Ambient reverb for pads: huge, smooth spaces

Ambient music asks a reverb to do more than add a room. The space becomes part of the sound: long, dark, slowly moving and never grainy. Here is how to set one up, and how stacking two reverbs makes a space that keeps opening.

Choose a smooth engine

DEEPFIELD stacks two of its twelve reverb engines. For pads, start with the three smooth ones, made to be huge and graceful with no grit, metallic ring or flutter: EVENT HORIZON (vast, dark, swells in like a slow breath), AURORA (bright, open and very wide) and ANDROMEDA (two spaces in a row, so the reverb rises out of nowhere). SINGULARITY can last up to infinity; PROTOSTAR blooms out of the note with an octave shimmer.

Set the space

• SIZE: from a small room to a galaxy. Large for pads.
• DECAY (0.2 to 60 s): try 10 to 20 seconds for slow chords.
• DAMP: how quickly the highs fade inside the space. Lower is warmer and keeps long tails from getting harsh.
• DIFFUSE: high values turn the start into a smooth wash.
• MOD and DRIFT: gentle movement so the tail never sits still.

Stack two spaces

In SERIES, slot A feeds slot B. A short OBSERVATORY room in A feeding a long SINGULARITY in B gives the space a believable front with a galaxy behind it. MORPH drifts between the two engines, by hand or on its own at any SPEED.

An endless ambient pad

From the DEEPFIELD manual: slot A PROTOSTAR, slot B SINGULARITY, SERIES, DECAY 20 s, REACH 60%, SPEED 0.05 Hz, SPIRAL 40%, PARTIALS CHORD with AMOUNT 35% and RING 6 s, MIX 60%. Press FREEZE when the chord you want is ringing, and it holds forever.

Let the space move and sing

SPIRAL sends the tail round a sphere: left, right, behind you, over and under. It is best on headphones. PARTIALS lets tuned resonances ring out of the tail itself; turn on MIDI PITCH and they follow the notes you play, so the reverb sings in key.

Keep it in the mix

AUTO GAIN keeps the tail at a steady level next to your sound, and the output LIMIT is on by default so nothing goes over −0.3 dB. On a send, set MIX to 100%; on the pad itself, start around 40 to 60%.