Anyone else add reverb to vocals while tracking?

  • Thread starter Thread starter murphyd311
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Exactly. But since I was talking to myself, it's "Et moi....." :D

(which probably isn't even Latin, but it's the best I could do)
 
I'm so impressed, actually I believe it's just boredom but I'm taking it out on this thread.
 
Does Boulder man approve of this post ?

Steenamaroo said:
Out of interest, does anyone else just mute their vocals?
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I don't mute my vocals but I often use just one headphone piece so that I can hear in real space, my voice. That's another reason why I don't use reverb in tracking myself, I wouldn't be able to hear it. I've noticed time and time again that when tracking others, when they use only one headphone piece, they rarely sing off.
When I track, I don't always hear myself in the phones so it's like it's muted. It's more important to hear the music.

miroslav said:
I was wondering if anyone in the HR world ever tries to utilize real acoustic spaces...like long hallways or other spaces?
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Where I can. There's not many reverberant spaces in our flat. But in our tiled bathroom you get an interesting sound and sometimes {I've never worked out what makes it so because it isn't always so} in my kids room the drums have a reverb all of their own. In my job delivering, I go to all kinds of buildings and I'm always looking around, wondering what kind of sounds I'd get if I set up drums or acoustic guitars and stuff in them.
I probably look quite suspicious !
 
This has been done since the first recordings were made, and whenever an aux. send was available. (and even before that, a a parallel feed from the mike was sent to a 'reverb room', and the signal from the microphone there mixed back into the singers phones.. A little knowledge of the history of recording goes a long way.
 
ritchie said:
This has been done since the first recordings were made, and whenever an aux. send was available. (and even before that, a a parallel feed from the mike was sent to a 'reverb room', and the signal from the microphone there mixed back into the singers phones.. A little knowledge of the history of recording goes a long way.
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So what's your point?
 
miroslav said:
I'm guessing that these days most people in the HR world are using soft sims. I was wondering if anyone in the HR world ever tries to utilize real acoustic spaces...like long hallways or other spaces?
I know there are some long standing pro studios that still have large echo chambers in use for certain sounds.
Of course for us HR people, it's not feasible to build them...but there is the possibility finding existing spaces to record in.

So yeah...does anyone here ever try stuff like that to get natural reverb...?
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I've yet to find a space in my house that has a "nice" natural reverb. Even the long hallway past the bedrooms sounds boxy and boomy, not nicely reverberant.

However, I agree totally that given the right space it's a great technique. Back when I was working, I discovered that the fire escape staircase just outside the Studio 1 control room gave a great natural reverb--it was effectively a five story building (only four floors but the ground floor was triple height for TV studios) and the stairwell was nice old red brick walls. On more than one occasion, I'd drag people in there to record vocals and instruments like flute or even some acoustic guitar.

In my home studio stuff, I've been known to "borrow" spaces. Back in the UK I was trustee of a youth drama group that had the old victorian fire station as a meeting space. The upper floor there was a big open space with a nice high peaked ceiling (think church-like) and more than once I dragged my gear their to record choral stuff. It worked a treat with slightly distant stereo miking techniques.

So, yeah, if you have the right space, it works a treat!
 
There are a lot of perfectionist (read that temperamental, usually) musicians out there who have had enough time in studio to want to hear themselves dry. If you are working with novice (to studio time) musicians, it is sometimes tempting to add a bunch of verb/delay to get them to like their vocals faster (cuts down on wasted time if they agree to the tracks), but the tracks are rarely better when recorded that way. Proper pitch, proper air, proper power can be best achieved dry.

Having said that, there are times when I hear a song live and visualize how it should sound when it's done. If I record a song like that, sometimes I add in the effects (on a separate track) to hear at the console, so I can tweak the effects pre-mastering... But I rarely put effects to the booth. I have a standard pep talk for singers that basically feeds the ego and says I believe in them, yada yada... makes my job easier in the long run.
 
You can always give the reverb to the singer during tracking without recording it ya know? But nothing is in stone cause there were many times that i have recorded with the effects "printed" to tape as part of my inspiration for a great take !!
 
BroKen_H said:
There are a lot of perfectionist (read that temperamental, usually) musicians out there who have had enough time in studio to want to hear themselves dry. If you are working with novice (to studio time) musicians, it is sometimes tempting to add a bunch of verb/delay to get them to like their vocals faster (cuts down on wasted time if they agree to the tracks), but the tracks are rarely better when recorded that way. Proper pitch, proper air, proper power can be best achieved dry.
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Human hearing expects there to be some amount of audible reflection from the environment. I find a small amount of a shortish reverb or a slapback delay improves many singers' performances by allowing them to hear themselves with a bit of separation. Too much and it covers mistakes, but just the right amount helps most singers. We always listen back dry at first so we'll hear any problems without being distracted by effects.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Human hearing expects there to be some amount of audible reflection from the environment.
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Human hearing might, but do human beings ?
Also, even when no reverb is put into someone's cans, if what you say is true, there must be some reflection. How many spaces are truly dead ?
 
grimtraveller said:
Human hearing might, but do human beings ?
Also, even when no reverb is put into someone's cans, if what you say is true, there must be some reflection. How many spaces are truly dead ?
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If you're tracking dry enough to need artificial reverb then you're not getting much reflection from the room and reverb in the monitors may be useful. I think the reason some people take one ear out of the headphones is to get some room sound that helps them hear themselves better.
 
I've been thinking about it and I think it just gets the vocalist excited to hear the 'possibilities', at least for the vocalist in my band. I was tracking him for a song, and while it was technically OK (in tune, on time) it just didn't have the energy I've seen him have live. So I threw some 'verb on the track, and he said "Is that me? That sounds so cool!" and the next take was light years better. Maybe the effect will wear off on him, maybe it has and I could go back to dry tracking.
 
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