Musicians Collaboration Studio
How To => Free Pluggins, Utilities and Cool Finds => Topic started by: Studioplayer on July 10, 2010, 03:06:46 PM
-
Hey guys. Can anyone recommend a good reverb for vocals. I'm not happy with my options with Waves. Everything sounds cold. :P There must be a great reverb out there for vocals? ???
Dave
-
Dave, if you don't like waves, I'd recomend you not to use reverb 'cause mebbe you don't like reverb lol. Now seriously, you find waves reverbs not good? Damn, I love 'em.
-
Nope. Not diggin the waves reverb. Lots of options but I just can't find anything I'm happy with. I like to use delay on vocals. I like reverb as well. I dunno. I always have problems with mixing vocals. Instuments are not a problem like I have with vocals. :(
-
Hey Dave, maybe you just need to warm the sound up a bit after the Waves reverb. I find they kinda sterilize the vox a bit. Slap a tube warmer on it, maybe it will help.
Mick.
-
Good idea. :) I think I'll give that a try
-
Sent a PM
8)
-
Try some long pre-delay, it will still give you that delay sort of feel -- in that it doesn't muddy up the original signal as much and that it takes a bit of time before it kicks is so you still hear most of the definition of the vocal track. Also ducking works well with verb + vocals (that's a whole further discussion)
-
Which Waves ones do you have Dave ? I've always liked them and they're easy to edit. Are you using them as a send effect on a seperate buss ? Or are you inserting them on the individual track.
CD
-
Platinium I believe. The full meal deal. I usually do individual tracks and may buss a couple effects on the very end. I prefer to do individual tracks as I seem to have better control that way. If I use a reverb I often use the same on guitars, drums etc. to keep it glued together. Not always. I'm slowly getting used to doing vocals. There's a warmth that I'm looking for that I can't seem to get. More of an analog sound? ??? I also tend to double up vocals a lot. I'll use one with one set of eq's, delay, etc and the other I'll take into a different direction with eq's, etc. and layer them making one the main vocal and the second much lower in db to enhance the main vocal. Seems to work pretty good for me. Still I'm looking for that magic warmth. The Vintage Warmer is pretty good. I thought maybe a reverb would have something like that.
-
Hmmm...I'm not sure what to suggest...have you any examples of the warm reverb sound you're looking for ?
Alot of well known mixers I've read about use an Emulation of an EMT plate in rock music...I always set up a seperate send and often find I need to eq the reverb return , taking out some low end and some of the top. I wouldn't automatically double up the vocals unless it's a different take. Easier to get a good vocal sound if you only have to think about one track.
Have you tried any of the free convolution based reverbs like SIR ? Maybe that'll have an impulse of something that's doing what you want ?
CD
-
I recently bought IK Multimedia CSR (Classic Studio Reverb), and more recently the Lexicon PCM Native bundle.
NOTHING beats the latter IMO. It sounds exactly like the real thing and is perfect for vocals ... and everything else. :)
CSR is great too, but not quite as dense and smooth as the Lexicon sound. The CSR plate reverbs are still pretty nice on vocals IMO, and also very useful for drums. And MUCH cheaper than the Lexicon bundle. :)
Regards,
Steffen
-
I have the lexicon PCm Native and it sounds great....I also like the Sonnox reverb too...horses for courses.
CD
-
I have a bunch of Lexicon PCM IR's that I use that are awesome too.
-
Have you checked out acoustics.net? It's a load of impulse responses for Waves IR-L. I think they sampled the Lexicon 480 (the really old school top of the line model) and a few other hardware units, as well as a slew of new acoustical spaces. I heard a new hardware reverb the other day...the bricasti. Holy crap... that thing is pretty amazing. Only thing I've heard that hangs with is is Altiverb (my fav convolution reverb), and it now runs on PC's as well.
-
I've found the best vocal reverb...
It's called a delay ;D ;D ;D
-
The best reverb is one used in combination with a delay, IMO. :)
Depends on the song and genre though. Delay works great for rock and pop songs, where you can experiment with some extreme settings if you like, but you have to be much more careful with it when you mix acoustic songs (folk, jazz, blues ...).
But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great. :)
Regards,
Steffen
-
But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great. :)
Well said! Too bad there isn't as much experimentation anymore...
-
Small, short reverbs are the thing these days.
A small dark plate for vocals works well, in combination with a delay. It adds body to the vocal without really hearing it.
I use a small, to very small, room for drums and acoustic guitar. And a small hall for strings and piano works well for some of my stuff.
-
Have you checked out acoustics.net? It's a load of impulse responses for Waves IR-L. I think they sampled the Lexicon 480 (the really old school top of the line model) and a few other hardware units, as well as a slew of new acoustical spaces. I heard a new hardware reverb the other day...the bricasti. Holy crap... that thing is pretty amazing. Only thing I've heard that hangs with is is Altiverb (my fav convolution reverb), and it now runs on PC's as well.
Altiverb is very very nice but expensive ... I've had just as good of luck with using the new Digital Performer built-in convolution verb plug ... it works with all the same IR's that I used to use with Altiverb and has almost as broad of a set of adjustments as Altiverb does ... but it comes with DP at no cost. The Lexicon 480 plate for vox is grrrreat! I couldn't afford to keep up with the upgrade costs of Altiverb, which for a while seemed to conveniently "break" with every OS upgrade forcing you to buy the new one or be without.
-
But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great. :)
Well said! Too bad there isn't as much experimentation anymore...
Yep no kidding ... things are getting more and more cookie cutter when it comes to mixing (at least for popular music) -- that Turd Polisher plugin you posted about comes to mind LOL.
I miss all the "old school" tricks like ducking big verbs with the source channel, using delays as a "pre delay" inline with a verb, etc. Call me old school, but I still do some of this stuff! Of course I also don't mix popular music for mass consumption either :D
-
Have you checked out acoustics.net? It's a load of impulse responses for Waves IR-L. I think they sampled the Lexicon 480 (the really old school top of the line model) and a few other hardware units, as well as a slew of new acoustical spaces. I heard a new hardware reverb the other day...the bricasti. Holy crap... that thing is pretty amazing. Only thing I've heard that hangs with is is Altiverb (my fav convolution reverb), and it now runs on PC's as well.
Altiverb is very very nice but expensive ... I've had just as good of luck with using the new Digital Performer built-in convolution verb plug ... it works with all the same IR's that I used to use with Altiverb and has almost as broad of a set of adjustments as Altiverb does ... but it comes with DP at no cost. The Lexicon 480 plate for vox is grrrreat! I couldn't afford to keep up with the upgrade costs of Altiverb, which for a while seemed to conveniently "break" with every OS upgrade forcing you to buy the new one or be without.
We put altiverb up against a Lexicon 480L, and the Lexicon lost...HORRIBLY. Yeah, it's 500+ bucks for a reverb, but it does smoke... think he paid 15k for the Lexicon. OUCH! In another test it came neck to neck with the Bricasti M7 (hardware verb, pretty amazing).
-
Have you tried using the same IR's from Altiverb with other convolution verb based plugins? I use those same 480 IR's with the digital performer verb plug that I used to use with Altiverb and it sounds almost identical to what it did from Altiverb ... but a LOT cheaper :)
The coolest sounding reverb unit (hardware) that I ever owned was an old Klark Teknik unit .. I don't remember which model. I bought it from some travelling soundguy for $100 (he needed a fix heh). Sadly I lost it when a sound company that I used to work for had their doors locked by the bailiff ... along with some other very nice gear ... because I didn't have an original store receipt for it so they confiscated it along with my custom foldout stage case, ALL the supplies I had in it (it was well stocked), my Peterson strobe tuner, my BSS phase checker, and all kinds of other goodies I still pine for :/
-
Yikes...and those phase checkers are never cheap either. I've been using the peterson strobe app for the iphone, very damn accurate and useable. Alas, no reverb though...lol.