Intermediate Tip: Stacking reverb to avoid muddy sound

Something I have had decent success with in the Master Effects tab of the Synthesizer window. If this is already mentioned by someone elsewhere, I'm just putting this in General Discussion to get some practice at tutorial writing. If it doesn't belong here, well, I don't know any better yet and I'll take my lumps.

This is one of those things that's completely obvious to some and "Why didn't I think of that" brilliant to others. The Effects tab of the synthesizer allows two reverbs to be chained together. The top stack is useful for microphone placement. If you have samples that sound like they were recorded in a vacuum, this is where you start out. Dial in just enough sustain to fade the instrument back in virtual space, a couple of meters away from your virtual microphone. This is also a good place to EQ the front end of your tone. Set the mix to about half and half.

Select another Zita board as your second effect. Here is where you can work on the back end. The mix dial should be leaning way toward the dry side so that it sounds "distant" as we don't want to wash the presence of the instruments out. Dial in the delay to approximate the size of the hall your virtual orchestra is performing in. Turn the sustain up some more and use the frequency damping and EQ dials to further differentiate the tone from the close-mic'd reverb.

The glockenspiel or drums make really good instruments to test your mix with. Good luck, and good Museing!