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Flingel · Location: United Kingdom

I'm recording a group of 6 singers using the Rode NT-4 stereo mic. Some numbers will be acapella and some will be with backing added but all have been recorded using a click track so I have been able to get them to do more than one take thus doubling up the sound etc.

I am happy with the dry sound that I have but have now got to the point where I want to add some reverb to the vocals. I have experience of using a stereo reverb on a mono source, but as the source tracks are in stereo and I have more than one source track, I'm a bit uncertain what's the best way to proceed so would welcome any suggestions.

e.g.
- how would you pan the reverb?
- if you had doubled (or trebled) stereo takes, would you add reverb to all of them?
- might you think differently for acapella tracks and tracks with backing?

I know the answer will probably be that you just have to experiment, but I'd be interested to see if anyone has experience with this sort of thing or whether there might be standard techniques when you're adding reverb to stereo sources.

Flingel

ozpeter · Location: Australia

It kind of depends on the sort of effect you want to get - for instance, it might be interesting to add different amounts (depths) of reverb to different takes so it sounds like you have singers at varying distances. But so much depends on the material and so on. Anyway, I'd be using a good stereo reverb like CE's Full Reverb, and don't lose any of the stereo effect - so don't tick either "Combine Source Left and Right" nor "Include Direct". Maybe start from a likely sounding preset and tweak (perhaps substantially!) from there. Lock the effect onto the track as it is CPU hungry.

But I'm making a lot of assumptions about your material and thinking classically!

- Ozpeter

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

There's a width image issue here as well - for a small group, I'd want to keep the total dry sound width to rather less than the total soundfield width, and keep the reverb wider than the singers - as an aid to retaining the clarity. It positions them in a 'space' this way. And following on from what oz said, the degree to which you can do this does rather depend on the perceived distance of the singers in your mix...

I've tried M-S treatment on reverb as well - if you M-S a wet stereo reverb return, you can thin the centre of it out a bit, which might help...

Flingel · Location: United Kingdom

Thanks for the replies.

Ozpeter - I'm still fairly early days with CEP. Is there a way of auditioning the more hungry resource effects? Or is it the norm to guess a setting and lock it, then listen, then unlock and try again etc? (which is obviously very time consuming).

Steve - am I able to limit the width of the dry signal? - given that it's already a stereo image?

Flingel

Bob K · Location: USA

Hmmm...most of the effects generators have a Preview button. Some of them have to actually 'generate' the effect, which slows things up a bit, but you'll get the preview.

MusicConductor · Location: USA

This is true, but I think Flingel is looking at a multitrack mix. Honestly, to establish a suitable reverb sound, I'd suggest mixing down the dry tracks as you like them (and Steve's suggestion that they not be too wide is a good one). Then, in Edit View, try out Full Reverb on the mixdown. I've spent hours getting presets that I like, carefully working out the tails and timing (the coloration tab makes a huge difference). Also, I concur heartily with Ozpeter and SteveG's advice above.

You may find out way more than you want to -- or be very grateful -- with this thread, which is a lot of reading but has some real pearls in it:

'A Reverb Challenge'

So to sum up with your questions:

1) Pan the reverb hard left/right. Reverb is naturally random in phase, and needs to stay as wide as possible. Steve's idea is a great way to make it wider-than-wide.

2) Add reverb to all the takes. It will make it more dense and more natural. After my comments above, what else can I say?

3) Reverb for tracks with backing may need to be shorter and have a different timbre to sit nicely in the mix. This is also cause for experimentation, as it really depends on what the instrumentation is and the kind of music and concept of your mix and...and...

Have fun!

Flingel · Location: United Kingdom

Bob K - Thanks for the tip. I was going to say I couldn't see any Preview button until MC's comment made me realise that I'd only being looking at Full Reverb in Multitrack view (where there's no Preview Button). I can now at least get an idea in Edit view before locking.

MC - Thanks for all your comments which combined with the rest give me a very good base for starting to experiment. I've even found the Pan/Expand effect for varying the stereo width so hey, I'm away!

Flingel

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

ozpeter · Location: Australia

It's a pity that it is indeed necessary to go to Edit view to preview an effect in total isolation from the rest of the mix (ie without the rest of the tracks in MT being silently processed too). I'd like to see a supplementary means of soloing a track or tracks which caused CE to regard the remaining tracks as not existing temporarily. (I'm in repeat mode....)

- Ozpeter