Tip of the week: 1 Reverb Pre-Delay

Reverb is the natural response of a room where the sound bounces off the walls. It is an essential tool in music whether added digitally or recorded naturally from the room of the performer. The length of the reverb is correlated to the perceived size of the room but, an even more important factor is the Pre-Delay.

Though it is more subtle, it plays a huge role in the perception of the room. It is the time taken between the sound playing and the reverb kicking in. In real life it is the time taken for the sound to travel across the room and back for the reverberations to be perceived.

By altering this you change the space the instruments sit in, sometimes drastically altering the feel of the music. Use it to your advantage.

If you don’t have a reverb plugin that has a pre-delay control, I recommend Ambience (above) as a good Free starting point to play around with.