Much depends on the type of reverb in use, whose plugin and how it is designed if it is a plugin and not hardware, but even hardware reverb types have their various sounds and idiosyncracies, too, then there is the specified genre and overall sound of the project, whether or not you are trying to put ambiance or a "room" on just a lead vocal or whether or not you are trying to apply a particular amount of ambience or room on the entire thing, whether or not it is perhaps a guitar track, etc. etc. etc.

Learning all you can about the frequencies within the sonic spectrum, the delay times, being able to decipher different reverb tails when you hear them and whether or not they are workable within the mix you have is time well spent. For that is the job.

At the same time, one should experiment. For there is nothing like the actual manipulation and experimentation for this learning curve. I have learned more from the bad moves than the good moves.

REFERENCE RECORDINGS

These ahould be a part of your arsenal.

The Reference Recordings are simply your collection of recordings that exhibit the style, genre, instrumentation (basically speaking), performance, "sheen" and overall technical superiority that you are going after with your own mixes.

Keep them separated from your full collection.

Play them over your recording monitoring system often.

Get familiar with what the particular sound you desire sounds like when played through your system.

CONVERSATIONAL VOLUME LEVELS

This one is important, avoid the urge to turn up the Volume.

Loudness may be good at a party, it is the kiss of death in your studio.

For one thing, just about anything and everything will kind of sound "good" at high sound pressure levels.

For another, critical listening will be hard to impossible to do when the SPLs are cranked up. The ear fatigue syndrome will kick in fast and hard, making it impossible to be able to hear well, anything of value. Exposure to music played at high SPLs for too long a time, well, it might take days of rest to be able to critically evaluate that which we are hearing.

And, finally, listening at those low, "conversational volume" levels, which only means a sound pressure level in which, if you had to hold a conversation with someone while the music is playing, you could, without unnecessarily having to raise your voice to be heard over the music, will be the way that you will be able to actually HEAR many things in and about the mix.

Low Level Monitoring, many anomalies will seem to "jump" out of a mix at you, whereas if the volume were to be higher, such things would be masked entirely. Such it is with Reverb as well as every other aspect of the recording.

Don't be overly concerned with how good it may sound when turned up loud, it has been my experience that anything that sounds great at those low levels will sound great when pumped up. The opposite is not the case.


--Mac

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