getting FX the heck out of the way

[mullet]

I cant seem to get my fx sounds to sit back in the mix.. no matter how much reverb I use.. Is there a special trick to this? I want it to sound like many techno/tech house tracks i'm hearing today, where there is this faint white noise kinda hollow sounding fx floating in the back.. does anybody know what i mean? Thanks!!

[josh broome]

You're gonna have to give more information about your setup, and perhaps a sample or link to the sound you're trying to emulate if you actually expect people to help you with a question like this.

[lain2097]

Originally Posted by mullet

..fx sounds to sit back in the mix.. no matter how much reverb I use.. ..

Sounds contradictory. For reverbs to fit better behind, low pass them with eq to taste.

More up front (I find) depends on what is the source.

[Len2020]

I think I might have an idea of what you are refering, have you tried what they call reamping your mix or running your mix through a guitar speaker emulation plugin or something like speakerphone? Speakerphone is expensive but they have a $50 audio ease cabinet that might help. I like the "speaker filtered" mix because it seems to blend the audio with the effects better, or to me sound more natural to what I grew up hearing. The bass cabinets seem to work better on voice than say a regular guitar cabinet, but you have to tweak around and try different cabinets or speakers.

[msl]

Try side chaining some of your effects, so the reverb only comes in after the main sound, and the pumping can be used as an effect in its self. Obviously I high pass all my reverbs and delays usually to avoid mud.

If its something other than that and more specific, post a clip.


.

[XAXAU]

Pump reverb / delays with the source. Fast attack and release is required. Also, pump them a bit with the kickdrum.

[kasprouch]

try cutting everything above 5k on your reverb...

[mullet]

Originally Posted by Len2020

I think I might have an idea of what you are refering, have you tried what they call reamping your mix or running your mix through a guitar speaker emulation plugin or something like speakerphone? Speakerphone is expensive but they have a $50 audio ease cabinet that might help. I like the "speaker filtered" mix because it seems to blend the audio with the effects better, or to me sound more natural to what I grew up hearing. The bass cabinets seem to work better on voice than say a regular guitar cabinet, but you have to tweak around and try different cabinets or speakers.

Would GuitarRig4 work for this?

[mullet]

Originally Posted by lain2097

Sounds contradictory. For reverbs to fit better behind, low pass them with eq to taste.

More up front (I find) depends on what is the source.

I'm afraid of making it all muddy tho if I low pass.. the fx i've been hearing in tracks seems to be more of a high freq sound.. maybe its just panned hard left right?

[mullet]

Originally Posted by XAXAU

Pump reverb / delays with the source. Fast attack and release is required. Also, pump them a bit with the kickdrum.

interesting.. how do you "pump" and fx reverb with an fx that doesnt really have any transients tho? The fx that i'm trying to use is more of a wooshy white noise..

[mullet]

Originally Posted by kasprouch

try cutting everything above 5k on your reverb...

i'm confused with what to cut.. everyone keeps saying high pass but you're saying to cut over 5k?

[mikecook]

he means sidechain compression.

[cramseur]

Post a sample, so people can hear what you're talking about.

[msl]

Side Chain Videos

Side Chain Tutorial


.

[mullet]

Originally Posted by cramseur

Post a sample, so people can hear what you're talking about.

ok. when i get home from work

[kasprouch]

Originally Posted by mullet

i'm confused with what to cut.. everyone keeps saying high pass but you're saying to cut over 5k?

like Lain was saying as well, if you want something to sit back and feel distant you need to remove their top end. By lowpassing your verb it'll sound darker = further away. same thing with your fx, if you want them further away, lowpass them.

this doesnt mean you shouldnt use a highpass on your verbs and fx as well... for the sake of a clean bottom, you should.
but in order to get distance, its directly related to high frequencies and how much you can hear of em.

the darkness, the brightness, the darkest, the Brightest... getting a tad carried away there, but im sure you see what we mean.

[XAXAU]

Originally Posted by mullet

interesting.. how do you "pump" and fx reverb with an fx that doesnt really have any transients tho? The fx that i'm trying to use is more of a wooshy white noise..

Haha, yeah, that won´t work.

Just post a clip, I´m sure it´s easy to explain how it works.

[crufty]

maybe its arrangement...cutting all other tracks except for kick and bass for duration of fx?

then hi/low pass to taste.

i always like a fading echo delay on white noise "wwsshhoossh hoosh oosh osh shh"

[fragletrollet]

I find M/S eq'ing stuff very effective to clean up the stereofield.

[ignatius]

to start..

solo the track you are putting reverb on and the reverb itself.. turn the reverb up until you can just hear it then turn it down a little bit.

for long reverbs on pads or something you are using more for a special effect hi pass/low pass/band pass filter them as needed and just push them back in the mix a bit and compress them if you want the reverb tail to be more present.

also you may want to experiment w/panning them off a bit.. if you have reverbs on everything they tend to pile up.

[mullet]

Originally Posted by ignatius

to start..

solo the track you are putting reverb on and the reverb itself.. turn the reverb up until you can just hear it then turn it down a little bit.

for long reverbs on pads or something you are using more for a special effect hi pass/low pass/band pass filter them as needed and just push them back in the mix a bit and compress them if you want the reverb tail to be more present.

also you may want to experiment w/panning them off a bit.. if you have reverbs on everything they tend to pile up.

Does anyone ever automate the wet signal to go from say 10%-100% as the fx plays out, to put more reverb on the tail of the fx?

[aof21]

Originally Posted by mullet

Does anyone ever automate the wet signal to go from say 10%-100% as the fx plays out, to put more reverb on the tail of the fx?

yes, I think that's pretty common.

And to second what most other people are saying, EQing reverbs is pretty essential. Some reverb plug ins have eq capacity built in, or else you can just slap an eq plug after the reverb.

Also, just to make sure, you are running your reverbs on an aux track (or "bus" track) and sending from your original track, right? That should be SOP.

If you are running the reverb on the same track as the original signal, aim for between 10 and 20 percent wet (obviously this greatly depends on many factors.... but....) Also, play around a lot with the different reverb settings to find what works for that particular track.

One trick I've found is to do it like this. Put the reverb on an aux track and put your aux send at unity gain. Put the reverb return track also at unity gain and make sure your reverb is at 100% wet. This should result in way more reverb than you will usually end up using in the mix. But leave it up at that level and then play around with the reverb settings (decay time / room size / ER level / diffusion /EQ, etc) until you get the reverb to sound like its good, just a little too much. I've found that if you can get the reverb to sound reasonable when it's up that loud, then generally when you turn it down it will sound really good. But I find it necessary to have it up higher at first to get the settings right.

3 more tips:
1. This may be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of reverb, but most of the time "Decay time" is going to be the most important setting. I find it's often difficult when you want "less" reverb to determine if you want a shorter decay or a lower overall level. For the type of effect the OP is describing, I'm leaning toward a long decay reverb, turned down lower in the mix and with the type of HF and LF cuts that have been described.
2. Pay particular attention to your "Early Reflection" level. This is sort of an oversimplified explanation, but a higher Early Reflection setting will generallly make your reverb sound more "boxy" or "roomy" -- more like its in a real room. Again, for the type of reverb you are describing and for what I find it's generally necessary for a lot of electronic music ambiance reverbs, I lean towards less ER, often times 0 ER.
3. Sometimes slapping a compressor BEFORE your reverb on the aux send can help. Sometimes you'll find that certain transients will trigger a sort of "pop" in the reverb and so you'll hear a singular reverb trail from that one transient that stands out in the mix. Putting a compressor on the aux send signal can help smooth that out.

[nopattern]

easy trick:

put reverb on send followed by compressor... enable sidechain and use the sound you are sending to the reverb as the trigger

the reverb will be ducked by the actual sound itself and wont be washed out

[digital 1010]

Don't forget to pan stuff around as well

Ben

[mullet]

Originally Posted by aof21

yes, I think that's pretty common.

And to second what most other people are saying, EQing reverbs is pretty essential. Some reverb plug ins have eq capacity built in, or else you can just slap an eq plug after the reverb.

Also, just to make sure, you are running your reverbs on an aux track (or "bus" track) and sending from your original track, right? That should be SOP.

If you are running the reverb on the same track as the original signal, aim for between 10 and 20 percent wet (obviously this greatly depends on many factors.... but....) Also, play around a lot with the different reverb settings to find what works for that particular track.

One trick I've found is to do it like this. Put the reverb on an aux track and put your aux send at unity gain. Put the reverb return track also at unity gain and make sure your reverb is at 100% wet. This should result in way more reverb than you will usually end up using in the mix. But leave it up at that level and then play around with the reverb settings (decay time / room size / ER level / diffusion /EQ, etc) until you get the reverb to sound like its good, just a little too much. I've found that if you can get the reverb to sound reasonable when it's up that loud, then generally when you turn it down it will sound really good. But I find it necessary to have it up higher at first to get the settings right.

3 more tips:
1. This may be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of reverb, but most of the time "Decay time" is going to be the most important setting. I find it's often difficult when you want "less" reverb to determine if you want a shorter decay or a lower overall level. For the type of effect the OP is describing, I'm leaning toward a long decay reverb, turned down lower in the mix and with the type of HF and LF cuts that have been described.
2. Pay particular attention to your "Early Reflection" level. This is sort of an oversimplified explanation, but a higher Early Reflection setting will generallly make your reverb sound more "boxy" or "roomy" -- more like its in a real room. Again, for the type of reverb you are describing and for what I find it's generally necessary for a lot of electronic music ambiance reverbs, I lean towards less ER, often times 0 ER.
3. Sometimes slapping a compressor BEFORE your reverb on the aux send can help. Sometimes you'll find that certain transients will trigger a sort of "pop" in the reverb and so you'll hear a singular reverb trail from that one transient that stands out in the mix. Putting a compressor on the aux send signal can help smooth that out.

Thanks for all of this advice - very helpful!!

So the general consensus is that genreally I should high pass the reverb itself, so I high pass at about 100hz.. does this sound right? Also, if I want the reverb to sit back in the mix I low pass the fx itself at about 5khz?

Why is it better to have the reverb on a aux bus, aside form the obvious reason of cutting down on cpu and having a consistent reverb across all parts of my song? What do you mean by unity gain? 100%?

I'm using Waves IR-1 and as far as settings go, I install a long-dark ambient reverb for pretty much all parts other than percussion, to which I use a drums plate setting on my reverb. I dont tinker with the room size too much after I've installed the presets. The only setting I will adjust is the "reverb time" which I am assuming is the same as decay? For drums I have it at about 1.0s and for all else I have it at 3.0s.

Your tip suggestions:

1. Yes I do like the longer reverb tail. As far LF and HF cuts go, my knowledge of this is that LF cutting is to make sure the reverb doesnt muddy up the mix.. and a HF cut to allow the reverb to sit back in the mix?

2. My knowledge of early reflection is very foggy.. Is this defined as reverb being applied to the initial part of the sound? On the IR-1 reverb plugin, the ER default setting is 0.0 and pre-delay is 0.0. Also, the "Tail" default settig is 0.0

3. Some people say put compressor on before the reverb and some people suggest a side-chain after the reverb. Does ot make sense to do both?

[spicemix]

Originally Posted by nopattern

easy trick:

put reverb on send followed by compressor... enable sidechain and use the sound you are sending to the reverb as the trigger

the reverb will be ducked by the actual sound itself and wont be washed out

But I dunno about that whole angle...I think a strong argument could be made for the opposite, having a keyed expander on the reverb, giving you ambience tied to the sound tightly, and reducing the background wash.

It depends on what you are trying to do with a reverb, but I think this idea of having the initial transient dryer and the tail wetter may not be what the OP is intending. Do you just want wash as a sort of bed or pad? Or are you trying to make the sounds larger and wider without a wash?

Ducking like that is more typical with delay, where the strong taps can get confusing. You could have a ducked reverb come back as like a heaving diffuse delay effect I guess.

[Entrainer]

I need to hear the effect you
are trying to emulate.

There are tons of tricks to
get FX out of the way, but
you seem to be referring to
something very specific.

Now I'm curious : )

If you don't want to post
a sample do to copyright
issues, can you post or
PM me 2 examples?

cheers-

Nathaniel

[mullet]

Originally Posted by Entrainer

I need to hear the effect you
are trying to emulate.

There are tons of tricks to
get FX out of the way, but
you seem to be referring to
something very specific.

Now I'm curious : )

If you don't want to post
a sample do to copyright
issues, can you post or
PM me 2 examples?

cheers-

Nathaniel

how do i post a sample on here?

[spicemix]

click "manage attachments" down below the new reply editor pane

[mullet]

Originally Posted by Entrainer

I need to hear the effect you
are trying to emulate.

have a listen.