I'll second that!

OK, this is kind of OT, but I want to make a radical statement. I think 'Word Up' is one of the classic albums of all time. :eek: I would love more info on how and who.

I once spent a couple of hours with my SRV2000 trying to duplicate that snare verb. heh Back in the day when time was not money...

Hey Renie,

I've only done one for a Las Vegas/Casino type spectacle. A cross between Stomp, Interview with a Vampire meets Nine inch Nails.

It was a great experience and a challenge(and the girls in the show were cute too).heh

I had more problems concentrating on the gig, than the actual mix.

I've always felt I was born for it(the stereo thing to me is too limiting). That's why i love movie soundtracks(and my pop productions feel like them sometimes).

Will it take off? I am starting to think so. People are going out less and less. There are so many things vying for the entertainment dollar. Plus with the bad economy, to spend money to go to a show,a concert, a sporting event just seems fruitless(also what they are charging is ridiculous). So people are just staying home and entertaining themselves...(I mean this is a good way).heh

If you watch your DVD's in surround, than why not listen to the music this way? It just seems logical and it takes less effort because its already setup. Also car systems are also improving. The new car designs have better S/N ratios. The designers understand now in some cities people spend half their lives in cars. Music is what helps them get from one place to to the other. The car industry is why we have: Incredibly loud CD's,CD changers and subwoofers in our studios. They have affected the recording industry more than any other business. That's why I am happy that they are making the internet radio stations a standard now in all of their new models. This will give people access to all different kinds of music that they've never had access to(because they are always in their cars).

This will create new international automotive music stars.

Maybe we will have an Automotive Grammy?heh

Me guest mod for a month?

hehe...maybe one day, but I think there are other's that I would love to see or hear from more. I think I am little short sided because i am mostly on one half of the equation(mostly mixing) and i don't really record anymore. But who knows?

I use delay all the time but it's hardly ever bpm-synched. That just annoys me unless it has to be. YMMV.

Gorgeous album... great tour too!

Hey Jay,

I think even better multi-tap delays.

They give the illusion of a reverb, but the dissipation of a delay.


They don't build up as much in the "corners".

It's exciting thinking about surround.. I'd love to do some, like you I like the potential.

On the other point I wonder how composing and mixing in a car would be??

noisy heh

you 'short sided'? I don't see you like that.
you bring a lot of nourishment to this forum and offer interesting,
insightful and challenging perspectives. Your willingness to share your experience is something I really enjoy and value. I would be really excited if you guest moded and i'm obviously not the only one who thinks so!!! May would be cool....heh heh

Hey thanks Renie.

Maybe in the future.

It's hard to imagine dub being done without reverb.

I'm trying to imagine an Eno production without any reverb.

Trying.

Still trying...

Brain starting to hurt...

Migraine setting in...

Nope. I can't do it.

Where's the ibuprofin?

Originally posted by Jay Kahrs
You know what I really hate about reverb? When I can hear the tizzy HF crap that comes with it.

Funny.. I just did a mix last summer for a solo piano, new agey kind of artist that used to run the studio I work out of.. after he heard the final mixes, he calls me and says he wants to buy the new SONY reverb unit because he is " tired of all these dull sounding reverbs ( mostly TC M 3000's) .. I laughed and asked if he wanted me to stop taking all the top end off the sends....

Man it was sick, he wanted everything bright bright bright!

OK, here's The Curve backtracking...

1) I liked Avalon,

2) I used reverb tonight.

I couldn't help it...I had this funky-assed keyboard riff someone came by and played sometime during the summer last year...PHATTT but, just needed a little ...somthin' ... what???

Yo, E, whatabout some lush stereo REVERB on that funked up sh*t?

Oh no...oh yes, just do it.

I did it. I put reverb on the keyboard tracks. all blown-out into stereo.

Yo, it's ill.

I'm re-thinking this reverb scenario.

Ha Ha... so you ARE just being a provocateur...

Next you'll be gating your verbs and panning wildly left and right during guitar solos!

Naahh..but it WAS interesting to see who got all fachadded over the subject.

This one I saw coming from a mile away:
What's to set up?? You plug it in, turn it on and set it to the room of your choice...apply EQ and mix to taste. You're not landing the space shuttle.

THAT's exactly what I HATE about it: It's TOO EASY to blend reverb into a mix when the mix "needs" something.

ALSO: I suspect a lot of you "gung-ho-reverb" folks don't hear your mixes in dancehalls or theaters too often.

A DJ buddy of mine spun one of my tracks at a club we were celebrating new years eve at...the FIRST thing I did the following day was opened up that mix and removed the reverb aux channel...."AAHH! THERE's that groove!"

But I really enjoyed and appreciated everyone's viewpoints on this subject. Renie - you made some wonderful points.

actually I think finding the right verb is an art form, and I am no Davinci

If you mean I am not used to hearing my mixes on shittily set-up, super bass heavy, over compressed into oblivion PA systems, then yes

At the end of the day, good mixes translate, reverb or no reverb..

um, the shuttle is landed on autopilot. and if it were that easy, you wouldnt of lost the groove. the art is knowing what room, how long, length of predelay, diffusion, eq, early reflections... the art is having it in the track so you dont notice it there but notice it not being there if it were gone. or if you are going to noticed it, using it on the right source. knowing when to use it and when not to use it.

...you forgot density, damping, hicut freq...yeah yeah yeah.

And how if you aren't using the TC6000 then it's garbage.

So what ever happened to ROOMS? Are there no rooms left in the world?

Sorry, bud. I have never usd the 6K, and those parameters matter every day, TC M3000, M 2000, PCM 80, 90 , lexiverb, even on the Yo Mama stuff.

i have heard a guy make lxp1/5's combo sound killer.... cool enough to make me wanna know what he used for verb on a recording. i was astonished when i found out what he used.

wow, I had totally forgotten about those! the first project sutdio I worked at had one of each, and at the time i thought they were it!

Howdy y'all --- Just wondering which perameters do you guys head to first (besides ya know, decay) to get the verb to sit just right. For instance I usually head for the pre-delay, hi-shelf (or what ever its called in the unit at hand) and early reflection level.
These controls usually seem to be the ones needed to find that "G spot" that gets the pre-set to stop poking its ugly nose out of the mix and curl up in the corner and purr.......(sorry for that weird mixing of metaphors)

Also do y'll like to compress fx sends, and/or returns.

Thanks,

Charles

It depends on the song, the tempo, the vibe...pre-delay and early reflections tend to add clutter to the mix, so I tend to set those to nil at first, and go back to them later if at all.

Room size, duration and EQ - the basics, I start with those to shape the vibe the reverb will lend to the track.

Reverb on a single instrument and reverb across a mix buss are two entirely different animals. It's the mix buss variety that I'm rebelling against these days. Aaargh...I hate it. It sounds so dated.

No...BUT, I like the sound of the room I've been tracking in recently. So when I get the sound of that room, and compress THAT...it brings that ambience out, and I'll print that. And I like that.

Tom Cram brought that up very early in the discussion, and I thought it was a brilliant insight which kinda got lost:
That's an excellent point which I think deserves a round of drinks for Tom on the house.

But back to early reflections and pre-delays...why not just use delay instead? You don't get all that extraneous noise that reverb introduces, and you can calculate the timing to the tempo, throw it out into stereo, etc etc...AND it interacts better with the rooms that your mixes will be played in, be they a car, a small club, a large dancehall or arena.

Whenever I get a singer or instrumentalist recorded, and I LOVE the sound of what they're doing naturally with the room ambience...adding reverb to that, no matter HOW subtle, just seems to add a blanket of distortion over their sound. Why go there?

You don't run the whole mix through it. I put it on aux 1 and send whatever I want to it, could be a little bit from each track of the mix except the bass and kick.

Jay,

That was a typo: I didn't mean across the mix buss, I meant the aux to the mix buss. That's what I was talking about...exactly as you described. My bad.

So anyway...I got to the point where I didn't like to run ANYTHING to that reverb aux channel. So, it's sitting there, hogging CPU power...DELETE.

The aux channel with the bpm-synced delay, however, THAT's been getting a workout!

And the other delay-oriented stuff I've been experimenting with...but I don't want to give TOO many of my secrets away just yet...I like the way this thread is unfolding so I want to hear from the control group first...

The one aspect that gets overlooked when programming reverbs is diffusion. I think its the biggest secret to getting reverbs to work(especially on vocals).

Running a mix through a reverb is actually a common technique(sometimes in mastering). Certain reverbs have "unifying" quality to them. I am not saying that its done all the time, but when its done right, its a "beatiful thing".heh

I used to feed reverbs from a single aux... not any more (unless I want a mono return). I allways use two aux's, particularly if you're only using one reverb for everything. I've come to find using verbs in "point source" (keeping the instruments placement in the returns the same as where it's panned in the mix) is much better at keeping the reverb from eating up space. This can really help keep a mix from sounding washed out and over done yet still add some 'square footage' to it, at least that's what I've found.

Try a SPL Transient Designer insted or befor the comp and use a MS-matrix to turn down the mid signal.

How about lead vox verb - stereo or mono?

Yep, I was wondering when somebody would bring this up. I have a rather large room that sounds really nice (alpha's been there). It's one of my favorite vocal reverbs - just run an aux to the PA, and set up a Valvet BE in omni near the opposite corner. Beats spending hours tweaking the M3000 'til it actually enhances the character of the vocal without sounding too artificial.

Scott

Also Try compressing yr reverb return, using a drum submix to pump the return.

Add EQ to taste.