De-reverb can be a useful utility for cleaning up audio and making it usable in your mix when re-recording isn’t an option. Let’s answer what is de-reverb and more to the point when you might need to use it in your mix.
What is De-Reverb
De-reverb is very much what it sounds like; as the name suggests it mitigates the reflections or effects of reverb which are baked in to recorded audio.
Note that this is NOTE to be confused with a lot of plugins which go by the moniker or some variation of “deverb” as this effect name typically refers to delay PLUS reverb.
Getting back to de-reverb, reverb is a very useful effect for adding depth or simply size to a track.
This can make a track sound larger, create a nice dynamic change from that same comparatively “drier” audio.
Reverb can also be useful for creating separation between tracks in your mix, particularly when you’ve got multiple tracks which share a similar fundamental frequency range on top of one another in the stereo field.
Sending one of those tracks farther back in the three dimensional space of your mix can make your mix sound more open and allow those tracks to coexist and avoid conflicts.
But what about when you’ve got TOO much reverb on a track, and likely not by your hand?
As a mixing engineer, I get tracks recorded in all kinds of conditions, environments, and rooms. Sometimes I receive tracks which have artificial reverb baked in, meaning that no “dry” instance of that audio exists, and there’s way too much of it so that the length of the tails is stepping on.
A de-reverb like Clarity DeReverb from Waves works to minimize those reflections, shore up tails, and maybe not completely remove the effects of the reverb but certainly to make it more manageable to hopefully salvage the clip.
When to Use De-Reverb
In most general (and probably obvious) terms, you should use de-reverb when you’ve got existing audio which has too much reverb on it, but let’s give a few specific examples of when you might want to use a de-reverb like the aforementioned
Cleaning Up Tails
As I just alluded to, excessively long reverb tails can be a problem by stepping on transients and ultimately muddying up a mix.
Cleaning these up can be a long and tiring process, particularly if the tracks aren’t isolated, and oftentimes it sounds strange.
A de-reverb like the aforementioned Clarity De-Reverb from Waves is effective and simple to use for shoring up the length of reverb tails.
In fact it’s arguably the MOST effective for use on tails, particularly on isolated tracks; simply turn the dial to shore up that length.
Minimizing the Effects of a Bad Room
I recently covered three ways to fix a hollow vocal, and while I started with some EQ and saturation each to adjust the frequency range where the issue generally stems, sometimes the secret solution lies in the third method: de-reverb.
When audio is recorded in a poorly treated room large or small, you get reflections bouncing around which in some cases sound good or in other cases make that track sound strange, especially in relation to the other tracks which were either DI or recorded in other rooms/environments.
De-Reverb works well to mitigate the effects of the reflections of a bad room from note to note or on extended tails like I just mentioned.
Essentially this dries out that track, making it sound better for any number of reasons, such as mitigating the build up around certain frequency ranges via those reflections.
As I mentioned in that overview on hollow vocals, you can’t always expect to COMPLETELY fix or cure the sounds of the room if it’s really taken hold on the audio, but you can mitigate it to the point that the audio sounds decent enough to use in your mix (when re-recording isn’t an option).
Bringing a Track Up Front
I mentioned in opening how reverb is a great tool for essentially placing different tracks around the two and three dimensional stereo space so that every track has its own address.
Sending a track farther back is a great way to avoid frequency conflicts. Incidentally this is one of my 12 ways of how to get a clean mix.
Conversely and just as important to remember, though, is that if you can reduce the palpable effect of the reverb, you can just as effectively bring a track BACK from the back of the mix.
This is obviously where de-reverb comes in, but this works great when you have a track which has a lot more baked in reverb on it than the rest of your mix and consequently is throwing off the size of the entire mix.
I’ve had clients bring me collections of stems which don’t always gel together because some of the tracks just sound too distant by virtue of how they were recorded or processed before they got to me and that can’t be changed.
De-reverb was a track-saver in those cases as I could bring those tracks closer up and more importantly roughly on the same level as the rest of the mix so everything sounded believably cohesive.
You can then apply reverb, YOUR reverb in your mix that you’re applying to every other track, to create that additional sense of cohesion to make all the tracks sound like they were recorded/they exist in the same space.
This is normally where I would give a good free alternative to the de-reverb plugin I use, or in this case, Clarity De-Reverb, but I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything I can recommend.
That said, Waves typically offers trial versions, and typically with the price around $30 it’s doable and can be a mix-saver when used in the right context.
Still, if anyone has any recommendations on quality de-reverb style plugins which they use themselves and can share, please do so in the comments section below!
