Orchestral music and reverb

Virtual instruments HALion
1

There are allot of good orchestral libraries available today but most contain presets with reverb baked into the sound. I’ve noticed that upon building an orchestral arrangement, the cumulative effect of individual presets with baked in reverb becomes too overwhelming. Each preset on its own usually sounds fine but …

Does anyone’s work flow involve turning off the reverb in each preset and using a good convolution reverb on the stereo bus and then just add a tasteful amount of “send” on an insert for each individual virtual instrument so as not to overload the song to the point it’s awash in reverb and starts to sound too “muddy”?

Does that seem like a possible work-around?

2

Literally every orchestral library I have, absolutely do not have reverb baked in.

Spitfire
Cinebrass
East West Opus

To name a few. Some have optional reverb or ambience that can be mixed.

For me, I always disable the instrument reverb. Send to groups and use my own. Keeping the whole orchestra in the same space.

1 Like
3

Most of it is because of the room they are recorded in. Some libraries have close mic and more mic options like pro versions of Spitfire.