#146: Quickly Remove Reverb From a Drum Loop with Logic Pro's Most Overlooked Plugin

Have you ever wondered if there's a plugin to remove reverb or if it's even possible to remove reverb from audio? Do you want to know if there's a drum loop reverb remover? Or perhaps you're seeking help with the topics: what the Enveloper does in Logic Pro or how to use the Enveloper, or maybe just intrigued by overlooked Logic Pro tips and tricks. Then check out EP 146 of the Inside The Mix podcast.

This episode of Inside the Mix is packed with personal updates, including the quest for a new home in Devon and the plans to bring my studio back under my roof. I’ll also let you in on the progress of my limited series podcast project, which is halfway through completion, revealing the creative journey behind the drums, bass, and vocals episodes, with synths and effects still to come. 

Plus, get a sneak peek into the synth music scene with a special shoutout to my friend Bending Grid. His album "Parallax" has been on repeat and is my top pick of 2024. Find out what makes this album a standout and why his dedication deserves applause. From personal stories to music production tips, this episode is a blend of insights and inspiration not to be missed. 

How can you transform a reverb-drenched drum loop? In this episode of Inside the Mix, I guide you through attenuating reverb from a drum loop using Logic's Enveloper transient shaper plugin. Expect practical, step-by-step techniques to manipulate transients and remove reverb, making your drum loops free of time-based processing.

In this episode, I'll share essential tips on setting the threshold, look-ahead, and gain to achieve the best results. Hear the dramatic differences that different release times and gain levels can make as we experiment live. Whether you're fine-tuning a snare, strings, or plucky instruments, this episode will equip you with the skills to bring initial transients to life and elevate your entire production. Don't miss out on these invaluable insights to transform your tracks.

Chapters

• 4:09 How to quickly remove reverb from a drum loop using Logic Pro Enveloper

Transcript

Dream Commander: 0:00

What's up Inside the Mix? It's your boy Dream Commander. Just wanted to give a brief shout out to the Producer Growth Scorecard. As an artist, it easily helps me stay actively producing, motivated and accountable to my goals. So check me out on Instagram. And now for the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, mark Matthews. You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, mark Matthews.

Marc Matthews: 0:27

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learnt with you. Hello, folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener a big welcome. Make sure you hit that follow button on your podcast player of choice and if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe and that notification bell so you get notified when a new episode drops.

Marc Matthews: 1:05

So busy times here at Casa Inside the Mix slash Synth Music Mastery, my fiance and I we've actually just started looking for a new house, so we're going to upstick and move from where we are still in the same area in Devon but we're actually looking at moving. So that whole process has started and if you're listening to this and you live in the UK, you know how long this process takes once you get solicitors and everything else involves. It's a long, long process. A bit of a ball, like to be honest, but it would be worth it in the end so I can get a bigger studio space. I say a bigger studio space like I need it. To be honest, where I have now is more than ample, but I want to take the studio. So at the moment I'm paying rent for a studio premises right but I want to take it back in-house. So I'm not paying somebody else's mortgage or somebody else's sort of lease fee, if you will. So, yeah, exciting times for that. And also it will mean that I'll have more space so I can get this bloody reel-to-reel going as well. I've had it for ages it's been sat in a corner just gathering dust and I want to get it up and running so I can actually have some tape real tape emulation happening, folks.

Marc Matthews: 2:11

So at the same time as all that happening, my limited series podcast. I'm halfway through the creation process of it. So I've done drums and I've done bass and I've started on vocals. So after that it's going to be synth and then effects. So it's going to be an entirely free limited series podcast and you'll be able to get it on all podcast platforms and you'll be able to watch the accompanying videos on my website as well, so you can head over to synthmusicmasteringcom and watch all that and, as I say, it's going to be all free. I'm going to shove the project folder and also that's the completed one, and also that's the completed one, and also you'll be able to start from fresh, the stems and what else is going to be there the template as well, the mixing template so you'll be able to get all of that for free, and I had wanted to get it out by the end of June, but I think I'm going to have to push it back slightly. But keep an eye out for that one, and I'll be releasing more bits and pieces as the as the weeks go on with regards to release dates and whatnot. So exciting times for that too.

Marc Matthews: 3:07

So the final bit of news is this and I said I was going to give it a shout out to this individual and an album was released a couple of weeks ago. So at the time this goes live, it would be a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks and it's by a friend of mine called Bending Grid, who I've been chatting to for ages now and I know he's been working really hard on this album and we've been back and forth and whatnot. Anyway, I digress. So he's released this album called Parallax and it is an absolute belter of an album. I can't get enough of it. It's probably my favorite release of 2024. And there's one song in particular on there called Vampires, which is an absolute banger. So, folks, I implore you, I encourage you, to go search for Bending Grid on Spotify and you will not be disappointed by the Parallax album. It is an absolute belter of an album, easily my favourite of 2024.

Marc Matthews: 3:54

So let's dive into this episode. It's a tutorial episode and it follows up episode 145, where we were looking at the envelope and we were manipulating the transients of a drum, a snare drum, and in this what we did was or rather that episode we boosted the attack portion. The attack transient, okay, so we can add some more punch to a snare. So now we're going to look at the other side of the envelope and that is the release side. So in episode 145 we looked at the attack. This time we're going to be looking at the release and what we can do with that and, in particular, what we can do with a drum loop and a drum loop that is for one of a better way of putting it drenched in reverb. So we're going to remove. We're going to attenuate that reverb using the release portion of the envelope. So let's dive in. So here we are in logic pro and I've got the envelope or envelope, however you want to pronounce it open here and I've got this drum loop and I'm going to play this drum loop without the envelope on. So bypass. So here we go. So hopefully you can hear that there's a lot of reverb on the toms, on the snare and some other percussion in there as well, and we're gonna use the envelope now to attenuate and reduce that reverb.

Marc Matthews: 5:16

So let's enable the envelope and I've got the default settings here at the moment, and the first parameter we need to look at is the threshold. So if you've watched episode 145, you'll be familiar with it. But basically just set it at minus 100 dB and that way any signal that exceeds that threshold is going to have its attack and release portion of that single. That envelope is going to be manipulated by the envelope here. So just set it at minus 100. Obviously you can change it, but for the default in this instance, for what we're doing, we'll just leave it at minus 100. And the look ahead as well it's at one millisecond. You can probably drag that down to zero. I don't particularly need it in this because there's not a lot of intricate transient stuff going on that I need the look ahead for.

Marc Matthews: 5:57

So the next parameter we're going to look at is the gain slider on this envelope for this release section. And if we boost the gain, it's going to extenuate the release phase of the signal, and if we reduce the gain, it's going to attenuate the release phase of the signal and thus it will become drier. And you'll see what I mean. We're going to remove that reverb, we're going to attenuate that release phase of this drum loop and it will start to sound drier. So I'm going to drag it all the way down gradually, and you'll see what I mean.

Marc Matthews: 6:38

So I dragged it all the way down to minus 100% and it was too much. It's too much, right. What I'm going to do is I'm going to drag it back up and find a happy medium between it sounding dry, but I also still want to hear. Well, I want to hear more of that release phase of this signal, otherwise it just sounds too cut off, right. So I'm going to drag it back up. We're probably looking at about minus 50 to minus 60%. So let's give it a go.

Marc Matthews: 7:13

So I settled on minus 60%. So we can still hear some of that reverb, certainly not as much as before, but I'm hearing more of the release phase as well. So the release time is the time it takes for the signal at maximum gain to fall to the threshold level, basically, which in this instance is minus 100 dB, and I'm going to gradually increase it just to tighten up that reverb tail. But I still want that release phase of the signal. So it's at 200 milliseconds at the moment and I'm going to gradually increase it until it just tightens up that reverb tail. So I've got it set there 660 milliseconds. I'm happy with that at the moment because I can imagine if I were to put this loop in a whole mix. There's still a tiny bit of reverb there, but it's certainly less than what was before, and it would get lost in the mix, basically lost in the shuffle.

Marc Matthews: 8:10

Let's say so. Let's A-B it. So I'll disable the envelope. I'm going to play it without, and this is what it sounds like. So those toms, you can really hear the reverb. So listen out for the toms. So, and I'm going to turn the envelope on. So listen out for the toms again, you can really hear that reverb tail is gone. Yeah, it's really attenuated that. So Logic's unsung hero, the envelope. We can use the attack to boost the attack phase of a signal to add a bit of thwacks and punch. And we can use the release phase, or the release side of this envelope, manipulate the release phase, to then remove reverb from a drum loop. Give it a go, folks, the unsung hero, the often overlooked envelope in Logic Pro. And before you go, folks, if you haven't done so already, check out episode 145, where we look at the left-hand side of the envelope and how we can manipulate the attack phase of a signal to add a bit of punch and thwack, as I just mentioned. So go check out episode 145 if you haven't done so already.