Recording natural reverb

I find that plug in reverb always fights me in the mix. I find it hard to get the balance right, and I am either washing things out, or the mix ends up too dry. I am pretty minimalist with it, and I have been able to get decent results, but I have heard that if you send out elements of your mix into a room and record the results you can get a much more natural and better sounding verb. I have never tried it though, so I have some questions.
How far from the mics should my monitors be? Should they be in a different room? I am guessing that the closer they get the less wet the verb will sound.
Optimal mic placement? I have 2 SDC's with omni capsules. Should these point away from the source? up at the ceiling? Configured XY? Just wondering about starting points on this one
Room size- I know that the bigger room means more verb, but is there a room size that would be too small to be effective?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

I'm loving a convolution reverb plugin with some choice impulse responses.

Of course, real reverb is wonderful, given the time and usable reverberant space for it. I think of it as getting to find the ultimate position for a room mic without all those pesky musicians/instruments/doors getting in the way.  

Think of sending back out the monitors as creating a Pre-Delay on the reverb signal, and not just a wet/dry balance. As for placement, just listen. Walk around the space while you playback the tracks and find the spot with the amount and types of reflection you want. Place the mics, then back in the control room bring up those channels and monitor in the mix.

Sometimes I've put a microphone in a sink, shower stall, or a walk softener appliance, and sometimes in the hallway with the studio door open a crack.

Insomniaclown said:

I find that plug in reverb always fights me in the mix. I find it hard to get the balance right, and I am either washing things out, or the mix ends up too dry. I am pretty minimalist with it, and I have been able to get decent results, but I have heard that if you send out elements of your mix into a room and record the results you can get a much more natural and better sounding verb. I have never tried it though, so I have some questions.
How far from the mics should my monitors be?

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Generally between 1/2 and 4/5 of the length of the room. Try to avoid modal nodes (exact half, exact third, exact fourth - it's easy, you just listen with headphones while you speak or sing in the room until it sounds good, without nasty reflections). The speakers should be mounted either flush (mine are inserted in a cupboard) or at some distance from the wall. The rules are about the same as setting up your HiFi.

Should they be in a different room?

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Why not? You must make sure that this different room is well connected acoustically to the one the speakers are in, though.

I am guessing that the closer they get the less wet the verb will sound.

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That's correct.

Optimal mic placement?  I have 2 SDC's with omni capsules. Should these point away from the source? up at the ceiling? Configured XY?

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No hard rule here. Let your ears be the judge. I have mounted the mics on "table" stands so I can orient the mics towards the ceiling, towards the speakers (9 times out of 10, that's where they are) or even backwards. Anyway, with omni mics, it doesn't make much difference.

Just wondering about starting points on this one
Room size- I know that the bigger room means more verb, but is there a room size that would be too small to be effective?

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Many live reverbs are not as big as one would think. I recently read that the ones at Goldstar were amazingly small (they were very bright acoustically thanks to ceramic tiles). The ones we had at Barclay Studios were about 20' x 13' x 8'; the surface was hard plaster which left almost no straight line, only curves. In my case, I use the main recording area, which is 40' x 16 , half with an 8' ceiling height, the other half 16'. And contrary to what I recommend, the mics are only 16' away from the speakers (do as I say, don't do as I do...).
I don't use it for drowning with reverb, but it glues very well. I also use the mics as room mics for some recordings.

If it's practical, try to monitor in 'final mix mode' - that is, with the reverberated track source in position in the mix - then make your wet/dry/mic placement adjustments from that reference point.

Sometimes the reverb on a track will not seem to sound very good when heard in isolation but fits very well when placed in its mix position with everything else.

Thanks for all those tips guys, especially the tips about finding the right sound in the room. I used to like convolution, but I found that I spent too much time flipping through impulses. I'll certainly keep the verb in the mix. Listening to things in isolation has had me make some bad decisions. Nothing left for me to do except give it all a try. Thanks again!

hi all

did you try to put a loudspeaker in a room, witch is sended via an "Aux" for mixing desk and a microphone at the over side of that room, and trying to change position, kind of room (ceramic, hall, wooden, etc ...) ?

i love this technic that's can restitute the original mood of the recording.

*****************************

The hardest is to keep simple

Brian from Bricasti actually does this all the time - he'll get his track in some room and mic that,
then start twiddling around on his reverb unit until he gets as close to an exact copy as he can.

So here I went with RoomWorks in Cubase after recording a choir, and curious to try it out - it
actually worked. When I recorded them in a church, I pointed two mics backwards to capture
the room, and then did the A-B-A-B thing, so now I could "add more church".

livingnote said:

"add more church"

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... to the Secular State?

the correct pronounciation is "chuch", ala snoop dog.

neodyms said:

hi all

did you try to put a loudspeaker in a room, witch is sended via an "Aux" for mixing desk and a microphone at the over side of that room, and trying to change position, kind of room (ceramic, hall, wooden, etc ...) ?

i love this technic that's can restitute the original mood of the recording.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what the OT is about...so apparently you may have done it, I have done it and insomniaclown is thinking about doing it

Just as a side note it might be worthwhile to consider why any reverb added to a "dry" instrument in the mix can't sound the same as if the instrument were recorded in a live room. That's because the mics never catch the whole instrument but rather a limited spot of its radiation. If we place mics in front of a grand piano the radiation of the instrument in different directions won't be recorded and hence can't reach the reverb unit later; however this sound will excite the reverb from the recording space.

Samuel

abbey road d enfer said:

neodyms said:

hi all

did you try to put a loudspeaker in a room, witch is sended via an "Aux" for mixing desk and a microphone at the over side of that room, and trying to change position, kind of room (ceramic, hall, wooden, etc ...) ?

i love this technic that's can restitute the original mood of the recording.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what the OT is about...so apparently you may have done it, I have done it and insomniaclown is thinking about doing it

Click to expand...

Still thinking about doing it, just haven't had the time to experiment with it, but I will get at it as soon as I can. Just another trick to try. i don't like my mixes to be particularly wet, but I love using just the room mics on the drums without adding verb except maybe a little to the snare, maybe. Room mics just seem to work, so I wanted to try this out on different instruments/mixes to see if it can work in these situations too. Maybe use one speaker, send a guitar track into the room, and return the verb mono, stuff like that.

Natural spaces tend to be imperfect.  Plug-ins (or hardware units) tend more toward creating 'ideal' spaces with smooth tails, dense diffusion, no audible slapping or cycling wave characteristics or other imperfections.  But most real spaces have those artifacts.

To me real spaces (or a good convolution reverb) sounds more natural, but it also tends to be coarser stuff, and I find I don't have to use much to get a clear effect.  The denser verbs, the more perfect simulations, generally require a lot more before it's audible... it's so polite that you have to use a lot to make it heard, and often, by the time it's finally heard, it tends to be too much, causing a too much, then too little, then too much, then too little, scenario as you adjust levels trying to find the right amount.  Coarser settings aren't pretty when solo'd, but in a mix they make their presence felt without needing to be loud.

My rule of thumb is to reach for the coarser stuff (natural verbs/convolution verbs/less diffuse/more grainy settings) for things that need a sense of space around them, but aren't intended to 'pull' the listener's ear, and then use the pretty verbs for the dominate thing, like a Celene Dion-style lead vocal, for example... something that is intended to be the focus for the listener.  

JC

Insomniaclown said:

I have 2 SDC's with omni capsules. Should these point away from the source? up at the ceiling? Configured XY?

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The capsules are omni, so it won't matter much which way you point them. XY shouldn't give you stereo with omnis, it will give you mono and phasing if you're unlucky.

rascalseven said:

Natural spaces tend to be imperfect.  Plug-ins (or hardware units) tend more toward creating 'ideal' spaces with smooth tails, dense diffusion, no audible slapping or cycling wave characteristics or other imperfections.  But most real spaces have those artifacts.

To me real spaces (or a good convolution reverb) sounds more natural, but it also tends to be coarser stuff, and I find I don't have to use much to get a clear effect.  The denser verbs, the more perfect simulations, generally require a lot more before it's audible... it's so polite that you have to use a lot to make it heard, and often, by the time it's finally heard, it tends to be too much, causing a too much, then too little, then too much, then too little, scenario as you adjust levels trying to find the right amount.  Coarser settings aren't pretty when solo'd, but in a mix they make their presence felt without needing to be loud.

My rule of thumb is to reach for the coarser stuff (natural verbs/convolution verbs/less diffuse/more grainy settings) for things that need a sense of space around them, but aren't intended to 'pull' the listener's ear, and then use the pretty verbs for the dominate thing, like a Celene Dion-style lead vocal, for example... something that is intended to be the focus for the listener.  

JC

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Thats great advice! Thanks. I went to a mix that I had been working on and changed the verb to a convolution. I tend not to use much. Maybe 2 reverb buses that I send instruments into. Usually just one. Plus whatever room sound I have with the drums. I work with superior drummer for the most part, so the room mics in that have me covered. The convolution does fit much better for me. Good old space designer.

Thanks for the info on the mics j.frad. I'll switch those SDC's to cardioid and experiment with different positions and set ups. Probably dive into that next week. Should be fun!

I've had good luck with cardioids in ORTF configuration pointed AWAY from the source.

Peace,
Paul