Vocals Reverb Out Front

dsealer

New member
I could use some feedback and suggestions. I like my vocal to be "out front" if that would be the term. So for that reason I use very little reverb on my vocal because to me it makes the voice sound like it's coming from a distance. However I've had some people tell me I should add reverb to my vocal. But I just don't like it.
Thoughts and suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks,
Don.....
 
Yup.

Pre-delay is your friend. Don't be afraid to give a decent amount...of course, within the context of the mix and the tempo, etc.
With that in mind, also experiment with the actual time of the reverb and type...again, relative to the mix/song.
 
How do I adjust the "time" of the REVERB?
I use Orilriver plugin a lot. I recently added Iztopes Nectar.
 
How do I adjust the "time" of the REVERB?
I use Orilriver plugin a lot. I recently added Iztopes Nectar.

"Decay Time"

I like to set the decay time and level to pulse with the tempo. The decay time that does that will depend on the level because at a lower level it will drop behind the rest of the music faster. If you want it to be more subtle mix it in at a lower level and increase the decay time accordingly.

Looking at the picture of the plugin I see it's set to 3.00 seconds. That's pretty long for most things. Try starting it at about 1.80 seconds and 20ms pre-delay.

Set up an effects loop for the reverb. The details of how to do that will depend on your software because they all seem to use different terminology for what used to be pretty standardized procedures on an analog mixer. In Pro Tools you would create an aux track and then use a pre-fader send from the audio track to a bus routed to the input of the aux track, and route the output of the aux track to the main bus (or another aux track used as a submix bus).
 
Here's a tutorial I did on a vocal a while back...its more focused on signal chain, but you might be able to pick up some tips from it to manipulate how a vocal sits in the mix. I'll tell you this in general before watching it...when you talk about the perception of distance and proximity...even width, a lot of this (for me) has to do with compression layering, transient design, and saturation. I think I went through four different vocal chains on this, any of which I think would have worked for this particular song.

Vocal processing demonstration tutorial - "Before It Gets Me" by Cristina - Recording, Mixing and Producing - indie recording depot
 
Hey man, a lot of it comes down the mixdown of the vocal and the mixdown of the song compared to it.

Reverb can be tricky, some people like it very wet and some people like the natural dry sound - depends on the song man

What you can do is also EQ your reverb, so make sure the reverb is on top / ahead of the reverb on your mixer (depending what program you use)
 
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