How To Create Reverb And Delay Effects In Pro Tools

Time-based signal processors, such as reverb and delay, are essential when creating a full stereo mix. Although they are commonplace in every DAW on the market, reverbs and delays require a lot of processing power. So, how do we give each instrument these time effects without overloading our CPU? We can achieve this by utilizing Auxiliary Sends during the mixing process.

The mixing process, like the production process, requires creative intuition and a problem-solving mindset. Modern recording equipment has drastically expanded our sonic capabilities, allowing us to edit, transform, and synthesize our audio content in radical ways. As a producer, you may subscribe to the “sky is the limit” platitude, but you may find that you’re more likely to be limited by your studio’s processing power rather than your creative ambition.

This is often the case when utilizing reverbs, delays, and other time-based processors to elevate your mix to a professional level. These effects are some of the most essential tools to give your mix a sense of space and depth, but they are also some of the most CPU-intensive plugins your system can run. Every time you insert a plugin to an individual track, you are essentially opening another individual application on your computer. When you have 20 different vocal tracks that all need reverb, you would need to create 20 separate instances of your reverb plugin to spread across each track—this will be taxing on your system and you will quickly hit the “system overload” brick wall.

Fortunately, every DAW has a simple solution to this common problem—create an Auxiliary track with your desired effects and route your audio tracks through it. Whatever effects plugins you have put on the Aux track will be added to the audio output. You can use aux sends on each audio track to adjust how much of the signal is sent to the aux track. This may sound confusing, so let’s look at this process in Pro Tools.

To create in Aux Track, navigate to Track > New…, or use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Cmd+N for Mac users; Shift+Ctrl+N for PC users

Create a new Stereo Aux track. Name the track after the effect that you will put on it—I will be creating a reverb aux track, so I have named it “Reverb.”

Find your newly created Aux track in the Mix window (Cmd + = for Mac; Ctrl + = for PC), and insert your desired effect plugin into the first slot. I chose ProTools’ D-Verb plugin for my project.

Adjust the settings of your plugin how you want—I’m using a Large Hall reverb with a 2.3 second decay. Notice how I made my plugin 100% wet— when we use an aux send from one of our audio tracks, we can adjust how much of that signal is sent to the aux track, so that is where we can find the right balance of our dry/wet signal.

Now, whenever we route audio signals in ProTools, you must understand that this will require the proper routing of Inputs and Outputs, more commonly labeled as I/O. We will need to route the Output of our audio tracks to the correct Input of the Auxiliary Track. So, let’s assign and properly label the Input on our Aux Track. Navigate to the I/O settings on the Auxiliary track’s channel strip.

If you don’t see the I/O section, make sure the I/O box is toggled on in the Mix Window View Selector, as shown below.

Next, click on the dropdown arrow labeled “no input,” and navigate to your bus options. Because our Auxiliary track is a stereo track, we will need to select a stereo bus configuration. Any of the stereo bus options will work, so I’m just going to use Bus 1-2 (Stereo).

I recommend naming this new stereo input according to the effect that it will be used for. Once you start using multiple Aux tracks with different effects on each one, you will want to have I/O settings properly labeled so you can stay organized. To rename your Input, right-click on “Bus 1-2” and select “Rename…”

Once selected, the Rename I/O dialogue box will open up. I’m going to name this Input “Reverb.”

Now that we have our Auxiliary track created, our audio plugin inserted, and our Input assigned on the Aux track, we can now route our audio tracks to the Aux track using Sends. First, make sure Sends A-E is toggled on in the Mix Window View Selector.

Click on the first slot in the Sends A-E section of your channel strip, then navigate to the bus window, as shown below. Find the bus option that you set as your Aux input—in this case, I will select the Reverb (Stereo) bus as my send destination.

Once selected, a separate window will pop up with a fader. This is where you can adjust the level of the send. This is analogous to adjusting your Dry/Wet ratio. In my case, increasing the fader will increase the amount of reverb on my track; decreasing the fader will decrease the amount of reverb on my track. Now you have control over how much of the effect is added to your audio track.

Now that you have an Auxiliary track with a properly labeled Input, you can send as many audio tracks to that Aux track as you want. You can now send all 20 of your vocal tracks to one Reverb plugin instead of trying to run 20 individual reverb plugins on every track.

Not only will this alleviate your computer’s CPU, but you will also be making your mix more cohesive and sonically consistent. One of the primary reasons we use reverb or delay on a track is to give a realistic sense of the sound source in the stereo image—we want to give the illusion that the band is playing in a real-world space. By routing each audio track through the same reverb settings, the band will sound “glued” together, as if they are all situated in the same stereo environment.

Alex Thomen

Author: Alex Thomen
Composer / Arranger / Pro Audio Instructor
ProMedia Training, LLC
www.protoolstraining.com

888-277-0457

Alex ThomenComposer / Arranger / Music Technology Instructor

Alex Thomen is a producer, composer, pianist, mixing engineer, and music educator. He attained his Master's Degree in Commercial Music Composition and Arranging from Belmont University in Nashville, TN and taught as an instructor in Music Production at University of Miami Frost School of Music. From small-scale chamber groups and rock bands to full symphonic orchestra, Thomen arranges, produces, and mixes for a variety of ensembles and styles. Thomen’s education and experience have helped refine his skills in contemporary music production for Film/TV/Games. From ambient, musical soundscapes to fantastical, orchestral pieces, television commercials, and more, Thomen’s creative output evokes a vast variety of moods, settings, and themes.