# Reverb Bus Routing



## JumpStartMars (Jul 29, 2022)

Hello everyone,

Question about reverb buses and how the routing works. Say I have a string group with each instrument on its own channel. Right now I have all the high strings go to a High Strings group, then that High Strings group is being sent to the master AND to the reverb bus. Is this a good way of doing this? Or should I be routing each INDIVIDUAL instrument to the reverb bus? Is there a difference? Thank you and hopefully this made sense.


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## topijokinen (Jul 29, 2022)

I suppose dividing strings into high and low should give you good results, where low has usually less reverb. Some people use reverb for the whole strings group, so you have more flexibility with your setup. Of course sending them one by one, will give you more detailed tuning for each instrument, but imo its not necessary to make the strings sound good. I do it still though, but have been wondering if its needed, since i usually dont fine tune each reverb send anyway but do it in chunk cause I find in the big picture it doesnt make that big of a difference (i have template that ive fine tuned way back).


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## JSTube (Jul 30, 2022)

To anyone mixing orchestral spaces and wanting to learn more, Beat Kaufmann's site is a fantastic resource: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/reverb--approach-konzept/index.php

Sorry, I'm kind of assuming that you're splitting the reverb channels to avoid too much bass post-reverb, so that's where I wrote this from:

(this is all just my opinion/approach! Sorry if I wrote this too authoritatively, but otherwise, my advice boils down to:
- *use one reverb for your strings*, and
- *the reverb isn't going to care/know/respond any differently to a digitally summed stem track of 5 different string members, or 5 different sends from each of the members*.)
- this is advice for reverb late-reflections/tails. ERs play a somewhat different (very important) purpose in orchestral reverb/positioning and this advice isn't necessarily applicable to that side of the dry+ER+late formula. Most people use convolution or impulse-responses for their early reflections and stage positioning with orchestral strings, and then use an algorithmic reverb such as a lexicon clone on for the actual strings (note: I have heard that even abbey road studios does NOT make use of their recording spaces 'late reflections,' so don't feel like just because something you bought came with far-distance samples that you necessarily need to use them, or that they'll be somehow better that way.

A lot of reverbs have a bass response setting that can attenuate lows from building up so badly.

I have heard that it's better to send more instruments to one reverb because, supposedly (algorithmic reverbs especially) benefit from more complex signals. At any rate, whether you believe this or not, there are ways of taming the low-end so you can use the same reverb send on an entire strings section (imo it really is better to use one than to split it up).

If your reverb lacks a bass response attenuation feature, you can just run a high-pass filter on your strings stem track (or individually HPF on all instruments (really, better imo), slightly lower HPF for each as you go down into the string family from the violins on down).

*Before being sent to a reverb, orchestral bowed strings shouldn't be very bassy, even if it's the contrabasses and cellos you're thinking about*. (you shouldn't be dealing with very much signal remaining on the string bus below 100-150hz, imo. )

Even if it's a hard-chugging, Hans Zimmer style writing, that lowness is almost always mixed in -after the fact- (meaning further up the signal chain) with subharmonic synthesizers and the like, on stem tracks which really helps 'glue it all together' in addition to getting a very controlled low-end which would be otherwise unachievable.

Remember that low frequencies like to build up on one another, so you should HPF still low enough to allow that natural building to occur. (i.e. there's still enough lows in the violins to make the violas slightly darker with the violins together than just the violas on their own which might sound too bright now that you've HPF'd them.

Doing this properly, you should be able to send to a reverb without even needing to tame the reverb's low-end response, or have to do any EQing, after, either.

As far as sending individual instruments to the reverb bus vs sending the summed 'stem track' of the strings, that won't make a difference to the reverb plugin, but I will maintain: it's going to be a more cohesive sound running one reverb for your strings vs multiple, especially if you're going to have different reverb settings for the Hi and Lo strings, the ear will hear the discrepancy. It's better to not have to do this (multiple verbs on strings), if you can.


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## KEM (Jul 30, 2022)

I route every individual track to the reverb bus, and I don’t divide highs and lows into separate reverbs, the entire section goes into the same reverb. I do have a bus for each section as well that has processing on it but I don’t send the bus to the reverb as I don’t want it to be effected by the processing, and the reverb doesn’t go through that bus afterwards either


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## waveheavy (Sep 22, 2022)

Might depend on what sample library you use. Spitfire samples are recorded on a live stage, so they aren't 'dry', and already have some room/verb on them. You can remove some of that by changing the mic setup, but not all of it. So adding more reverb might not be a good thing. But other libraries, like VSL, are usually recorded 'dry', and have to have reverb added to them.

If you truly wanted to try and simulate a real space, after making the samples as dry as possible, you could setup 3 separate reverbs each on its own FX Bus, the 1st one just to move the instruments back a little if they were recorded close-miked. Then the 2nd slightly longer reverb to simulate the room. And then the 3rd longest reverb to simulate the higher space like a hall. On the first two reverbs, on the FX channel the verb is on, you'd do an EQ cut of the bass below say around 390 Hz, and on the highs down to around 2kHz. But on the hall verb you would do the same on the bass, but in the treble do a wide 1-2dB boost from like 3kHz up. For instruments behind others, you'd use more room and less hall. For your main melody instruments you want up-front, more hall. 

Then you could assign each individual instrument to those 3 verbs, according to their place and importance. Then use the Hall as a final reverb over all of them from the Master bus.

Or you could assign each instrument to a group, with the group pointing to each reverb, and have no reverb involving the Master bus.


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