What's new

Reverb on vocal - how to get it right?

creativeforge

the plumber
Moderator
I'm trying to understand what I'm doing wrong. No matter which reverb I use, ALL my vocals sound crappy on them - too much mids, muffled sound, cheezy sound. So I'm wondering if anyone could give me pointers on how to approach this. I have a narration I'm working on and it sounds awful with reverb.

Example: using Valhalla Room, certainly the default reverb is not up to the context of vocal. So what should I look for next? What kind of presets should I start working with - halls, rooms, etc? I'm thinking is there were "broadcast" presets, it could be a good start.

I'm used Valhalla, Waves TrueVerb, Seventh Heaven, Acoustica classic, raum, etc. I know there is something I'm not understanding.

Thanks for any help,

Andre
 
Reverb on narration does sound awful. Record it where you don't get nasty room sound, if necessary use absorption. Get fairly close to the mic, and often the best sound with multipattern mics is hypercardioid.
 
And if you really, really need some space around it, use something extremely subtle. Lexicon or Relab (or equivalent) ambience- preset with like 5%.
 
I'm trying to understand what I'm doing wrong. No matter which reverb I use, ALL my vocals sound crappy on them - too much mids, muffled sound, cheezy sound. So I'm wondering if anyone could give me pointers on how to approach this. I have a narration I'm working on and it sounds awful with reverb.

Example: using Valhalla Room, certainly the default reverb is not up to the context of vocal. So what should I look for next? What kind of presets should I start working with - halls, rooms, etc? I'm thinking is there were "broadcast" presets, it could be a good start.

I'm used Valhalla, Waves TrueVerb, Seventh Heaven, Acoustica classic, raum, etc. I know there is something I'm not understanding.

Thanks for any help,

Andre

This might help
 
I'm trying to understand what I'm doing wrong. No matter which reverb I use, ALL my vocals sound crappy on them - too much mids, muffled sound, cheezy sound. So I'm wondering if anyone could give me pointers on how to approach this. I have a narration I'm working on and it sounds awful with reverb.

Example: using Valhalla Room, certainly the default reverb is not up to the context of vocal. So what should I look for next? What kind of presets should I start working with - halls, rooms, etc? I'm thinking is there were "broadcast" presets, it could be a good start.

I'm used Valhalla, Waves TrueVerb, Seventh Heaven, Acoustica classic, raum, etc. I know there is something I'm not understanding.

Thanks for any help,

Andre

This might help

 
Reverb on narration does sound awful. Record it where you don't get nasty room sound, if necessary use absorption. Get fairly close to the mic, and often the best sound with multipattern mics is hypercardioid.

Thanks Nick, but in this context I'm working with a mono track that is sent to me. I don't do any recording.

Cheers,

Andre
 
This might help


That is a very useful video, thanks! = insert EQ before the reverb, roll of highs 10kHz and the lows at 600Hz. Tweak to taste.

One more thing is - I apply the plugins directly to the tracks, I am not using any Send. So I'll have to work on that aspect of serving the reverb. I'm not using PT but Mixcraft.

Thanks again,

Andre
 
Use the reverb big hall 100% mix wet on a channel FX, after that use an EQ to low cut the reverb (the same channel FX). On a vocal track use sendFX to that channel. No matter what you are using stock plugins of third party, it works.
 
Are you using reverb to try to cover the room sound? You can try to minimize the room sound with a transient designer or maybe a reverb reducing plug-in ( like SPL transient designer or de-verb). Plugin Alliance has a sale today for $29 for almost any plugin if you are interested. Having said that, the difference won’t be amazing, at least as far as my own experience with it.
 
Does the track you received from the client sound awful? You mentioned too much mids, etc... that's not necessarily a reverb issue. A bit of compression and EQ can really help, each voice has a unique timbre, when you EQ for their strengths it helps... like some air and shine, but not sibilance, and some pleasing bass in their deeper range. Share a small clip if you can.
 
Eq the vocal first so the dry sound is actually beautiful. Don’t try to fix things with reverb. Get the sound right first, then apply reverb. Try using two separate sends with two verbs if the original signal is very dry. I often use a very short plate (emt 140 on lowest decay time) followed by a longer verb depending in the track.
 
Are you using reverb to try to cover the room sound? You can try to minimize the room sound with a transient designer or maybe a reverb reducing plug-in ( like SPL transient designer or de-verb). Plugin Alliance has a sale today for $29 for almost any plugin if you are interested. Having said that, the difference won’t be amazing, at least as far as my own experience with it.

Ah, no, I'm trying to carve some space around the voice so it fits, but as soon as I add a reverb it should really cheap. :P

I bought Lindell 245E during that sale actually, and I have a few plugins to clean up, de-esser, de-verb, etc. The bit about the EQ is something I'll work on. Thanks!

Does the track you received from the client sound awful? You mentioned too much mids, etc... that's not necessarily a reverb issue. A bit of compression and EQ can really help, each voice has a unique timbre, when you EQ for their strengths it helps... like some air and shine, but not sibilance, and some pleasing bass in their deeper range. Share a small clip if you can.

I am waiting for the track in the next few days. The mids thing is from any reverb I use. It just sounds cheap out of the box. Not sure why they can't have presets named after purpose: broadcast, back-vocal male tenor, back-vocal female soprano, etc. That's how I think, so I have to adjust to the normal context. Thanks for chiming in!

Eq the vocal first so the dry sound is actually beautiful. Don’t try to fix things with reverb. Get the sound right first, then apply reverb. Try using two separate sends with two verbs if the original signal is very dry. I often use a very short plate (emt 140 on lowest decay time) followed by a longer verb depending in the track.

Yes, EQ the vocal first. I'll make note of the 2 reverbs idea, do you use the same plugin different settings, or two different reverbs?

Thanks!
 
That is a very useful video, thanks! = insert EQ before the reverb, roll of highs 10kHz and the lows at 600Hz. Tweak to taste.

Sorry to say, but cutting the reverb at 600 Hz (!!!) is b*llsh*t.
This will castrate your voice, cut off his balls.

However, I'd either go for a small ambience (Nimbus, Phoenix, Breeze, 7th Heaven or a Lexicon), or for something like the Schoeps Mono Upmix (which you can get right now at 29 bucks) or Precedence.


Edit:
Link to the schoeps:


until (today) midnight you can grab it for 29$ with the voucher code ANY-2999-LD
 
Of course, in the example he was showing, he used a female voice, so that could explain. :)

Cutting reverb at 600 Hz is barbaric.
Even on a sopranino triangle.
;)
Seriously.

That's why i recommended also the Schoeps upmix or Precedence.
These create space without "reverb".

But cutting at 600 Hz just tears apart the integrity of the reverb.

(and yes, maybe if you have 5 high gain E-Guitars and a female shouting at bat-frequencies, it won't hurt that much. )
 
I am waiting for the track in the next few days.

Does that mean that you don't yet have the narration/voice over recording that you are talking about adding reverb to?

If you do have it, will this narrative track be stand-alone (e.g. talking book) or will it be mixed in with other sound as in, for example, a film/video?

In other words, how is this recording being used?

It's pretty unusual to add reverb to a narrative track, but there are situations where you want to match ambient sound. That's one of the things that iZotope's RX Ambience Match module is for.
 
Last edited:
Edit:
Link to the schoeps:


until (today) midnight you can grab it for 29$ with the voucher code ANY-2999-LD

Thanks, and done! I'll work with this when I get the tracks, but also beyond that to complete my mix.

Have a great week,

Andre
 
Does that mean that you don't yet have the narration/voice over recording that you are talking about adding reverb to?

If you do have it, will this narrative track be stand-alone (e.g. talking book) or will it be mixed in with other sound as in, for example, a film/video?

In other words, how is this recording being used?

It's pretty unusual to add reverb to a narrative track, but there are situations where you want to match ambient sound. That's one of the things that iZotope's RX Ambience Match module is for.

It will be part of a song, so it's voice over music.

All I received so far is a test run recorded on a cellphone.
 
This is Schoeps's own video. I generally like Schoeps products a lot (I own five of their microphones), but it's very odd that the recording used to demonstrate the Upmix plugin was made in a very reverberant room. The original recording is not acceptable to begin with. If that much reverb in the original recording is necessary for the plugin's early reflections feature to work, the plugin is not very useful. If it isn't necessary, why was that recording used for the demo?

I might add that there is very little discussion about this plugin on the internet. It has not generated much interest.

 
Last edited:
Top Bottom