reverb/compression-cakewalk 9

[Shana]

Hello everyone,
I have moved on from my BR8 and i am now finally up and running.
Here is my setup:

Pentium 4 1.79 Ghz 512 ram
Delta 66
Beringher MX 1604
Cakewalk homestudio 9

I have my mike going thru the mixer and then into the soundcard ins 1 & 2 and then two outs into my monitors. Two simple questions:

1)How can I add some reverb to my singing while recording?

2)Is there compression in cakewalk? Doesnt seem like it.
Thanks so much
Shana

[weatherbill]

If you're gonna record and want to reverb your vox, the best way to do it is to record your vox dry, then add reverb afterwards becasue once you record reverb and if you don't like the recording or want to adjust it a bit, you can't do it if you have reverb as you're recording, but if you record dry, you can always adjust the reverb settings in pro audio 9. This has way more flexibility than recording it wet.
Pro 9 doesn't have compression. I've just upgraded to Sonar and in Sonar, there's compression, but not in cakewalk pro 9. You would have to compress as you're recording wet., But usually everyone wants to use compression as little as possible, so you might think of just limiting your peak signals. Keep your recording between -6db and -3db and you'll be fine, but when you get too much into the red, you're a gonna get some unpleasant noise, so limit your peaks, but if you hit some, you could always turn down the volume in record automation when mixing down each time you hit a peak. If you don't know what record automation is, then get a book on cakewalk becasue there's some other functions to know for mix down that you can't learn just on the fly. There's a book called Cakewalk Power by Scott Garrigus that will give tyou all you need to know....hope this helps

[Shana]

Thank you for your immediate response! Let me make sure i understand:
So basically, i cant add reverb before. Aha. OK. I'm used to using the br8 and setting the reverb on cakewalk seems to be a tricky business to me. Can you "recommend" a setting for the meantime? I am setting the dry mix, correct? What are the LP and HP filters? What is the difference btwn process in place mono and process in place stero? Which one should i chose? Are those all my reverb settings? Seems like not much. So as you can see , i need some assistance cuz i pretty much dont get teh whoel reverb screen.Thanx so much.
Shana

[UtahBites]

In your case, I suggest recording your voc's without realtime effects, or any High Pass (HP) or Low Pass (LP) filters, etc. on them. Like Weatherbill was saying, it's something that, if you don't like it, you may not easily fix after the fact. You can always add efx, filters, eq later...and undo...and redo...and undo...

Get a nice, clean strong voc signal, and start recording. Make sure your levels are consistant as possible (CW 9 unfortunately has no compres/limiter) and if you have a good clean take or three that you like dry and raw...then adding in the effects and other icings will only add to the already good raw signal that you liked in the first place. (the manual explains these how to's pretty well)
The effects are easy to add (or audition) and just as easy to undo. Try them all. Tweek the settings...play around A LOT! If say, you like a preset reverb, but it's a bit too much, take down the wet signal...then when you find the setting(s) you like...then save the newly created one for future use! Same with EQing...(if you know what you're doing) and if you don't...do some searching and reading of posts around this website (and whereever else).

You should aim at getting a good strong raw track as your first priority...then you ought not need to even mess with EQing and filtering and such--and all the headaches that can result.

best o' luck.
ub

btw, I prefer to record vocals in stereo, if possible...just in case there's a stereo effect you might like to use later. You can always convert it to mono if need be.
but that's just me...

[Shana]

I was messing around with the reverb last night and i wasnt that thrilled. Dry , the vocals are so clear, and in your face ( i never had that cuz the br8 used a preset reverb automatically and it sounded good to me -i'd add a little more, a little less but no real tweaking ) and the reverb pushed them way back, it also seemed cheap sounding to me, like really fake,..Im gonna have to continue fiddeling cuz the vocals are the most important part of my songs.


Thanx
Shana

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[Redkid53]

I have Home Studio 9 as well, and have found that the reverb sucks. Instead of buying the Cakewalk Audio Effects package, which costs too much ($100 each), I searched the web for some free downloadable direct x plugins. I found a remarkably better reverb from Anwindasoft for free. The reverb sounds ten times better, and it even has instructions on how to tweak your own settings. Here is a link to the site that has it, along with many other plugins for free.n I think there may even be a compressor.

http://www.thedirectxfiles.com/plugins.htm

Hope this helps.

[Shana]

That helps very much actually, I already downloaded freeverb although I wasnt able to use it in cakewalk-something about changin the sample rate? I'm going to try Andwindasoft and let you know how it goes. Thank you for the link
Shana

[dachay2tnr]

Shana -

Also try fiddling with the settings. It sounds like you might be using the wrong type of reverb (cathedral vs plate vs large room, etc.) or maybe you're just using too much. There should be a wet/dry setting. Try backing off on the wetness and increasing the dry ratio. Less reverb will bring the vocal more to the front of the mix.

There are better sounding verbs out there than the one supplied with CW, but it shouldn't sound as bad as you're describing.

[crosstudio]

cakewalk's reverb sucks ass.

cakewalk's limiter is not look ahead, so it also sucks.

cakewalk's gate is pretty good. i like it better than even Waves'.

does the homestudio 9 use directx plugins?

cakewalk sonar comes with plugins from DSP-FX which are much better.

i would suggest getting the full version of DSP-fx which includes the Acoustiverb and Studioverb directx plugins, or getting the Ultrafunk suite of fx ($200 i think). The Ultrafunk fx can be bought separately and the Compressor and EQ are worth twice the price by far.

the penultimate would be getting Waves Gold Bundle (or whatever they call it now) but it's expensive.