Ducking reverb

In this article, I’ll explain what the ducking reverb is, why it’s so useful and how to make one in your DAW (digital audio workstation).

Have you ever heard an effect and tried to reproduce it, only to find out that there’s something else going on that you don’t realise?

This has been the case for me a few times. A particular one I remember was on listening to an album by the Pet Shop Boys. I can’t remember which one but I recollect Neil Tennant’s vocal. It seemed to have quite a bit of dense reverb with a reasonably long decay time.

When I tried to reproduce this with my vocals it didn’t work at all. When I put the reverb on my vocal it just sounded distant.

Was it to do with equalising the reverb so just the highs remained? That didn’t work. I couldn’t reproduce the effect at all.

I eventually found out what the effect was.

Part of the effect was a ducking reverb. It has become one of my regular go-to’s when mixing vocals now and, to be honest, I rarely use reverb on a vocal that isn’t ducked. this tutorial will show you how to do it.

What are the advantages of a ducking reverb?

As you are probably aware reverb can be a fantastic effect on almost any sound but it works particularly well with vocals.

So much so in fact that you’ll hardly ever hear a vocal track without at least some. Even if it is not detectable or in your face. The problem with it is it can cover up, smooth a vocal and make it more distant.

Sometimes you don’t want these side effects and a ducking reverb removes most of them. You get very little or no reverb when you actually sing, but the effect appears afterwards, in the spaces.

This gives you the impression of reverb being on the vocal because you can hear it but you can still make the vocal sound like it’s “at the front” and not drowning.

How do you create a ducking reverb?

Your reverb may already do it. The Crystalline Baby audio reverb plugin has this feature.

It saves you from having to route things around in a DAW. Any reverb that has the feature built in it uses the input automatically, the way I’ve mentioned here.

If you use a DAW you are not limited to just using the vocal to duck the reverb you could use a kick drum if you wanted or mix the kick drum and vocal and route the output into the compressor’s sidechain.

As you can guess I love experimenting. If you’re just looking for the standard effect though a built-in ducking is the fastest way to achieve that reverb sound.

Using a DAW to create a ducking reverb

The easiest way to create a ducking reverb effect with a DAW is to use a compressor and a reverb.

Have the reverb set to 100% wet and route the output of the reverb into the compressor. You don’t have to have any compression on the compressor, you’re basically using it to control the reverb volume.

Route the output of your vocal track into the reverb and into the side chain of the compressor. The output of the compressor goes to a separate track as it’s just the reverb for the vocal on its own.

Now when your voice is there the reverb is automatically turned down but when you end a word the reverb is turned up as soon as there is silence.

You need to play around with the settings to get it exactly as you want it. You should also save this routing so you can just recall it when you want it again.

Using hardware

Just like in the old days. You can of course use dedicated hardware units to create the ducking reverb effect.

If you are doing it on a recorded vocal (which is probably the best way to use it) route the output of your vocal track into the reverb unit. Set the reverb to 100% wet signal. Then plug the reverb output into a compressor and the output of the compressor into the mixing desk.

This is obviously just the reverb effect on the vocal.

You create the ducking effect by routing the output of the vocal track to the sidechain input of the compressor. This then effectively works as an automatic volume control for the reverb on the vocal. When you are singing the vocal ducks the reverb.

When you end a phrase the reverb is turned up. As if by magic you now have no reverb when your voice is present but reverb when you’re silent.

The reverb will obviously be decaying away as soon as it’s automatically faded up so you’ll need to play with the decay of the reverb and the levels but you’ll find that delicate balance of voice and reverb is a lot easy to achieve with this ducked version.

You can have a lot longer reverb on a vocal without it swamping anything.

Manually riding the faders

This is an effect that has been used a lot over the years for more things than just reverb. With DAW automation easy to perform it’s something to consider.

However, I prefer the auto ducking effect as in my opinion, it sits” better with the vocal. It’s also quite easy to get a bit lost if you automate too many faders in a mix.

Using it on other tracks

Obviously, you are not just limited to vocals.

Once you’ve heard how good auto-ducking reverb is at adding reverb without cloaking the vocal you’ll pretty quickly think of other ways in which you can use it.

Drums are another good candidate. Reverb is great on drums, you’ll rarely if ever have drums in a mix completely dry. Stick ducking on the reverb and you get ambience without losing any punch that too much reverb can do to a drum track.

You’ve probably been taught not to put too much if any reverb on bass lines. What about ducking reverb? Deep bass reverberation has a massive muddying effect on a mix. That’s why we often equalise reverb to remove the deep frequencies. Try it and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Reverb is just one of the many effects you can use to change a decent recording into a stunning one. Check out my guide to using effects to benefit your music.

Whilst getting the reverb effect correct is important, it’s not as important as having a good recording to start with. Read my article on how and where I record my vocal tracks. You’ll be surprised!

Also as I mentioned earlier it isn’t just for vocals and if you route the effect yourself you don’t just have to use the signal you’re putting reverb on for the side-chain. In the same way, you can use the familiar pumping bass/kick drum effect, why not try using ducking reverb on the bass and side-chain it from a kick drum?

Final thoughts

Auto-ducking reverb on vocals is something that once I’d found it, became my go-to reverb on vocals.

It is an effect you’ll use in production to make your music sound better.

These days I put an ambient reverb on a vocal and an auto-ducked reverb on top. Once you’ve used it yourself it becomes an essential effect to have at your disposal.

Not just for vocals but also for drums and other instruments. In a way, it gives you the best of both worlds. It’s one of those things where the ear plays tricks but to your advantage.

When you get it correctly you hear the clarity of the original signal and then the reverb on the decay. Your ears don’t pick up that there’s none on the signal and then it comes in. It just sounds better and is not overwhelming.

You can definitely “clear out” a mix that sounds too cluttered by getting rid of your standard reverb effects and using ducking reverb. That’s any track you have standard reverb on, like keyboard, strings, piano and drums. Replace them all with ducking reverb and you’ll reduce a lot of the reverb that gets hidden when other sounds are playing but this all adds to the mix.

When I was younger it was more difficult to experiment with this kind of thing because of the expense of the stuff you needed.

Now it’s all on a plate for you (no pun intended) don’t be afraid to try off-the-wall stuff.