Balancing artificial reverberation for television stereophony

Artificial reverberation, from a reverberation plate or an electronic device, is often added when mixing the sound for television programmes. In recent post production sessions for BBC experimental television programs with stereophony, an undesirable imbalance between the artificial reverberation and the source sound has been observed, making it difficult to achieve a uniform distribution of reverberation across the stereo stage. The effect occurs most often in drama and, to a lesser extent, in opera. The reasons for this are analyzed and approaches for dealing with it are suggested.