Reverb as a texture

This is an idea I first heard from the video game composer Disasterpeace. It was in an interview of him talking about his music for the game Hyper Light Drifter.

He mentioned that he used reverb as a way to create a synth texture.

He put the reverb effect farther up the effects chain, like before distortion or delay or chorus, and that completely changes the sound.

I’ve used this idea a few times and it really creates a spacious sound because the whole reverb tail is having effects added onto it.

Normally effects have a specific order to them and reverb is almost always last because the reverb tail that it creates, the extra room noise, isn’t something that people often want to add effects to.

But if you do add effects to it, it’ll create a completely unique texture that is very rarely used.

ISJ