Heavy reverb a la the Fleet Foxes and Cat Power

[mtlin]

I'm not a profession audio engineer. Just a guitarist and songwriter with a home studio. I'm working on a project where I'd like to use heavy reverb similar to what you might hear on the Fleet Foxes record or Cat Power. What is the secret to heavy reverb? My forays into this area have resulted in rather messy and splashy mixes. Tips and tricks? I'm guessing that the thing to do is use a plate or in my case a convolution reverb. Does the reverb need to be EQ'd? Pre-delayed? How many seconds of reverb will get me in the neighborhood?

[scottwilson]

When you say "splashy" as a bad thing, it sounds like you need to EQ or de-ess the reverb send. Cut the sss's before it hits the reverb rather than dulling what comes out of it.

s

[DJamesGoody]

Spring verbs, my friend.

[Umami Uni]

Originally Posted by DJGoody

Spring verbs, my friend.

Spring verb indeed.

[mtlin]

Originally Posted by scottwilson

When you say "splashy" as a bad thing, it sounds like you need to EQ or de-ess the reverb send. Cut the sss's before it hits the reverb rather than dulling what comes out of it.

s

That's interesting. If I'm ITB, I can do this just by putting a de-ess or EQ before the reverb in the FX bin.

I'll experiment with both plates and springs.

[geeek]

Originally Posted by DJGoody

Spring verbs, my friend.

Ermmm... I'd disagree..

I'd say a good plate is what you're hearing on the Fleet Foxes stuff..

I recently mixed an album using an EMT 240 gold foil.. That was quite Fleet Foxy.. A little smoother perhaps..

Plates all the way really.. A lot of the shoegazey stuff used plates too.. Classic thick natural sound.

[Mastering101]

Why do i never reach for plate reverb? always room or hall.... why do you like plate reverb? and where are you useing it

[scottwilson]

Originally Posted by mtlin

That's interesting. If I'm ITB, I can do this just by putting a de-ess or EQ before the reverb in the FX bin.

In PT terms, you'd want to create an aux return with an eq/de-ess plugin and then reverb. Route one of your track's sends to that aux channel.

You want it to be on an aux so you're only EQing what goes into the reverb rather than all of the vocal/guitar/whatnot. You probably don't want the same EQ on both stages of the processing.

s

[MarkRB]

A plate (or spring) reverb has virtually no early reflections that characterise a physical space like a room or a hall.
Because of this lack of reflections that your ears would normally associate with a true physical space you end up with a much smoother sound that can layer different decay times well without sounding confused. It can also take more severe EQ and far more pre-delay without sounding "unnatural".

Plates are great for vocals but are getting much more use these days on other things ala Fleet Foxes/Glasvegas stylee.

[Mastering101]

Originally Posted by MarkRB

A plate (or spring) reverb has virtually no early reflections that characterise a physical space like a room or a hall.
Because of this lack of reflections that your ears would normally associate with a true physical space you end up with a much smoother sound that can layer different decay times well without sounding confused. It can also take more severe EQ and far more pre-delay without sounding "unnatural".

Plates are great for vocals but are getting much more use these days on other things ala Fleet Foxes/Glasvegas stylee.

Thanks, that explains why i dont use them much, I like hearing the room reflections and hearing a sense of size and space.. but just a little.