My understanding is it sort of relates to a simulated acoustical physical space the music is intended to seem as if it is reverberating throughout
Is it correlated with the intimacy or closeness of the music, what else does it evoke? What is its relationship with artificiality and nature respectively?
What is its evolutionary purpose in terms of why we can parse and interpret it?
Reverb can be used for lots of purposes. As you say, it simulates reverberations a physical space.
Short, natural-sounding reverb can be used to blend tracks together. If two instruments need to sound like they were recorded in the same room, do it virtually.
As others have written, longer, natural reverbs can create a perception of size. You can make a vocalist sound like sang in a concert hall or a church or a bar.
Sometimes reverb may be used to impart tone, evoke a vintage. A spring reverb has different cultural associations than a Lexicon. Some reverbs’ modal resonances highlight certain frequencies.
Long reverbs can be used to increase sustain of an instrument. Every ambient guitarist in the world is familiar with this.
What reverb means in a piece is for the artist and listener to interpret.
It’s simulating an echo. I don’t really think it’s deeper than that. It’s use could be to envoke the idea of a large space, or just because it sounds cool.
I think it just informs us about the physical space we are in. That can be used in a lot of ways emotionally. A small space can feel intimate or claustrophobic. A large space can feel freeing or uncanny.
What does uncanny mean in this context?
Like strangely large. You ever look into a deep pool and get spooked by how deep it is? I was once on a small boat in a cave and Jesus the water was so deep. You could see so far down and it gave me the creeps.
Just spitballing here. First and foremost on the listening side, if used subtly, reverb is a great tool to make the music feel more organic. Theres an uncanny quality to very dry sounds, since we are subconsciously used to some level of reverb. Then, on the playing side of things, reverb is a great way to hide mistakes, muffled noted, and every other happy little accidents.
i view it as ‘epicness’ lol and notoriously use lots of reverb
Isn’t that usually paired with swelling volume and that bandstop type EQ curve? Like reverse parametric curve that emphasizes the outer frequencies
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