I can't get the vocal verbs right, no matter how hard I try, it's either washed or too dry. I was listening to some records of "a perfect circle" & it's amazing how they've managed to get it so wet & upfront defined. I know I must be doing something wrong & to be honest I don't even know what kind of reverb to start with.

So what's the trick?

I'd try a couple of things. First, add some predelay to your reverb. Mess around with the value and see what sounds best.

If that doesn't work, try a good delay instead of a reverb. I'm a sucker for the UAD Space Echo plug myself.

Craig

I'm no pro but I've been experimenting with a gate right after the verb. That way you can get the big sound of the verb but no tail. Maybe there's a better way of doing the same thing but it's been working fairly well so far. Besides it doesn't hurt to try.

Actually, I've used gated reverbs for that very purpose, but for the opposite effect; the initial sound is dry/upfront but then a bid reverb tail follows.

Works great, try it.

Lucio

I've struggled with all different plug-ins for vocals until I found one that I really like and now I use it 98% of the time. It's an older Korg MDE-X I think it's called. Actually I use that plug-in pretty much exclusively for my reverbs and delays and the Samplitude plugs for everything else. I think you just need to find one you like and experiment because to me none of them sound the same. All plug-in verbs sound different to me.

Lots of reverbs work well with vocals...plates, rooms, halls even depending on the song. The thing is, I find that rarely do you want to return the whole reverberated signal. If the reverb itself doesn't allow for EQing the processed sound, run the reverb return through either a channel with EQ or a separate EQ and cut the lows and mids on the reverb. Where exactly to cut depends on the voice, recording and the reverb itself. You can get rid of a whole lot of boominess (lows) and boxiness (mids) and some s-s-s-s-s-sizle by cutting and wind up with a subtle-but-appropriate reverb.

-john

How do your dry tracks sound? In my experience the vocal track should be as dry as possible. If you are getting natural verb and slap echo in your dry vocal then the artificial verb will never sound right.

Vocals are dry alright, no complains in that department.
Never though of gating verbs, weird, but I'll try it anyway.

i believe its predelay that you are looking for.

quote:

Originally posted by mike@thecave:
i believe its predelay on your reverb unit that you are looking for.

I have been struggling with this too, for some time - lots of good suggestions in this thread. I think the one that really nails the problem is havelicek's advice. Last night I quickly recorded a bare vocal harmony and tried some of the tricks. First I found a reasonable plugin for the reverb but then followed it in the chain with an EQ plug (reverb in it's own channel). I HP filtered everything from about 400 Hz down out of the reverb signal and the vocals jumped out front again. All that was left of the reverb signal was the "air"; the fundamental vocal frequencies in the verb had been muddying everything up. I could even crank it up till it was way too wet and the vox were still clear. This'll be part of my bag of tricks from now on.

Then I put a delay in front of the 'verb at about 200 ms and it cleaned up even more, even though we were now in a cathedral. Not something I'd use every time, but it's a great effect for some things.

Thanks to you all! Very helpful thread.

-Steve

Steve,

Glad you tried it and there's more to it. Also, short reverbs can make excellent "echo" or delays also. Use a short but fairly dense reverb behind a predelay that works for the tempo of the song...you wind up with a single "soft" delay that's easy to work with and sounds cool on a lot of songs. This can often be done just in the reverb by working the pre-delay. Then feed the out put through the EQ as above to high-pass the mud and...et voila!

-john