dry vocals? or reverb?

[RetroMOdernVintage]

I have noticed a trend in modern productions concerning vocals sounding pretty dry in terms of reverb/deley etc...

I am having a hard time getting that dry, up front in your face sound to work in my mixes though...it just sounds dead and lifeless without some reverb.

my vocal chain> MXL V63 > st-audio preamp > daw

I usually roll off the low end in the vocal track and add a slight bit of air with a tape sim plug and that helps it sit in the mix pretty good.

not that I want to follow trends, but somehow I feel as if I am using reverb as a crutch to getting the vocals just right - when I have 'em dry they just seem well....not glued into the mix and dead.

Anyone else struggling with this?

BTW - when I do use the reverb I set it to a fairly long decay but keep it pretty subtle so as not to scream "that's reverb" to anyone listening, but I would like to know any tips on getting the dry vocal sound to work for me.

When I hear a poop err...I mean pop tune on the radio the vocals usually sound pretty darn dry but somehow not "dead"

Thanks....

[Dugz Ink]

my vocal chain> MXL V63 > st-audio preamp > daw

That's the first problem. You're expecting an inexpensive mic and pre-amp in a home studio environment to sound like thousands of dollars of gear in a million dollar studio. It won't happen. You need the ambient sound of a great studio, and you need the richness of great mics and pre-amps.

But you shouldn't give up on the V63; you can still have fun with it.

[axeman69]

You need to make room for all of your different tracks. But, especially the vocal tracks. If you can't hear the vocals for the guitar, turn the guitar down and pan it away a bit. If you still can't hear, find the frequencies that are masking the vocal, and reduce them a bit in the guitar. This is what mixing is about.

Now if you're talking about that nice airy vocal that you hear on your favorite CD, well, like Doug said, that's about an excellent room, excellent mic, the right mic for the vocalist, excellent pre, excellent converters, etc, etc, etc....

[nmodi]

I experience the same "problem", if you want to call it that. With a far from ideal room, mic, and preamp, there's no way I can create the "ambience" of the big wigs. Well, heck, that's where the virtual ambience comes into play, right? A little reverb can certainly glue the vox into the mix better, and I have no problem using it.

Granted, my last mix I probably overdid the reverb and delay a bit, and it ended up sounding a little more "pop" than I originally had planned, but I still liked it.

[adhesive]

If you can't hear the vocals for the guitar, turn the guitar down and pan it away a bit. If you still can't hear, find the frequencies that are masking the vocal, and reduce them a bit in the guitar.

This would have been my advice just a week or so ago, but around then I read some interesting advice from MASSIVE and Weez, among others... they said to reach for EQ *first*, not the more obvious volume/panning knob.

The point was that even if the vocal (or whatever instrument/part) is a little quiet, it should be extremely clear and distinct, with its own sonic space. If it's not--even though it's a bit quiet--that's the top priority to work on. And for that, EQ is the tool. Once everything has its own proper place in the mix, it's simple to adjust the volume.

Same with panning... if you can get everything to sound outstanding in mono, it will knock you on yer keister in full stereophonic sound

[Roey Izhaki]

Hi RetroMOdernVintage,

Indeed, matching a reverb to vocals can be tricky. Some productions, like a romantic ballad, call for a present reverb; however, many modern productions involve what appears as dry vocals, although in practice these vocals are spiced up with some effect.

Here are three techniques you might want to experiment with:

Early reflections only - the tail of a reverb (reverberation or late reflections) tends to be noticeable and send vocals back in the mix. If a reverb allows it, switching off the late reflections engine, which leaves the early reflections only, add size to vocals without sending them back. More than a few reverb emulators will categorize such a preset involving early reflections only under the 'ambiance' family. Alternatively, you can try and shorten the decay until the reverb tail is hardly audible, but in most cases the effect won't be as appealing as using the early reflections only.

Chorus - a good chorus added to vocals can increase their size while still giving the impression that they are dry.

Delay - adding a short delay at low level can also do the trick. I find using two taps of a multitap delay very useful for this application, each tap panned around the center to a different side of the panorama.

All these suggestions are very similar - essentially an addition of very short delays. Due to variations in design of a reverb, chorus and a plain delay, each effect would give a slightly different flavor.

Most often the effect added is blended at low-level so only a trained ear would be able to tell it's there. For the less trained ears, muting and un-muting the effect can reveal how effective it is.

Cheers,

[EnlightenedHand]

Even on a "dry" vocal there is usually a very short reverb used. The trick is to just use enough so that there is something extra in the voice but not so much that it becomes noticeable. Short reverb times. They indeed work.

When you record in a studio it is usually decided on before hand where you will record the vocal so that the actual take has a little or a lot of natural reverberation. Sometimes there is none at all. Many times in this situation a good studio will have a good vocal room with just the right amount of reverb to add a natural character to the take. Add that to a great microphone and signal path and that character gets captured and there isn't much need for a lot of artificial reverb. That's not to say that you can't do this too. It just means that you have to go through the trouble of dialing in the proper amount after you record your takes. It's about balance and subtlety here.

I often record dry vocals and add very short reverbs that give just a bit of character. I also do other things to the vocal as well. Really it depends on the song. There are no clear cut answers here I think. It will take practice, experimentation and perhaps the acquisition of new gear to get it just right. But you can go quite far with just the basic tools and some good skills with dialing in the processing.

[Weasel9992]

I do the same thing as E.H. most of the time...record dry then add just a bit of 'verb or delay to the vocal. The trick is to add just enough and not too much. For some reason this has been a hot topic lately, but the sure sign of a noob is a vocal just drowning in a "Huge Church Hall" reverb preset. Steven M.C. said something recently that I totally agree with...a good rule of thumb is to err on the side of being too dry than too wet. Of course, there are those times when a very ambient vocal is necessary, but in that case you'll want longer predelay times and a high cut on the reverb send so you don't get S's, P's and T's ringing into infinity. It can also be helpful to do it with a post-fader send rather than pre-fader...you can try both to see which one works for you.

Weez

[Farview]

I would bet that that 'dry' vocal you are talking about is anything but dry. By the time a dense mix is mastered all the reverb and ambience is pretty much sucked up by the rhythm tracks. Making the vocal sound dry-ish.

Try shorter decay times.

[Dugz Ink]

... a vocal just drowning in a "Huge Church Hall" reverb preset.

Guilty as charged... but in 1983 I did it with tape slap-back and a spring unit, not digital plug-ins.

[Roey Izhaki]

By the time a dense mix is mastered all the reverb and ambience is pretty much sucked up by the rhythm tracks. Making the vocal sound dry-ish.

I would take this statement with caution. I heard more than a few masters where the compressor/limiter yielded an accentuated reverb.

[Shadowing]

If the vocal is dry enough a limiter compressor shouldnt pick up a reverb loud enough to be extremly obvious in a mix

[MASSIVE Mastering]

By the time a dense mix is mastered all the reverb and ambience is pretty much sucked up by the rhythm tracks. Making the vocal sound dry-ish.

I would take this statement with caution. I heard more than a few masters where the compressor/limiter yielded an accentuated reverb.

I see where he's going here though... On open, airy sounding tracks where the verb has enough space, it can make the mix sound like it's drowning in verb. But on a lot of "heavier" material, it just makes a mess of everything except the most "up front" part of the signal.

[Farview]

By the time a dense mix is mastered all the reverb and ambience is pretty much sucked up by the rhythm tracks. Making the vocal sound dry-ish.

I would take this statement with caution. I heard more than a few masters where the compressor/limiter yielded an accentuated reverb.

I was speaking of really dense tracks where the verb just gets swallowed by the layers of guitar once all the compression and limiting kick in.

[neisseria]

i am not a pure dry vocal fan, but it bothers me if the reverb clouds the clarity, or too noticeble taking out the intimacy. What i believe is; its not the reverb, its the amount of reverb that changes during different parts of the song. Most of the people prefer "hearing" the reverb only on the high volumed passages, and keeping the quiet parts as dry as it can be. What i do to achieve this objective is, calling a side chain vocal track, using an expander to highten the volumed passages, and adding fairly large reverb. ;Then keeping the volume of this track low enough to let the reverb smooths only the sharp passages. Quiet vocals still remain dry.

Since i have a home studio which is too dry to get the ambiance , i do a little trick which works for me. While the vocalist is singing i send the monitor out (only vocal) to a reverb unit. The room resonates with the vocal reverb coming out of the speakers. And the mic captures the emphasized ambiance with the vocal. if the speaker volume is fairly enough then the reverb is not noticable in the vocal track, its just a little bit ambianced.
After the record, i use an fx send to a reverb, which i prefer a room type of reverb with a short tail. i use it on the most of the instruments ,but very very subtle, almost inaudiable. And most of the time i call a larger reverb for chorus. it helps to get a contrast against the verse. if the chorus instrumentation is busy then im not afraid of the level of the large reverb. But if its a calm arrangement i also keep this subtle.

Delays work better for my taste in the manner of the appearent reverb. ,i use 4-5 different delays with different settings (time,feedback ,EQ...etc) just to shine on some individual words. Again very subtle (unless if i dont want to use it as an extreme effect)

i always consider the mastering stage, ie; normalizing makes the reverb tails more audiable, while limiter/comp accents it. its also wise to assume that mastering engineer may use a reverb. thats another reason to keep the reverb subtle.
Bottom line is, i use many reverbs and delays just to make it "sound" dryish. Pure dry vocals do not help the song imho. Ofcourse quality gear helps it but i dont believe that they are magical enough to make a pure dry vocal fit in a song correctly.