Once your dry drums are sounding good, reverb is what adds length and ambience and makes them feel like they’re in a real space. And on my drum mixes I like to run two reverbs, not one, because they do two different jobs.
Two verbs, two jobs
I run a gated reverb and a regular drum reverb, and I send them a little differently. The gated verb gets the snare and toms. The drum reverb gets the snare, toms, and overheads. That regular drum verb is what adds the length and ambience across the whole kit.
Blend the gated verb underneath
The gated verb is where the character comes from, but you have to be careful with it. I balance it so it fades into the drum reverb, with roughly a 10 dB difference between the two. That’s pretty far apart on purpose. I don’t want that big 80s explosion sound all over everything. I want the gated verb to add a big boom right at the front of the hit and then fade into the drum reverb behind it.
So the gated verb gives you the initial impact, and the drum verb gives you the tail and the space. Together they make the kit feel big without sounding like a cheesy gated-snare record.
Control both as one with a DCA
Here’s the part that keeps it simple. Once I’ve balanced the two verbs against each other on the buses, I control the overall level of the whole thing, both reverbs together, with a single DCA. So I set the relationship between them once, and then I just ride one fader to bring the reverb up or down in the mix as a unit. Way easier than chasing two separate sends during a service.
The takeaway
One reverb for the boom up front, one for the length and space behind it, blended so the gated verb fades into the drum verb, and both riding on a single DCA so you can control them as one. That’s how you get big, natural-sounding drums without a muddy mess.
The exact reverb settings are in my Wing resources, and my full Wing Worship Preset Pack has more than 40 reverb and delay settings ready to load.
