Zoë Blade's notebook

How to add proportional reverb in Reaper

When mixing a track, once you get each channel's level right, you might decide afterwards to add some reverb to some channels by sending them to a single reverb bus channel. As the dry original channels remain at their current volume in addition to the reverb added, you then have to compensate for the extra reverb by manually turning each original channel back down proportionally. Except you don't have to, because you can make the DAW do that automatically for you.

After reading the Sound on Sound article Send and Blend, I wanted to put the theory into practice. Here's how I made a proportional reverb send in Reaper:

  1. Create a new channel to send to, let's call it something like "proportional reverb".
  2. Create two more new channels, "reverb" and "negative". On "reverb", add a reverb insert plug-in, 100% wet. On "negative", click on Ø (invert phase).
  3. Make the "proportional reverb" channel send to both "reverb" and "negative", but not to "master".

Now when you send anything to "proportional reverb", it should stay roughly the same volume regardless of how much reverb you drench it in.

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