Reverb on the Master Channel?

Ive been adding the slightest bit of reverb to my master channel. Its doing a nice job rounding out my mix, and almost making it sound a bit less "digital". I have been using space designer and tweaking it to sound right, but I am just shooting in the dark with this method. Are there any presets, or setting that you guys use to start from? Or types of reverbs that work better than others to help round out a mix? Any other tips are welcome in using this method.

If you click the drop down menu within Space Designer, there are a ton of presets in there.

Presets for master reverb? I'm familiar with where all the presets are located. I was wondering what people would suggest to use on a master reverb. I like the sound of the Small Room > Room Vocals, and Hard Studio at around -30 through -40db

I see what you mean now. In general, I don't know anyone who uses reverb on the master strip, which is probably why there aren't any "master reverb" presets. From personal experience, it is going to muddy up the mix if everything is going through the exact same reverb.

 

For the most part, it's in your best interest to create an aux channel for the reverb (even if you are sending everything through it), and then you can bus/send different levels of each channel to the reverb to get a little bit of differentiation so that everything doesn't sound like it is in the same spot relative to the listener. (Although, once again, most people I know use a few different reverbs in any given song).

 

With all that being said, there's no right way to do anything... So if it sounds good to you, go with it. After tweaking around, you can also save your own preset within Space Designer as well.

3 or 4 years ago, I dowloaded a demo of Ozone's mastering plug and it definitely had Master Reverb presets (to "glue" the mix if I remember their terminology correctly)

 

Have a look at their site? They also had a mastering how-to pdf on using reverb

to "glue" the mix

Exactly. Of course you're not dialing in a 2.6sec Cathedral here.

 

Small rooms or just ambience even and in any case just the tiniest amout will do. Or not. Depends entirely, but can definitely work at times.

I personally have never done this but I could see how it ..."might"...help an orchestral mix. As for a band or mix of a song I don't see how this would be a benefit but the truth is if it sounds good who cares how you get that sound. Many engineers have become "famous" by doing things that everyone else says you shouldn't do. So I would say proceed with caution but if it sounds right go for it.

Two links I should have included in my previous post:

 

iZotope's Ozone

 

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/

 

Their PDF guide to mastering (4 pages on master reverb, incl settings)

 

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/OzoneMasteringGuide.PDF