Thanks for this post. I’ve been trying to mess around a little more with reverb glue, and haven’t been really able to nail down. This gives me some good starting points.
So glad you said “starting points”. I reckon that’s all any of us can do, indicate where we’ve been and hope that helps someone to start their own journey. Interested in hearing how you get on.
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Will let you know for sure. I finished, but haven’t post the Manic Mix-Off track, but I may revisit and give this a shot.
Yes indeed! Well said John.
I sometimes run my mix to an aux with a room verb on just enough to hear it.
I also like using mono verbs to put thing in their own space .
I always use mono verbs on snares if im doing a quick mix and sending
other things to one room verb. Instrument’s can still sit in their own space within a room.
For those that use reverb to glue the sound together. Are you using different reverb on each mix? Or have you put together what you consider your own signature studio sound that you put on everything?
Good question. I always use the same reverb plug in, Fabfilter Pro R, but I tend to switch it fort each mix.
I have considered having a single reverb, but … well …
For contrast, I don’t do any of that.
I don’t have any reverb at all on the two-bus. I have always thought this notion about ‘everything sounding like it’s in the same room’ to be just stuff that people repeat because they have heard it said somewhere (No offense intended). I mean, what difference does it make whether the instruments sound like they’re all in the same room? Who cares? I’ve never listened to any track - commercial or otherwise - and thought ‘oh yeah, those instruments sound as though they’re all in one space’. All I care about is that the mix sounds shit hot.
If there’s any glueing needed I get it from the limiter, but I try to glue it all together through good levels and good mixing without needing a limiter to do the job for me. Of course, I’m pretty crap so the limiter does usually end up adding a certain degree of ‘glue.’ I think.
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I definitely get that (same room concept) and would tend to agree. If I play electric guitar in a band and turn up the reverb on my amp, doesn’t that put me in a different “space” than the rest of the band? And yet, it still sounds good. I’m guessing it is because we’ve grown used to that idea.
I think the concept of same space shows itself more in the singer-songwriter type songs with minimal instruments, etc. My opinion anyway.
I agree with this much. In spare, acoustic-based arrangements, small differences can be very audible. And in stuff like that of my own, I rarely have any reason to use any other than a common reverb on everything-- that is to say, I have no sonic goals that would require them to sound noticeably in some “other space”. So I pick a nice-sounding reverb and just use that on everything I want to 'verb for that particular song.
For something more dense, I’ll do whatever I need to on each track to get things sounding good.
I don’t use reverb as “glue” necessarily … more of just putting all the elements in a common space. If you want to call it glue, I don’t really have a problem with that… 
But YES… I tend to have 1 or 2 reverbs that I use on every mix and the settings never change. They are sounds that I like and am used to. Turning them on makes my mixes sound “good” and familiar to me. If it doesn’t sound “good”, I will either turn them off or investigate why.
But I also try to approach my mixes like I am going thru a console and have limited outboard… maybe a plate and a room sim for verb… like an old studio. I say “try” because I am in the box and will throw plugins at the mix because it is FUN!
But again… all verbs are SENDS… never on the 2 bus and almost never on a track. If I want it on a track, I will print it with verb.
have fun
rich
The concept seems bizarre to me.
So you put a ton of massive grand canyon reverb on an 80s type snare and then just as it hits the masters it gets a little hint of room reverb added to it. And all of a sudden it sounds like it’s in the same room as everything else? I don’t think so…
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But that’s NOT what happens. If you have a snare that sound slike it’s in the grand canyon, it still will. BUT it WILL also fit better with the stuff around it.
Agree to disagree.
Not in my experience. How do manage to continue posting with your profile deleted?
Sometimes a bit of common reverb can make a mix. There’s an old effect from Jeroen Breebaart called omnisone. It has stereo width knob plus a knob for ambience that puts everything in a common type of reverb. It has saved a couple of mixes of mine. Although i don’t use it for correctly mixed songs.
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4 posts were split to a new topic:
Not as bizarre as a grand canyon verb on a snare… 
Of course you are not going to “contain” a massive snare verb “inside” a small common verb. It depends on how your are routed with your verbs and/or if the verbs are printed to tracks. But the common or mix verb gives you more of a perspective of where you are listening “from” or where the sound is arranged.
All those huge 80s snares, as big as they were, still were presented inside a mix and it was still a common practice to have a general reverb buss.
It’s a subtle thing, though… If it doesn’t work for you, no problem. It’s just feline skinning…
Have fun
rich
Someone over on the womb forum had a thought about the ‘different reverb spaces in a mix’ thing. In principle it seems silly that the snare might have a big reverb, the backing vocals a small one etc. In reality, we hear the effect of different acoustic spaces hitting our ears at the same time every day - a family member calling you from another room, a bird singing outside, a car starting up in a garage over the road…
Personally, I don’t worry too much if there are contrasting ambiences in the mix, but it’s nice to think that even if there are, it’s not even necessarily unprecedented in nature.
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Nicely said Josh. My take is that for some, the goal of reproducing some semblance of a “live sound” in which all the instruments are in some common space overrides some other concerns. It just depends on what one is after. For the kind of stuff I do much of the time, consisting of a couple of acoustic instruments, bass, drums, and vocals, that “same space” thing can be important, whereas for a production with more going on, that becomes less of a priority.
Like so many other things, it all depends. 
Edit: Aaaaaaaand looking back, I see that I have said basically the same thing twice already in this thread. I’ll shut up now. 
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That’s my reason too, and I guess it might apply to only some kinds of music.