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What are reverse fades and when to use them?

2 min read
Tom Jarvis

Reverse fades are an important tool for producers to create natural-sounding effects in their songs.

They are very simple to do in practice, simply reverse a clip and record the reverb tail, then reverse it again.

It is great for introducing vocals to a track, by having the sound rise up into the first word.

One of the biggest benefits to creating your own fades over using stock risers is that they are totally in key with your sound.

Because it uses a sample of the incoming audio, it has a familiar tonal quality and doesn’t clash.

Check out the example below for an idea of how it can sound:

When to use?

Reverse fades are great for introducing vocals at the start of verses or choruses. They are generally used as an intro tool for bringing a new sound, but can also be used as custom risers for building up to a drop.

If you use short reverbs, it can be a useful effect for drums, eg, before a significant snare clap.

It can be employed both with subtlety and at the forefront of the track.

How to make a reverse fade

The process is the same for whatever instrument you choose to do it on. I will demonstrate on vocals because they tend to have the best effect, but it works great on drums and other sounds.

Start off with a vocal track and look at the first part of it. We are looking to capture the first sounds.
Select the first syllable or two, this will be the sound we are going to use to “seed” the reverse fade.
Copy that small snippet onto a new track underneath the original.
Right click and select reverse, alternatively, select the clip and hit R on the keyboard
Your sample should now be in reverse.
Add a reverb to the sample. It is better to set it to 100% Wet, but you can play about with it. I like long reverbs on this type of effect.
Right click on the track and select Freeze to render the audio.
The frozen track looks like this, we will need to flatten it to fix the effect.
Select Flatten by right clicking the track.
The track is now flattened. You will see the original sample and the reverb tail.
You could include the original sample, or just use the tail. I want the effect to be a bit more subtle so I chose just the tail.
Move it before the main vocal kicks in.
Reverse it again so it fades into the main vocal. You may need to adjust it so it slightly overlaps the main vocal track.
Apply some gain reduction as it transitions into the main vocal track for a tight mix.
I like to add a short reverb onto the vocal fades track to smooth out the effect.
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