3 Vocal Reverb Tips - Warren Huart: Produce Like A Pro

hello everybody hope you're doing Martha Slee well in this episode we're going to do three vocal reverb tips so today we have three vocal tips for you as ever please subscribe the notification bell you haven't already go to produce like a pro com sign up for the email list you get a whole bunch of free goodies and notifications of when we have other lovely videos of course this song that we're going to be using today is stay by david from the work day release and you can download this and mix it as well link around about here as well so don't forget to download this song and try out these techniques and other techniques on it okay so these three are fun ways of creating new vocal reverbs some of them you may know let's get started the first vocal reverb trick is really an extension of an idea I've been using for quite a while now and that's basically to use something other than the natural sounding vocal to go into the reverb okay so here's the vocal and it's got some delays on a moment but no reverb there did here with the world two steps away let's turn those off so Sisson to the vocal dry where did here with the world to step someway sizing up the line of crossed a hundred times so let's create a stereo auxilary now I could just choose a reverb will go something stupidly simple and obvious and that is just use a stock reverb which would be the D verb it's set to and this is very important it should be set to 100% at all times it's on a separate auxilary so you see down here where it says 100% wet that's what you want now if you're going to put it on the vocal itself then you might want to dial it back to like you know 20% or something like that but we're not going to do that and you're gonna see why now there's a whole bunch of fun things we can do so firstly here is just the reverb on the vocal so load the two things together I landed here with the world two steps away sounds great that's quite a large long reverb we can bring it down I know to bring it down to it two and a half seconds on a medium I'm not going to do any high pass or low passing you can see that coming up in a minute but what we're going to do with this reverb is try some other fun things let's try first of all putting some saturation on it that is probably an obvious thing to do but pretty darn good and I'm gonna go for free comes with my da W which in this instance is sans ACMA let's have a listen I'll end it here with the world two steps away I mean immediately it had some thickness in there it's pretty - I'm good and we're did here with the world two steps away take out some of the low end and landed here with the world two stops away sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times okay that's fun putting some saturation on it it's something that you can experiment with I landed here with the world two steps away it makes that reverb a little wrong makes it a little bit more interesting and though you've already seen my mixing vocals video which is quite successful it's got like half a million views and on that one I do an octave down and a distortion trick and I show you how to blend them together how about we do an octave up I'm going to go to pitch shift its pitch - and just for the heck of it it's in stereo so that's kind of nice we could do both but let's go to course and come up you guessed it semitones never listen to that and land it here with the world two steps away we can crank this so it's unbearable have a listen I landed here with the world two steps away but why don't we sidechain it so why don't we put a compressor afterwards let's grab an R comp and let's take that input no let's make it bus ten as an input so we're now going to sidechain it so you see here where it's got the little key we're caring from bus ten so that's send from the lead vocal what I'm doing is I'm sending the lead vocal to the compressor after the reverb and you'll see why I landed here with the world two steps away sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times so what it's doing is it's compressing the reverb quite dramatically when David's singing as soon as he stops singing the reverb comes up okay so I turn Reva but that sidechain reverb is being triggered from an octave up so the ambience is created afterwards is pretty awesome and adhere with the world to stop some way now we could go an octave down let's try that it's just giving you ideas to experiment with I landed here with the world two steps away so it's pretty evil like it okay so we've heard what you can do by printing different pictures into the reverb now let's take it one stage further with the pitch idea let's put a heavily effected modulation effect so let's have a look here here's the air flanger so this is now the vocal going to the flanger I'm gonna turn off bypass my compressor for a second I'm gonna put the mix to 100% then did here with the world two steps away sizing up the line what I'm gonna do as well is I'm going to go into pre-fade here on my send to my reverb and mute the vocals were only going to hear the effect pretty wrong [Music] okay that's pretty weird and twist it just drop it back in I landed here with the world two steps away I like that I like what that's doing it's just creating a weird modulation the pitchers messed up or the vocals in tune down the middle landed here with the world two steps away sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times fantastic all of these ideas are to take the reverb and treat it in a different way it's opening our minds to create more space I feel like if you can create some distance between the reverb and the dry signal it will help the dry signal stand out further in front so that's number one taking your reverbs and messing up the signal going into it either distorting flange pitch changing or all of the above try that it's a lot of fun okay the next one we're gonna do is a pretty traditional one this is the Quan quote Abbey Road reverb trick I've been talking about this for a long time doing variations of it you see that I do it on drums but the Stewart on vocals this is number two the Abbey Road reverb trick okay so what is the secret well first of all let's just copy down our D verb we can go a little longer you know I've got about four seconds now here's the reverb on the vocal in solo I landed here with the world two steps away it's nice trying to track where did here with the world two steps and way sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times but I'd probably think that was too much and I will end up turning it down so it's barely there then I might compress it so you can hear it more all the things we do what the good folks at Abbey Road found was they could use high and low-pass filters so if we take an r eq renaissance compressor and and high-pass and low-pass we can use their initial idea which was about six hundred Hertz so we'll come up to six hundred good actually just do this six hundred and on this side it's almost a 10k but we'll go to 10k and this was their typical way of doing it and we can get a bit more aggressive on if we like it's quite aggressive on the cue let's have a listen now in solo first of all so you can hear the reverb in the vocal i landed here with the world two steps away bypassing the eq I'm gonna listen you can I'm gonna let it loop a couple of times so you can hear it and will indicate on the screen when it's bypass starting on with the effect on I'll end it here with the world two steps and way landed here with the world two-step subway landed here with the world to stop subway so the volumes changed slightly because of course there's less information there's less low-end information there's less high-end information going in there but it's not so much a volume thing it's just that low-end that causes so much muddiness has gone all the low-mids and everything of God the high-end where you might hear a lot of has also gone in vocals invariably I usually come down to about 7k on this trick so if you come down to about 7k ish it's gonna start to sound better still there did here with the world to stab some way love it we could also search and compress it as well but another nice thing to do is to take out some of this mid-range kind of aggression so if we go around about 2k ish in the middle somewhere around about here and dip it a little bit it will get even sweeter there did here with the world two steps away landed here with the world to stab some way it's a really simple nice trick try it a lot I know a lot of people do it and you've probably heard about it from a hundred different people but it's a great trick now that throw our messed up distorted pitch change reverb with sidechain compression on it here's the two together landed here with the world two steps away let it here with the world two steps away at a lower level starting to get really interesting where did here with the world two steps away I'm gonna solo the vocal with the two reverb so you can hear I landed here with the world two steps away too much distortion on the on the other one I got a little carried away so we can bring that down a little bit I landed here with the world two steps away where did here with the world two steps away really interesting though different messed up ways to doing read and you if you do this kind of stuff and you EQ into the reverbs you Lord use a little distortion you try some ping-pong delays doing these kind of things will give you your own individual vocal effects there's so many great stock reverbs I mean this is d-verb this is what comes free with Pro Tools this is a latest version of ProTools we're completely in the box now you could do this in your Reaper Cubase new window you name it whatever you're da reaper whatever your da W is you don't need a big fancy reverb you can take this and mess with it and it will be your sound and something that's unique to you and also once again something that's a little twisted and a little weird and harps back to why we always liked originally like analog stuff because it was always a little wrong it wasn't absolutely perfect voltages vet very I mean that's what a lot of techniques were discovered when tape machines were slowed down in the evening because everybody came home and turned on their lights so it gets slower voltages so to tape machines around at different speeds and lo and behold you've got some effects the Beatles discovered that's the point the randomness is what makes what we do really really fun the last but no means least one is this number three using two mono reverb that are different so what do we mean by that why do we do this why don't we come in and just create two mana auxiliaries I'm gonna initially pan one all the way to left and one all the way to the right so let's make these no safe there we go now let's just choose a couple of mono reverb and you know what I'm gonna do yes I'm gonna go for a mono d-verb and I'm gonna do one as a plate and I'm gonna make it I don't know we'll make it completely different times we'll make it just about a second mono play on one site again it's set to 100% wet and then we'll just copy this down here but we won't go mono plate we'll go room and we'll go to add a little bit longer room so it's a large room shorter time so let's have a listen now to those two reverbs one pad left one pan right blended here with the world two steps away here is the left only and again because we're in pre-fade we can mute the vocal [Music] so there's the plate on the left here's our room reverb on the right they're quite different together with the vocal in I landed here with the world two steps away now it's nice it definitely creates width on the sides but I think the thing that we're going to love most of all is to take those two reverbs pana me a little bit more to the center so let's go about thirty thirty now seven listen I'll end it here with the world two steps away really nice pushes it forward hear it in the track blended here with the world two steps and way sizing up the line of crossed a hundred times now we could Abbey Road it but we've already got that one you know you think I'm crazy we've got three different reverbs going on you can group them all together you can favour different ones of different sections but now a little taste of each one of these reverbs where did here with the world two steps away solo sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times to how many times I've sat in rooms with great mixers and I've seen three four five reverb units going at all times and they're sitting there and they're blending all the reverbs we've gone and used only a stock reverb but we've created totally different sounds of each one of those reverbs you know you may not have five really expensive pieces of hardware reverb but you sure as heck have a free reverb that comes with your stock da W so it's pretty nice effect so throw in the delays let's see what the vocal sounds I know they're Duke here with the world two steps away sizing up the line I've crossed a hundred times taking town of all the nights considered lies holding tied to who we were before I knew of all the dirt I love it so that's my delays with my three different reverb settings so I hope you enjoyed that please download the cheat sheet the cheat seek will describe this and give you these ideas and of course I hope spark off many more what are the kind of things that you do what kind of ideas do you think would work I mean delays could work really well detuned ping pong delay is going into reverbs slapback delays distorted slapback delay is going to reverbs these are the kind of fun things that we're looking for to just twist it up to take it away from the regular to make our mixes feel individual I know there's a thousand YouTube videos out there telling you the same way to do everything but the reality is it's like this mess it up let's get creative let's create individuality grow your own creativity and create unique mixes that only you can do your individual sounds and you can see that you don't have to necessarily go out and buy a thousand plugins don't get me wrong there are lots of plugins I love that make my life significantly easier but when it comes to the kind of creative stuff like this all of the things that you need are available in side of your D aw I didn't have to use an arc op I didn't even have to use the req I love those plugins but I could have done it with just the stock plugin that was a very very simple EQ curve that you can create using high pass and low pass and dipping the mid-range any compressor that has a sidechain inside of your di double you could do the compression and as you know the distortion comes free with Pro Tools I'm sure your particular da W also has a free distortion saturation whatever you want to call it flange you may or may not have that but pitch changing of any description it could be done pitch changing into delays so you can have randomness going into reverbs think about all these things that create a bed of the little wrongness that your vocal can sit in that will give it some energy especially in a modern pop world I get given stuff sometimes it's so heavily tuned that I am looking for wrong ways to do things wrong ways not right ways but wrong ways it's like working with very heavily program drums doing slightly out of time distorted delays gives my track some energy and gives me wrongness I'm always looking for wrongness this is the stuff that isn't predictable it's the stuff that makes your track sound interesting and edgy and even with that high octave you didn't really know it was there and you can bring it down just so it's in there just creating just enough tension and weirdness to it that it makes the vocal feel even more special so have a blast please download the cheat sheet let me know what ideas you have what have you done what have you seen other people do what ideas do you have it shares some really good tips and tricks have a Marvis time recording please don't forget to subscribe like the video hit the like button please and leave me a comment have a Marvis time recording and mixing and i'll see you all again very very soon [Music] [Music]

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 166,780

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio, Mixing Reverb, Tips & Tricks

Id: S-X_AFPmLNs

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 26 2018