What Is Reverb? Types, Parameters, and How to Use It

Pre-delay is the parameter that separates muddy reverb from professional reverb. A pre-delay of 20–40 ms keeps the attack of a vocal or snare clear before the tail blooms, so the source stays upfront instead of drowning. Tie it to the tempo and it locks to the track.

Types of reverb

Each reverb type comes from a different way of generating reflections, and each has a sound producers reach for on purpose.

How to use reverb in a mix

The professional approach is to run reverb on a send/return rather than inserting it on every track. Create one or two reverb returns — say a short room and a long hall — then send each track to them in varying amounts. This puts every element in the same believable space and keeps both your CPU and your mix tidy.

• Use a shorter, brighter reverb on upfront elements (lead vocal, snare) and a longer, darker one on background elements to create depth.
• High-pass the reverb return (cut below ~200–300 Hz) so the low end stays tight and the tail doesn't muddy the mix.
• Set pre-delay to a musical value and choose a decay that clears before the next beat — reverb that overhangs the groove turns the mix to soup.
• Less is usually more: if you can clearly hear the reverb as a separate effect, it's probably too loud. Pull it back until you'd miss it if it were gone.

Reverb and delay share the same tempo-sync logic; if you use both, calculating their times from the track's BPM keeps everything locked together.

Reverb vs delay

Reverb and delay both add space and depth, but they're different tools. Delay produces distinct, repeating echoes at a set time; reverb produces a dense, continuous wash with no individual repeats you can count. Delay is rhythmic and clear; reverb is ambient and blurred. Many mixes use both — a tempo-synced delay for movement and a touch of reverb for glue. For dialing in the gap before the tail, see our guide to reverb pre-delay.

Reverb is often the finishing touch that makes a recording feel like a record. When it's there and the mix is done, hand it off in a delivery Room so the artist can hear it in context, comment in the moment, and download the files when they're ready.