Reverb on Leads.....and anything else.

[Boogerman]

A lot of tracks I have listened to recently seem to have leads which sound upfront, but still have a sense of space about them. I am having difficulty replicating this. What reverb settings can anyone recommend? I have tried different size rooms and decay times, as well as damping settings and eqing the bottom end of the reverb. It just doesn't sound quite right.

Also, is it standard practice now to have a little reverb on the kick drum, and most of the other percussion to? Im sure Ive not heard a dry kick for ages.

[aponaut]

Your reverb settings will likely change with every track. A big mistake a lot of people make is putting too much reverb on. Reverb should be subtle. With drums, unless you're going for a specific effect, you shouldn't even notice the reverb is really there until you turn it off. Too much reverb can destroy a mix.

Also, you probably want to be able to EQ your reverb as well. If you've got a hardware unit, the best thing to do would be to run the return from the unit into it's own pair of channels on your mixer. That way you can fine-tune your reverb to match the mix and your sounds. If you're using software, you can often use the damping to achieve the desired EQing to an extent. If you're putting reverb on a kick, make sure you can cut a lot of the low frequencies out of the reverb, otherwise it may conflict with your bass and kill the mix.