Personally I use a slap back delay and automate reverb with tons o predelay when I feel it's fitting. I notice a lot of hip hop and EDM mixers just slap a reverb on the led vocal channel, and just LP the hell out of the instruments to make the vocals sit on top of the mix. Personally, I'm not fond of that, although LP filterin is great, some instruments need to be more prominent in the mix. Seems like a lazy way to mix, yet the average listener won't give two shyts.

 

Depends on what your goal is. Reverb tends to make things sit back further in the mix. If that's your goal then reverb's your tool. I love plate reverb on vocals, it has a density to it that's really nice. Delay I use more as an effect when I need a sense of biggness (it's a word...maybe). Or width.

I hear a lot of people neglecting to LP and HP their reverbs. Make me sad in my feelings hole, it's the number one cause of a muddy cluttered mix imo.

 

I like to use delay and reverb together on my vocal sends most times 2 sends. I use with HP/LP and side-chain a FBK and or FF compressor for each send from the lead vocal . I do this to get control of it while the vocal is movin with the song and to bring up the tails of the Delay/Reverb wen vocal comes to pause . also i can smash it too if needed for a pause

 

I have used both to great effect. What I'm finding is the reverb can accomplish several things, thickening, depth, and cohesiveness. Delay might be better at thickening, but gives some depth as well. Delay is great for adding width also.

 

They both have a way of creating their own "atmosphere", however you use them, alone or in combo. Also one of quickest ways to create a lot of mud and cancellation. For live work one of my favorites Is a pretty long single delay (700 or 800 milliseconds) a large, long verb, buy pretty far back. I run the original signal and the reverb through the delay so the verb signal gets a repeat too. Makes really smooth sounding, big backing vocs.

 

Both! Well depends on how atmospheric you want to get.

I like to send to reverb just until it gets noticeable, then add slap, and send some of the slap to the verb. If I have delay throws, filter them and send some to the verb as well.

The number on trick for reverb is to use an eq to high pass and low pass on the send BEFORE the reverb plugin. Some where around 400hz and 6k respectively works well.

 

Like always, ya gotta play for the song, each and every having needs and a life of its own, so there are no hard, fast rules to be strictly adhered to. In reality, reverb can make indivudual tracks either be more upfront or sit further back in the mix relative to each other. It all depends on how you wish to paint your canvas and the tools at your disposal. Equalizing your verbs can also definitely help keep a mix from being cluttered. For myself, I have come to prefer to eq my ITB synth instruments and those tracks recorded through external sources on the way in, making those decisions as part of my writing process. The reverbs and delays that are on auxiliary sends are eq'd as part of my mixing process, and tracks that have verb and/or delay inherent in their sound are recorded wet. In the end it is all how you like to work and what works for you in relationship to the song.