Descript's Reverb effect adds environmental ambience to your track to give the effect of being in various rooms / locations. This is great if you're looking to simulate the sound of an arena on your track, or just want to liven-up an acoustically "dry"-sounding recording space (such as a vocal recording booth).
Getting Started
If you haven't yet already, check out our Effects Overview for details on adding / removing effects, as well as a breakdown of the various stages you can insert effects into your Composition.
Effect Overview
Reverb effects simulate the sound of various acoustic environments by applying a complex pattern of delays (or echoes) to the source sound. These delays simulate the natural sound wave reflections that occur off of walls, ceilings and other objects around us before they reach our ears.
Presets
The Reverb comes with an array of starter presets to choose from:
- TV Room
- Living Room
- Arena
- Long Tail
- At the Mall
- Recital Hall Wraith
- Slap Echo
To choose a preset click the "Select Preset" dropdown selector:
Manually Adjusting Effects Settings
You can also manually adjust your settings by clicking on the Show Details button to the right of the preset selector:
Below is a brief overview of each of these settings:
- Mix - The percentage of effect you would like applied where 0% equals no Reverb effect (original signal only) and 100% is fully saturated.
- Width - The amount of mono vs. stereo extension to the effect where 0% is fully mono (the Reverb sound is exactly the same in both left and right channels) and 100% is fully stereo.
- Damping - Determines how quickly high-frequencies are reduced as the signal "decays" or trails off. Rooms with lots of hard surfaces will have a low damping value and sound "bright", whereas rooms with soft surfaces (such as curtains, or when filled with lots of people) will have higher damping, resulting in a "warmer" tone.
- Room Size - This changes the perceived size of the room by increasing or decreasing the length of the delay. Smaller room sizes will have very short delay lengths, whereas an arena will have a very long delay period.
- Pre-Delay - The amount of time between the end of the source sound and the beginning of the first reflections. Along with Room Size, this value can help influence the perceived size of a space. For example it will take much longer for sound to reflect from the walls or ceiling in a large room than it would in a smaller room. Increasing Pre-Delay can also increase intelligibility of the source audio since there is a slight pause before the effect begins.
- Low-Cut - Determines the point at which low frequencies will be trimmed from the Reverb effect. Keeping low frequencies in your Reverb can cause a darker tone or even "muddy" effect depending upon the signal. Raising the frequency point will trim low frequencies in your Reverb resulting in a brighter or clearer tone.