The application of reverb on bass is one of the most debated topics in music production and audio engineering. The majority of professionals recommend avoiding it, as it can cause muddiness in the mix, however, if done appropriately, reverb can add width and depth to a bass instrument, and can even be used as a creative effect.
In this article, we’re going to run you through the most important things you need to know about putting reverb on bass. First, we’ll answer the burning question: Can you put reverb on bass?
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Can You Put Reverb on Bass?
Of course, it is possible to add reverb to bass instruments, however, in order to prevent the reverb from causing muddiness, low-end build-ups and phase issues in your mix, it is recommended to filter out the low-end of the reverb, so that it will only affect the mid-range or the high-end of the instrument.
Let’s make one thing clear; there are no rules in audio production, however, there are recommended guidelines. As a rule of thumb, the majority of sound engineers do not recommend applying reverb to bass frequencies. Yes, I said bass frequencies, not bass instruments. There’s a big difference between the two.
But what’s wrong with adding reverb to bass frequencies?
Well, first, let’s discuss what reverb is:
Reverberation is the sound of all the different reflections occurring inside an acoustic space. Reverb is what we hear when a sound gets played in a room and the sound waves bounce off the various surfaces.
Reverb can be a very useful effect. It can help to push back instruments in the mix by creating depth, increasing the stereo width and establishing a sense of space around the different elements of the production.
While reverb can sound lush in the higher frequency region, adding reverb to bass frequencies can easily cause muddiness, rumble and unwanted build-ups in the low and low-mid frequency region, which can lead to a loss in clarity.
Normally, we want to keep the low-end of our mixes as consistent and clean as possible. This is also the reason why many audio engineers separate the low and the high end of bass instruments, so they can process them differently and ensure that the various processing effects, such as distortion, will only affect the upper-frequency range of the instrument.
We also want the low-end in our songs to feel impactful and close to the listener. The dryer something sounds, the closer we will perceive it. However, adding reverb to the track can make it sound more distant and wash away the transients.
In addition, depending on the length of the reverb, reverberation can significantly increase the tail of your instruments. This can cause some serious issues with low-frequency heavy instruments.
Low-frequency sound waves have a lot more energy than high-frequency sound waves and because of that, they can travel further and it takes them longer to die out. In other words, they have a longer tail than high-frequency sound waves.
The reverb could increase the tail of your bass notes so much that a note might not be able to finish ringing out before the next one. This could cause a note-smearing effect, which can create dissonance and make your bass sound out of tune.
It’s also important to remember that reverb is a time-based effect, which means that it shifts the timing of the input signal, usually by milliseconds. The difference between the timing of the dry and wet signal can potentially cause phase issues, which can be even more prominent when it affects bass instruments or other low-frequency heavy instruments, such as kick drums or toms, since phase cancellation usually causes the low-end of an instrument to disappear.
Despite all of these problems, it doesn’t mean that you can’t add reverb to your bass instruments.
Fortunately, most of the above-mentioned issues can be fixed by simply filtering out the low-end of the reverb, so that the reverb will only affect the upper mid-range and the high-end.
But why would you want to add reverb to your bass tracks or kick drum in the first place?
There are numerous occasions where it might come in handy.
- Recording Bass Through DI (Direct Input) – DI’s give a very clean recording, however, they tend to sound dry and narrow, because they don’t capture any of the recording space reverb. Putting bass on reverb in post-processing here resolves this problem.
- Sound Design – Sometimes a simple bass patch is too dry and boring. Reverbs & delays can be used to give tone, character and space. This is especially useful in cinematic impact sound design.
Using Reverb on Bass for Mixing
1. Choose the right reverb
First, decide what type of reverb you want to use and why you want to use it. Do you want to make your bass DI sound more ‘live’, as if it was recorded inside a room?
Then try using a room reverb, or maybe a hall reverb if it’s a live performance and you’re trying to simulate the sound of a concert hall. Do you want to add to add that 70s, 80s type reverb effect to your bass guitar? Then try using spring reverb pedals. Feel free to experiment.
2. Use the reverb as a send on a separate aux channel and set the ‘wet’ parameter to 100%
Do not put the reverb directly onto the bass instrument track as an insert. Instead, create a separate auxiliary channel for your reverb plugin and put the reverb on this. Finally, send the dry instrument into the reverb.
Doing this has numerous benefits. Most importantly, it allows you to control and process the dry instrument and the reverb effect separately in parallel with each other. If you put the reverb plugin directly onto the bass instrument track, any changes that you make to the reverb, will also affect the dry instrument and vice versa.
For example, if you are using the built-in EQ of the reverb to filter out the low-end of the reverb, you will also filter out the low-end of the dry bass instrument.
In addition, if you want to, you can send multiple instruments into this reverb, which can save a lot of CPU power as opposed to creating an individual reverb for every single instrument.
The reason why you might want to send multiple tracks into the same reverb is to make them sound like they are in the same space. Too many reverbs can wash a mix out.
3. Find the right reverb time
As mentioned earlier, reverb can increase the tail of your instruments. If you want to add some depth and width to your bass, but still want them to sound closer and clear, try using a shorter reverb time, around 0.5-1 second.
Every song is different, therefore, these parameters can vary depending on the arrangement or the BPM of the song. It’s important you know how to calculate the reverb time of your track.
For example, if you’re mixing a slower, more open song where there is a lot of space between the individual kick drum hits, you could try using a slightly longer reverb time to add some tail to your kick drum. This would make them sound like they are in a big, open space like a stadium.
4. EQ the reverb
This is the most important step.
As I mentioned earlier, adding reverb to bass frequencies can muddy up your tracks very easily, so make sure to EQ your reverb. The majority of reverb plugins have built-in low and high pass filters.
Usually, it’s a good idea to filter out some of the really high frequencies as well, as the reverb might increase the high-frequency content too much and create harshness in your mix – especially if you’re using a distorted bass instrument that sounds very bright or your kick drum has lots of high-end.
There is a very simple but effective technique that you can try out called the ‘Abbey Road Reverb Trick’. To do this, place the EQ before the reverb, then use a high-pass filter at 600 Hz and a low-pass filter at 10 kHz.
This helps to achieve a very clean-sounding reverb, which can very useful when you’re working with a low-frequency-heavy instrument and you want to maintain the clarity of the low-end.
Make sure to put the EQ before the reverb. This helps to achieve a clearer-sounding reverb, because this way the signal that goes into the reverb is already filtered out.
Also, feel free to adjust the cut-off frequencies of the EQ filters, until the reverb sounds good in the context of the mix. Every song is different and requires a different kind of treatment.
Occasionally, a little bit more low-end in the reverb or a room track is just what you might need to add a bit more body to your mix and prevent it from sounding too thin.
Remember, these techniques can be applied to any instrument. Sometimes non-bass instruments like pianos or acoustic guitars can also have an excessive amount of low-end, which could be emphasised even more when applying reverb to them, so these could also benefit from some filtering.
5. Find the right volume for the reverb
Normally, we want the reverb to be a subtle effect that is rather felt than heard, so we don’t want to drench our instruments in reverb, (unless it’s a creative choice, of course) so make sure to turn down its volume.
If you want to, you could also automate the volume of the reverb or the send amount. This is the biggest benefit of putting your effects on a separate auxiliary channel and not directly onto the instrumental track as an insert.
For instance, you could turn up the volume of the reverb in certain sections of the song, where the arrangement is more open and less dense, and then turn it down when it becomes denser.
How Does Reverb on Bass Sound? (Before & After Examples)
Finally, let’s hear some audio examples! Make sure to wear headphones or listen through your monitors. The difference should be subtle, as we still want the instrument to feel close to the listener.
Using Reverb on Bass Creatively
As I mentioned earlier, there are no rules in music production. Experimenting with unique and unorthodox applications of time-based effects, like reverb and delay is a major part of sound design.
There are occasions when you may wish to apply reverb even to the low frequencies due to creative reasons, for example, when creating cinematic sound effects, such as impact sounds.
When reverb is used as a part of the sound design and not just as a post-production effect in mixing, it is very common to place the reverb directly on the instrumental track as an insert, instead of using it as a parallel effect on a separate auxiliary channel.
Sometimes, playing around with the mix knob of the reverb, or any kind of time-based effect can give you very interesting sounding results.
As stated earlier, reverb on bass frequencies can cause a dissonant-sounding, note-smearing effect. You could use this to your advantage and use it as a sound design trick, for example, when creating futuristic or creepy-sounding ambience tracks for horror or sci-fi movies or video games.
Summary
To sum it up, there’s nothing wrong with adding reverb to bass instruments as it can be an extremely useful tool, especially when you’re working with programmed instruments or DIs. Just don’t forget to filter out the low-end of the reverb in order to prevent it from muddying up your production.
We hope this article was able to answer all your questions about the application of reverb on bass instruments. If you would like to learn more about reverb, make sure to check out our other article as well that we did on the application of reverb in mastering!
