My Top 5 VOCAL REVERB TRICKS for a PRO Vocal Sound

hey what's going on my friend chris here from mcdonald online and today i'm going to share with you my top five vocal reverb tips that is going to help make your vocals sit way better in your mix let's check it out all right so now before we jump in i have a free gift for you that you can download the 100 free uh the link is down below it's my vocal guide on vocal reverb everything i'm going to share with you in today's video is part of this pdf and more again free download the link is down below okay now let's jump and talk about vocal reverb we add reverb on a vocal to add space you know in our mixes which makes sense you know you you don't want to end up with the super 100 dry vocal sound so adding reverb is gonna just help to add some space in the mix but sometimes you know a reverb can take a lot of room in the mix and there's ways i'm going to share with you today to have way more control over your vocal reverb sound so this way your vocal reverb is not going to overwhelm your mix don't remember that your vocal is the main event and we're going to keep it this way so let's jump in cubase and listen to what we have okay so this is a mix it's a song from my good friend josh gilbert the song is going to be released soon um so now i have that vocal reverb um that sounds good like for me the tail of the reverb the size of the reverb works for uh the verse but it's a bit too overwhelming at its present form so let's have a quick listen we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now [Music] like i said i love the size of the reverb the tail is nice but the reverb is way too much at the moment so i'm going to fix a few things here first of all my number one tip and this is something that i do like i would say for 98 of the time every time i mix a vocal the reverb i'm gonna use for my lead vocal i'm gonna insert that reverb on a knox channel or an effects channel track so this way i keep my vocal in parallel from the dry vocal sound okay and not as an insert because you could and a lot of people ask me the question you know why don't you use your reverb as an insert on your vocal channel and there are several reasons why i don't do so for 98 of the time and one of these reasons is to have more control over my reverb so this way i can craft my vocal reverb sound with way more flexibility so i have those two channels separated and this is something that i always advise people to do keep your reverbs on a separated fx channel in my case i use a stereo effects channel to do so but this is a personal choice it depends on the mix i'm working on but for the most part it's a stereo channel and i'm sending as a send the signal from my vocal channel into this effects channel track where i have my reverb insert next and this is also something that i do a lot is to eq my reverb now there's two ways you can eq reverb you can eq the incoming signal going into the reverb or the outcoming signal the signal coming out of the reverb both will work well and there's also like on a lot of reverbs you have access to an internal eq which is going to eq the sound of the reverb and on some other reverbs you can eq the incoming signal straight from the reverb itself like we do in cubase with the stuck a reverb plugin out of cubase which is room works in this case we have an input filters section where you can add a high pass low pass filter on the incoming signal that goes into the reverb in my case on this reverb i also have some parameters to tone shape the sound of the reverb but this is not what i'm going to do what i'm going to do here is to use an eq an eq plug-in a stuck plug-in out of cubase and i can insert that right before my reverb on the effects channel and what i'm going to do here is the ib row the eq trick which is simply getting rid of low frequencies and top frequencies for the most part and this is going to add more transparency to my reverb because with a reverb especially on the vocal we can end up with a lot of build up when it comes to low frequencies and low mid frequencies and this is what i'm going to you know get more control over so this way my reverb doesn't take too much space especially within those frequencies and taming down those high frequencies also is going to help the reverb to sound a bit more natural i would say without hearing those high spikes you know that we can end up with on a vocal sound so what i have on this one is a high pass filter that is going to just tame down everything under 500 hertz or so and the same for a uh my low pass filter everything above 7k is also being tamed down and on top of that i'm adding a cut at around 2k this is the mid-range and this those frequencies on some vocals can actually be aggressive and i want to avoid my reverb sound to end up sounding a bit too uh too edgy you know so by timing that down i'm adding a bit more uh transparency to the vocals so let's have a listen to that eq on the signal coming into the [Music] to lay reverb down we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now we knew it makes a huge difference i can still hear my reverb the tail is there but i don't end up with a build up on the low mids and low frequencies [Music] we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now we knew it was coming just you know okay so that works very well uh i can also like i said instead of eq'ing the incoming signal i can add an eq after my reverb ready to lay you down we had so much left to do so again it's a personal choice i tend to uh to eq the incoming signal most of the time because i like to to keep my reverb as pure i would say as possible and not try to to tone shape too much the reverb itself especially if it's the reverb sound that i like but again you know it's a case-by-case thing nothing stops me on doing it the other way around in some occasions but you know those are the two options you have if you want to eq your reverb you can eq the incoming signal or the reverb itself meaning an eq after the reverb or within the reverb if you have access to an eq and this is also something that i do on my end now my next tip is to add distance to your reverb so you keep your vocal upfront in your mix so to do so there's a couple of things we can do straight on the reverb we have a parameter called pre-delay okay and this is a very important one and this is going to help you to keep your vocal up front dry at least the attack of the vocal is going to stay drying out of the reverb and by adding pre-delay that will delay the start of the reverb so this way like i said the vocal is going to stay dry the attack of the vocal is going to stay dry and then the reverb will follow so let's have a quick listen and i'm going to overdo it so we can hear what it sounds like i wasn't ready down we had so much left to do together but we won't so if you notice the minute i have way too much pre-delay my reverb is starting to sound like a slap-back delay because the the pre-delay is too further away from the dry signal so it's just a matter of balance and just to find the sweet spot so you keep your initial vocal attack dry and then you can hear the reverb i wasn't ready to lay you down so that works pretty well now on most reverbs that pre-delay parameter is going to be calculated in milliseconds some will give you access to sync that value to the tempo of your project but most of them won't okay so you just you're going to need to calculate if you want to just keep that in sync with the tempo of your project you're just going to have to calculate the amount of milliseconds like 1 16 of the note which is the average is going to give you in milliseconds according to the tempo of your project now on my free pdf guide on vocal reverb i have a formula that you can use to determine how much a sixteenth of a note or an eighth of a note and so on in milliseconds is according to the tempo of your project so again download this free guide the link is down below now in my case if i want to i can activate this little guy here and that will make my pre-delay sync to a 16th of a note that can work well so that is something that you can do if you want to sync that to the tempo of your project something else you can also do to make your vocal upfront by keeping the tail size and sound of your reverb is to use side chain compression on your reverb so i have the reverb right here and i have a compressor right after my reverb and that compressor is going to be triggered by the incoming signal which is the vocal so for this to happen you need to activate the side chain on this compressor right here on top in cubase you can actually set that up from the plugin itself but if you don't have cubase by activating uh your uh your side chain on the plugin that sidechain will be available on the send uh option you have here and mine is right here okay so i set the bottom the sidechain the reverb side chain which is the compressor right here so i am sending my dry signal into the side chain of this compressor so every time the singer sings it will trigger the compressor and the compressor is going to react according to the threshold and all those parameters that i have so i'm using a fast attack a three to one ratio and a sort of fast release also this is something adjustable depending on the song i'm working on and if we listen carefully i'm gonna overdo it so we can hear what that sounds like i wasn't ready so as you can tell every time i have some vocal decompressor kicks in and the reverb is out of the way and then the reverb comes back and i can keep my tail of the reverb that i like so much but again it's a matter of [Music] to balance you down we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now so that's pretty cool so now i have like you know maybe four or five db's of gain reduction when the singer sings and it helps me just to keep my vocal dry and up front and keeping that reverb tail that sounds pretty good so let's listen in the context of the mix [Music] i love it okay i just love it so you can hear that tail that reverb tail but my vocal stays right up front now for tip number four add some effects on the incoming signal feeding your reverb so let's check it out so there's some stuff that can also add a bit more uh to uh to the distance feel of the reverb and make the reverb sound a bit more interesting for example adding a flanger on the incoming signal so i'm going to activate this flanger very simple one from cubase nothing fancy let's just monitor the signal coming from this effects channel [Music] okay i'm just going to bypass the reverb [Music] okay so that is the sound with the flanger that is gonna feed my reverb so let's add the reverb [Music] okay now we're only hearing the reverb itself without the dry signal so you can hear what kind of effect that sounds like i'm gonna remove it [Music] that's pretty cool so let's blend this with the rest [Music] we had so much left to do together but we won't get to it now it's pretty cool you know it adds a bit of color kind of like it so this is something you can do nothing stops you on adding some saturation also so let's activate decapitator and go crazy a bit not sure i'm not sure i'm gonna like this one for this mix but it is something that is pretty useful on other mixes wasn't ready to lay you down we had so much left to do together but we won't okay so like for me that's too much but again it's quite cool you know because the reverb itself with decapitator or any type of saturation plug-in can end up pretty interesting no and again there's a lot going on here um but just a matter of balance but that can be a good option as well just to craft the tone of what's going into the reverb something else that i like to do is to add a compressor on the incoming signal that is feeding my reverb and this is especially if i'm mixing a more dynamic vocal now at the end of this verse the vocal has way more energy going on and by adding a compressor it's just going to even out the dynamics and i'm going to have way more control on the signal fitting my reverb so let's have a listen but you took your last breath on earth [Music] okay so that gives you an idea uh but again this is something that i do only if i'm dealing with a dynamic vocal that can be useful um just to add a bit more control dynamically speaking um so this way you know when you have like boost of energy uh or spikes and stuff that can affect the sound of the reverb and just bring that reverb to spike up a bit you know especially on higher frequencies and just by adding a compressor before it hits the reverb it evens things out so that is a very good option also and for the last tip is to use automation on your vocal reverb now there are several ways you can do so but adding automation is just going to make your mix sound more interesting but again it's a case-by-case thing uh in on the mix that i'm working on right now i do a form of automation because the verse vocal um doesn't have the same amount of reverb compared to the chorus lead vocal in this case what can be done is to uh bring down and automate the level of the reverb straight on the channel itself between the verse and the choruses because i'm relying a bit more on delays when it comes to choruses compared to the verses where i use a bit more reverb than delays for this mix so an option is to just automate the level of the effects channel track where i have my reverb inserted at or i can also just automate the incoming signal you know the send level signal going into the the reverb channel and that can be automated also in my case though i have two channels for my lead vocal one channel is for the verse and the other channel for the choruses so i don't actually need to automate the descent level or the the reverb channel itself i'm just sending different amount of signal from each of these channels so the verse lead vocal channel is sending x amount of signal to the reverb channel and on the chorus lead vocal channel i'm sending like almost a 50 less signal to the reverb channel so this is a form of automation so i don't have the same amount of reverb for the lead vocal uh coming out of the verse compared to the chorus so let's have a quick listen [Music] [Applause] [Music] so you get the idea automation is a very good tool to work with when it comes to vocal reverb so there you go my friends those are the five tips i wanted to share with you know that you don't have to use them all at once that's not the goal of sharing those tips with you my goal is to give you more tools in your mixing arsenal so you can make better decisions depending on the mix you are working on so i hope those were helpful if so share like and subscribe to the channel if you're not already and don't forget to click on that notification bell also if you have any questions or comments you can leave everything down below and don't forget to download my free guide on vocal reverb the link is also down below until next time my friend take care and see you

Channel: Chris Selim - Mixdown Online

Views: 2,705

Keywords: audio, audio engineering, audio mixing, chris selim, cubase, cubase 9, cubase pro, home recording, home studio, home studio mixing, home studios, mixdown, mixdown online, mixing, mixing audio, mixing tip, mixing tutorials, music, recording audio, steinberg, the recording revolution, tips, tutorial, music production, vocal effects, vocal mixing plugins

Id: 18vSFgLorgE

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021