Chorus and reverb are two effects which can be used to give your audio more size in the mix, but they differ in a lot of ways. Each has its place in your mix in the right context, so let’s talk chorus vs reverb; how they differ and when to use each.
Chorus Vs Reverb
We’ll begin this chorus vs reverb comparison with the modulated effect of chorus.
Chorus
Chorus uses an LFO to create modulated duplicates of your source audio. It spreads these wide and actively varies the pitch and timing of those duplicates so that they’re perceived as being unique.
If you simply create duplicates of your audio and spread them wide left and right, it won’t actually create the effect of natural width because the pitch and wave forms are exactly the same.
Even if you add a little delay to those duplicates, it won’t create the same sense of width as if it were a completely unique take.
This is why vocal doubles work so well; even when a singer delivers the same vocal line as similarly as possible to the original, the pitch and timing will be unique by virtue of that new take.
Mixing two (or three) of these together (see how to mix double tracked vocals) is the most natural and subtle way to create width on a vocal, but there are other options including chorus (see how to get wider vocals).
When primarily used for width rather than color, chorus is a nice lazy way to simulate the effect of a unique recording because that pitch and timing of the original source audio is constantly being modulated/changed.
Here are my favorite chorus settings to dial in that classic, lush sound that we think of when we think of chorus to create some width AND color in your sound:
The “Rate” parameter is what controls the speed of the transition of the pitch of the duplicates. Setting this faster results in a palpably choppy sound almost like a phaser. For that classic chorus sound, I like a relatively slower rate (I’m using 4/10 of a Hz in the above example).
Note that typically outside of the rate parameter which is ubiquitous on most chorus plugins, the other parameters will vary from plugin to plugin.
In the above pictured Arturia Chorus Jun-6 which I frequently use in my mixes for chorus, the “Depth” parameter controls the range of pitch modulation.
Whatever your plugin refers to this control as, I like setting this higher so you get a broader range of pitch variation relative to your source audio to make it sound larger and more unique to the source.
Reverb can also be used to create some width in a track but especially some depth which you can’t get from chorus, so let’s move on to the reverb in this chorus vs reverb comparison.
Reverb
Reverb simulates natural reflections and decay of audio in different spaces. It essentially creates a delayed instance of your audio via pre-delay, but colors it to replicate the reflections and decay you’d hear in different sized and types of rooms.
The (pre) delayed instance of your audio source is specifically colored with a lighter or darker kind of filtered sound with a shorter or longer decay, depending on if you’re emulating a smaller or larger room, respectively.
Smaller rooms have a quicker reflection as it takes less time to reflect off the walls, and you get more of that brighter top end sound because the audio doesn’t have to travel as far.
Conversely, larger rooms have longer reflections as it takes longer for the sound to hit an obstacle and reflect. This also results in a darker sound because lower frequencies are able to travel farther and withstand obstacles and reflections better than higher frequencies (see low frequencies vs high frequencies).
Aside from operating on very different premises, the settings on a reverb vs chorus are much more complex, as well.
Whereas with chorus you mostly need to adjust the rate and range of the frequency modulation, with reverb you have a whole host of parameters which affect your sound.
While it varies from reverb to reverb, the common settings you’ll see on a reverb are predelay, decay time/size, width, and a host of options for further coloring the tone, if not onboard EQ filters, as well.
I go into greater depth about what each of these parameters does in my overview of the best reverb settings, but here is a helpful snapshot of a general, one-size-fits-all (no pun intended) settings guide from that tutorial:
Reverb allows you to not only take advantage of the two-dimensional stereo image, but you can send tracks farther back in the three-dimensional space.
This gives the tracks in your mix more separation from one another, creating a cleaner mix.
The one caveat as that reverb can also easily muddy your mix by way of low frequency build ups and needlessly long decays which smother transients and take away your mix’s punch.
This is why it’s helpful to either use the onboard EQ filters like pictured above or add your own EQ after the reverb (in the case of using a reverb on an Aux/Return track). Using high and low pass filters you can employ the “Abbey Road Reverb Trick” which basically equates to filtering out everything below and above 600Hz and 6k, respectively.
This keeps the transient punch of the top end relatively intact and uninterfered with, and it especially ensures that the low end stays clean and those low mids don’t get any muddier by adding reverb to a frequency range which is already notorious for being muddy in itself in that 400-600Hz span.
While reverb is generally the more practical effect between chorus vs reverb in that you can virtually ALWAYS use reverb in some capacity in your mix, chorus has its occasional place, as well.
Check out my many individual guides on both chorus AND reverb right here on Music Guy Mixing for achieving a number of different effects and benefit your mix.
