picture below, the return track channels are hard-panned in opposite ways. This will give us a different sense of space on both left and right speakers.

For the first return track, I have chosen the ValhallaRoom plugin. I think this reverb sounds beautiful, and I use it a lot. In this case, I have tweaked the settings to sound cathedral-like with a long decay time. On the other channel, I have placed a FabFilter Pro-R reverb plugin. I love this reverb because of its equalizer, which is copied from the famous FabFilter's Pro-Q equalizer. It has surgical precision when it comes to details. So, parameters of the Pro-R are set for a shorter sounding reverb effect, with 1 sec decay time and a pre-delay setting, which is tempo-synced.

I will slowly add reverb on the Acoustic guitar channel by shifting return track amounts.

Colored like this, we can hear how the guitar now has that 3D depth and sounds much better.

~Guitar - Processed

In the end, let us hear how the acoustic guitar sounds with other elements in the mix.

~ Full Mix