Calling it a "great, great trick," Warren Huart explains how to use reverb effectively, in this case, IK's popular plug-in Sunset Sound Studio Reverb.

"This is a technique that was used a lot in the olden days of the '70s" Warren begins in his recent Produce Like a Pro feature on YouTube. "We're going to take one stereo reverb and use it across every instrument of a whole song."

Here's the situation: you've got multi-track recordings, perhaps made at different times, maybe in different rooms, maybe with some programmed drums, and you want to make it feel like one band playing together.

"There's no compression, no EQ, nothing on these multi-tracks, and it sounds really dry and very dull. And you're thinking to yourself, I've got to do some cool EQ and compression to make this come to life.

You take one reverb and use the pre-delay trick. So they all feel like they're in the same room, but in different places.

"I take the vocal and send one dry and one to the reverb. But the one going to the reverb in this instance has no pre-delay on it. On the drums, I've got a drum mix and a second whole drum mix with a 60 ms pre-delay on it going to the reverb. So by the time it hits the reverb, it feels pushed back a little bit in the track.

"Then I do the same thing with the bass. I put that at about 40 ms so it's sending a delayed signal to the reverb. And with the piano, I put about a 20 ms pre-delay on it. All of this creates the illusion they're all in the same room, but in different places in the room.

"It's a really nice technique. It's something that you had to do back in the day when you didn't have a lot of reverbs. Just make sure you High Pass it so you haven't got too much low end in there, somewhere around 300-400 Hz."

Sunset Sound from IK Multimedia is the perfect reverb for this technique. Get the demo and give it a try. You'll be amazed by how great it sounds and how easy it glues your tracks together.

Learn more about Sunset Sound Studio Reverb

See and hear the full video from Warren Huart