When is much is "too much"

Like mixing level and all.

Also, can you mix reverb using headphones precisely? Or just studio monitors?

 

Art Acoustic and Valhalla Room. Both are Cpu light plugins.I use them in all of my production for vocals.keep in mind use these plugins as send instead of using them on individual mixer channel. This will give you more control

 

I like Lexicon's vocal reverbs, but really, any reverb with some density to it (Waves has a few good ones) will work. Some people actually, prefer just throwing a little delay on the vocal track and calling it a day. As for "how much", that could be argued for the next five years and you still won't get a straight answer. Your best bet is to add juuuuuuust enough so that you can hear it around the vocal track, then back it off a bit. With reverb, always use a little less than what sounds good to you. Also, I have no idea how you're adding reverb to these vocals. If you're using a send to an auxiliary track with a reverb plug on it, make sure there's an EQ plug after it with a 150 Hz (some people go as high as 200 Hz) HPF. This will get rid of the reverb's bottom, which will allow you to hear it better without having to turn it up so high (it also works for delays). Some people even carve out a bit of the midrange and high end, so that the reverb sound isn't competing with the original sound at all. If you're inserting a reverb plug on the vocal track itself, which I don't recommend, you may be able to use the reverb's own HPF, if it has one.

I like using phones to add reverb, as listening for reverb on monitors, for me, adds the sound of your room and makes it harder to determine how much reverb you're actually hearing.

 

Valhalla Room

 

interesting use of pink noise

 

This question can't be answered.... Every damn song is its own island. Sure, most songs borrow from others created before them, but what works horribly on one might make the other sound amazing... That being said. For vocals if money weren't a thing I would lean towards a Bricasti, Orban & or Stocktronics spring reverb, EMT 140 plate or a nice echo chamber...

 

Thank you for all the responds. It was all useful. I appreciate it!

 

put a boss metal zone on every channel, maxed out, and call it a day !

 

Moogerfooger said it all. There can be no bests for something where the finishing line is arbitrary, no winners or losers when we base our decisions purely on personal taste on a case by case basis. Experiment with what you have and you will come up with your own answers. Even a preset that proports "Vocal Hall" might work more so as your guitar reverb this time around and maybe not the next. This is one of the wonders of working with sound as your medium of expression, your aural vision comes ahead of any prescription.

 

best reverb for vocals is bricasti

also delay can be much more clear then reverb ( i would create a verb buss at -20 db rms, then a delay buss at -20db) then use stereo widening tools on them and add harminc richness 3d depth with analog modeling or vintage gear tape machines if i had them.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M7

https://slatedigital.zendesk.com/hc...asti-M7-Expansion-Pack-for-VerbSuite-Classics

http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/

just for fun below!

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2017

When I'm working with reverb adjustments, I go for tone of the vocal track as well as space. It took me a while using reverbs to be able to pick those things out in a full mix. The more you work with it, the better you will get at hearing it.
For starts, what @Iggy said. Add till you can just start to hear it, then back it off a bit. Also the Abbey Road reverb trick which is just, as others have stated, HP/LP the reverb to help keep out the mud.
Some will compress reverbs as well. I'm hoping someone will chime in on this and what the purpose/sound you're after when you do this. I haven't had opportunity to experiment with this yet.
As for which one, I've been using Abbey Road plates a lot with vocals. Just love the tone and space of that.

 

Alright here's my two cents. Any reverb works but I usually go for plates for vocals. Sends are a must for reverbs. Someone above posted a Dave Pensado video. In one of his videos he taught the abbey roads trick which I have used almost exclusively for vocals and lots of other things after learning because I fell in love with abbey roads reverbs prior to even knowing why they sound so good (besides dat echo chamber :v ) and wondered why their reverbs fit so well. Basically you want to EQ BEFORE the reverb by adding a HP and LP filter then make a peaking cut in about the 2-8k frequency where the vocal's intelligibility lies. Sometimes it works lower in lower frequencies and sometimes I shelf cut the highs or lows. A narrow cut or two where sibilance is also helps. Sometimes a low mid boost works really well too but narrow cuts in and around that boost helps keep it clean. The goal of using this method over processing after the reverb (which was mentioned multiple times above is to have those frequences not reverb in the first place (which is why we don't put reverbs (or at least ones we can really hear) on bass guitars more often than not) and even though your reverb may have all those shiny low gain and high gain stuff or maybe even an eq section it's sometimes not specified as pre or post and most times are they are post so you can't do the surgical stuff you'd do in Fabfilter's Pro-Q with what you'd do with the plugin primarly designed for reverb's EQ section. Most times really just the bandpass and intelligibilty cut in the EQ before reverb works wonders for vocals. Then I usually compress. Soft knee, hard knee, fast attack, slow attack, fast release, slow release, 2:1, 12:1. Depends on how I want the reverb to react to the vocal. Whether the reverb should have the dynamics of the vocal or be squashed and glorify it like a choir backing up a solo singer. I usually stop there in the chain but mid/side eq and spatial widening works well for given the two spaces to breathe although sometimes you might wanna do that before compression depending on how the compressor reacts the stereo imaging (stero linking and so forth). I know this is alot but I tried to explain the method's use in context rather than just say the chain because I thought it didn't make sense when I first saw it. And about headphones? Crossfeed emulation is a MUST especially if you're not using an open back design. You can A/B how it sounds without the crossfeed so you know how (or if) listeners will hear it.

 

I didn't read the comment before mine :v Agreed . That method works really well.

 

This is what I was looking for. Not necessarily the how (though it's helpful for context) but the why. What you are trying to accomplish by doing that.

 

I'd Imagine a multiband compressor possibly working well too.

 

Oh and in terms of level, I think it's important to take into account that mastering is going to bring out that reverb which is why you'll hear people say bring it up to where you can hear it then lower it a little.

 

There is no "best". But Bricasti M7, Lexicon, ValhallaRoom, ValhallaVintageVerb, etc are all good.

I tend to stick to the Abbey Road reverb trick, plus a dip in the mids (almost like EQ'ing a tom). I also tend to SC compress reverb withthe vocals itself on the key/SC. That way the reverb will duck even more when there is vocals (and come in during the spaces/pauses).

 

Before I experiment with this as well, what effect does this have on the vocal? Seems like it would emphasize the tails that way.

One "trick" I heard of was to use the pre send, not post. That way when the vocal is compressed in the track, the send to the reverb remains uncompressed so you get more send level during the louder passages like chorus, etc. Personally, not a fan of this as I don't like sending an unsculpted vocal track to a send. I'd likely automate the send during the chorus to achieve a similar result.

 

-first get ride of sibillant (deeser) & other things to have a good starting point
-don't forget to EQ your Reverb (your effects in general) before it: something like 500hz hipass;5k lowpass; and a dip at the main frequ of the singer
-time the predelay of the reverb to the tempo of the track
-use auxsend for SC reverb to make it breath & not to muddy the mix
-// compression
-slap delay....

 

Lexicon's PCM plug has a few presets (usually, it's the "Neutral" ones, I believe), that already lop off HF and LF for you -- they have a substantial EQ that allows you to make these adjustments without having to stick an EQ plug after it in the chain. I have a few issues with the PCM plugs, though.

I think the thing about plates is, you can get a fairly big sound without that overwhelming pre-delay that makes it sound like you're in a giant cavern (going back to my problem with Lexicon). Also, that was the sound of reverb before the first digital boxes came out, so it's a reverb sound that's instantly recognizable. I still have to mess around with the Abbey Road plates.