# How Would You Set Reverb for an All CineSamples Orchestra?



## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2015)

So basically all my samples right now are CineSamples, and I have been comissioned to compose music for a ballet. I know CineSamples has already done the panning of the instruments, but how would you handle the reverb? Would you just set all Dennis Sands and you're ready to go, or would you do something else to achieve an orchestral balance concerning reverb for CineSamples? 

I have CineBrass Core and Pro, CineWinds Core and Pro, CinePerc Core, Pro, and Epic, and CineStrings. 

Thanks guys!
~Rod


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## Christof (Mar 28, 2015)

How much salt would you add to your tomato soup?

How much pepper to your chilli?

It's a matter of taste in my opinion, there is no rule.Trust your ears and taste


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2015)

I knew that was going to be the response, but how do people normally handle this? Do you put more "room" the further back the instruments are, for example? These are my concerns. If this was chilli, then what is your personal recipe? Don't worry about what you think I would like. How do you make it in your restaurant? 
~Rod


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## RiffWraith (Mar 28, 2015)

Rodney Money @ Sun Mar 29 said:


> If this was chilli, then what is your personal recipe?



http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-an ... gHubId=173

Seriously, Christof is correct. There is no right nor wrong; different engineers add different reverbs at differing amounts, and as long as the end result is good, nobody is wrong.

If you want to push things to the back a bit, don't reach for the verb first; first try different mic positions. The CS guys gave 'em to you for a reason, and I don't think it was to just sell more copies.

That said, I personally like the Hamburg Cathedral and Dortmund Concert Hall from Spaces to go with CS.

Cheers.


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## Jason_D (Mar 28, 2015)

For a stereo setup I usually have six final reverb tails ready to go; long, medium, short and an equivalent EQ'ed version of these. Take the Lexicon 224...my medium tail setting is bass and mid at 5.2 seconds, no pre-delay and on solo mode. This goes on the final orchestral stem as a parallel effect turned down to -2.5. For Cinesamples, I like to use the room mics, route that to a Cinesamples bus which eventually makes its way to the orchestral bus. The reverb is routed to the mastering bus. I am sure I missed something.


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## lumcas (Mar 28, 2015)

Jason_D @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Take the Lexicon 224...my medium tail setting is bass and mid at 5.2 seconds, no pre-delay and on solo mode. This goes on the final orchestral stem as a parallel effect turned down to -2.5.



I admit I don't know that particular Lexicon, but 5.2 sec. reverb medium setting? ...like really?


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Mar 28, 2015)

Christof @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> How much salt would you add to your tomato soup?
> 
> How much pepper to your chilli?
> 
> It's a matter of taste in my opinion, there is no rule.Trust your ears and taste



Man oh man...I can't stand replies like this. I gotta say something.

The OP was looking for guidelines...not an elitists remark.

If your a musician or under the umbrella of being an "artist" you already know there are no rules. If an aspiring painter asks how do you create green...the teacher doesn't say, "It's a matter of taste in my opinion, there is no rule.Trust your eyes." The teacher gives a guideline of yellow and blue...you can add a little more yellow if you want to make it a different/lighter shade, but the general guideline is 50% yellow, 50% blue.

What the OP was looking for...but has now probably left because he wasn't getting any help worth anything was starting points. 

Rodney...setup a reverb unit as an aux send. Bus over each instrument. Use about a 1.6-2.0 second tail as a starting point. For slower sweeping strings you might use 2.0+...for fast action you might your 1.6 and below. 1.8 very common in Hollywood. 

Also, ER = early reflections...so you might want to try to add another reverb with a .5-.8 tail to fatten it up a bit. But with Cinesamples you might not need an ER. Watch the volume on this as it can muddy things up and you lose the clarity of the original instrument. Case in point...use reverbs lightly...but that is just my opinion as a guideline. Sometimes you use heavy reverb with a 8 second tail if you have enough space in the mix and that sound is what you are going for.

Have fun experimenting to find a sound you like!


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2015)

Oh, I'm still here, just enjoying reading the replies before I respond. Plus, I'm partying right now with my Asian wife.


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## Jeffrey Peterson (Mar 28, 2015)

Rodney Money @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Oh, I'm still here, just enjoying reading the replies before I respond. Plus, I'm partying right now with my Asian wife.



Good man 

Love partying with the wife! What are you drinking?


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## marclawsonmusic (Mar 28, 2015)

Here's a great video the guys from Cinesamples put together on treating Cinestrings. Maybe this will give you some ideas...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsvL3OiEFo


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## Jason_D (Mar 28, 2015)

> I admit I don't know that particular Lexicon, but 5.2 sec. reverb medium setting? ...like really?



It may be too much. I have a low diffusion setting (under 32) with decay optimization, which sounds great for orchestral mixes. When I compared the RC24 to the Lexicon, the Lexicon appeared to have less of a tail even though the seconds were the same.


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## Daniel James (Mar 28, 2015)

I tend to have a reverb as an insert for each section (ie strings brass perc etc) then if one is feeling to up front I reduce the dry amount a little to push it back into its reverb. if its too muddy I bring up the dry and reduce the wet. 

-DJ


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## Rodney Money (Mar 28, 2015)

A wine from the Philippines with 80% alcohol content concerning the party.


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## supercomposer123 (Mar 30, 2015)

Daniel James @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> I tend to have a reverb as an insert for each section (ie strings brass perc etc) then if one is feeling to up front I reduce the dry amount a little to push it back into its reverb. if its too muddy I bring up the dry and reduce the wet.
> 
> -DJ



This.

Looks like the hours I spent deconstructing your videos were not wasted.

-dark1ord


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## Rodney Money (Mar 30, 2015)

marclawsonmusic @ Sat Mar 28 said:


> Here's a great video the guys from Cinesamples put together on treating Cinestrings. Maybe this will give you some ideas...
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsvL3OiEFo


Thank you for the link, yes I have seen it before and now the terms are getting a little bit more familiar, but just a little. So here's my questions, CineSamples says to not add a reverb on the strings but then they add reverb for more tail, then they mess with the eq in the basses, but aren't the samples already "perfect?" They talk so much about the room and Dennis Sands, then why mess with it? Is it really personal preference, or the samples could not really work on their own by using just the mike positions? And where are these reverbs that they show in the video or would the reverbs in Cubase work?


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## marclawsonmusic (Mar 30, 2015)

Rodney Money @ Mon Mar 30 said:


> marclawsonmusic @ Sat Mar 28 said:
> 
> 
> > Here's a great video the guys from Cinesamples put together on treating Cinestrings. Maybe this will give you some ideas...
> ...


Samples are by no means 'perfect', but good samples reflect the qualities of the room they are recorded in.

In the case of CineSamples, you have well-recorded samples (by Dennis Sands) from the Sony Scoring Stage - a wonderful room where many great film scores were recorded.

So, that's what you've got... If you want those samples to sound good with other samples or other live recordings, you'll have you use some engineering skill to blend them together. Even if you have a track with just CineSamples, you might want to apply some of your own treatment (ala the video) to add some 'polish' or 'sheen'.

PS - The reverb they used in the video is a Bricasti (hardware reverb). It's great but will set you back a penny or two!


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## Rodney Money (Mar 30, 2015)

Thanks for sharing more information!
~Rod


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## Rodney Money (Apr 1, 2015)

I want to thank you all, Daniel, Jason, Jeffery, and all you other awesome guys for all your help at this wonderful forum. I have written for live players all my life and do it now for a living, I can write a symphony, fugue, requiem, or even a marching band show, but when it comes to recording and rendering I have just started.


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