How would you recommend reducing reverb on a 2 bus?

[Tube World]

I have a song with too much reverb on a acapella song. Thinking about using a compressor with slow attack and fast release. Not sure if a multiband comp may be better. What would you reccomend I use? No I can't get the original track and have it fixed.
Thanks

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by Tube World

I have a song with too much reverb on a acapella song. Thinking about using a compressor with slow attack and fast release. Not sure if a multiband comp may be better. What would you reccomend I use? No I can't get the original track and have it fixed.
Thanks

Mid/Side (M/S) manipulation will do it.

Reduce the stereo spread by lowering the S level. If your M/S tools are able to divide the spectrum into frequency bands, than you can experiment to see what the worse frequencies are and try reducing them more than others.

[ed littman]

Also, use a denoiser plug. With the right setting it can tame the reverb without hurting the focused material to much.

Ed

[huejahfink]

Multiband expander with gentle settings can help too.

[Proggm]

Originally Posted by Tube World

I have a song with too much reverb on a acapella song. Thinking about using a compressor with slow attack and fast release. Not sure if a multiband comp may be better. What would you reccomend I use? No I can't get the original track and have it fixed.
Thanks

Compression is what you should not apply if you want less reverb - you'll end up raising the loudness of the tails. Stick to the M/S advice given by Andy, that's probably the easiest way of solving the problem. You can try using a gate too, that can work very well if you set it right.

[Tube World]

Originally Posted by Proggm

Compression is what you should not apply if you want less reverb - you'll end up raising the loudness of the tails. Stick to the M/S advice given by Andy, that's probably the easiest way of solving the problem. You can try using a gate too, that can work very well if you set it right.

Is there a plug in that has this M/S capability? Need to read Bob Katz book on the M/S as I don't really understand it as I would like to. I thought if you don't raise the makeup gain but just hit the end tails of each vocal part it would reduce the reverb.

[huejahfink]

Audio mid/side encoder/decoder plugin - MSED - Voxengo

Very good and free, no registration required either.

However, lowering the side signal will only reduce the stereo part of the verb. While this might be just the ticket for you, there will probably be a decent portion of reverb in the middle too.

In fact, if the accapella has a lot of side information you want to keep (panned BVs for instance), lowering side might not be a valid option at all.
However, you could run two sets of expanders (multiband preferred) in M/S configuration. This way the expanders will ride the side separately from the mono portion and you can get excellent control this way, even if it is a little fiddly to set up/

Of course, there are many ways to skin a cat - it all comes down to which techniques are best for your particular audio.
But you can take it from me that I have used the above techniques many times (successfully I might add) to tidy up location recordings that suffer from too many reflections in the room, as well as for cleaning up samples for remix purposes where reverb has been applied.

[Tube World]

The great Ammunition plug in in Samplitude has the m/s mode too. I will try it. Thanks

[Tube World]

I tried the M/S setup but none of the settings I tried did good job. I then tried Waves Ren compressor with a slow attack and release and i obtained some good results.

[Adam Dempsey]

Surprising, I just can't see/hear how compression could help this situation in any way, but if you're happy...
Also, of course, narrowing the image may help only if the reverb itself is quite wide. Are you the artist? If not, is "too much reverb" something defined by them or by you? Just curious.

[Glenn Bucci]

I have used a Waves compressor for a similar situation on acapella song. The slow attack causes it not to reduce the signal until the end of each vocal ending of a verse or phrase, so it reduces the reverb at the end of each phrase. Then by setting the release just right, the comp will not affect the beginning vocal phrases. You need to play with the ratio, attack and release to get it just right, but it can reduces the reverb at the end of phrases.