Mixing/Production

[gjcovington]

Use of Reverb:
Is it true that current modern music uses less reverb than used in the past?
I'm in the process of mixing. I'm particularly interested in Contemporary Gospel and Contemporary Christian music.
Thanks!

gjcovington
(Gloria)

[Len911]

Gloria, I have heard that somewhere before, but whether it's true or not or why it's true if it is, bigger, livelier rooms?? who knows?

What I have discovered, using this m/s tool, http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/plugins/bx_control_v2 , is that when I listened to Aaron Neville songs off one of his cd's, (and discovered by soloing, in m/s mode, the left channel and the right channel) is that a clear vocal is located in the left side channel, and in the right side channel is a lot of reverb.

So as a practical experiment, I made a vocal track, I also copied it to a new track. The original track I pan left with the Brainworx tool, m/s mode. The copy track through the inserted brainworx tool, pan right, also inserted is reverb preset, on 100% or a little less, suite to taste. Yes, the copy track is swimming in reverb, and unintelligible and sounds ridiculous by itself. You can play around with the track panning and volume of each of the two tracks. The copy (reverb) track will have less volume, but the result is amazing!

It's like when you hear a lot of the old recordings and the vocal is clear, however you know they used a lot of reverb, because you can hear the reverb garbage after a vocal pause.

It's unlike the usual recommendation of having 1 vocal track, and using the reverb as a send and return, or even as an insert and adjusting the percentage of the effect. It's possible the send and return was used in the old days, and sounded like the 'new' method because of the delay, the time it took for the signal to go to the basement, or wherever the plate was stored, and back to the room where the return was that did the recording of the signal. Maybe that's why the "in the box" effects don't seem to have the same effect on the signal??

Gloria, I think the real question isn't whether to use reverb or not, but really about what you want to sound like, the best way is probably finding a cd that sounds like you want to sound, and mixing to that, a reference cd.

Hope that helps,

~Len

[mojobone]

If you want your tracks to sound current, your use of reverb should be minimal; this is not to say that ambience is anathema, only that short reverb times are currently in vogue, and generally are used to push mix elements into the background, rather than to highlight foreground voices.

[Paulie]

I'm re-reading the awesome interviews section of The Mixing Engineers Handbook again, and every producer has their own thing. Some are adamant about using different effects on each track, while others load up a handful of reverbs and delays, while others try to avoid reverb and use delays instead. It all comes down to making it sound as good and current as you can, any way you can.

[TheElement]

depends on the song and genre. if it fits the song use more reverb. having said that I'm more of a less reverb/delay person but do like to sprinkle it on sometimes..again depends on the song.

I find for dance leads if I want them big I layer them then compress to glue them all together then use reverb to make them larger and position them in the mix. one way to use reverb as a positioning tool..forward or back more in mix. also on vox sometimes reverb helps vox sit in mix better. less is more though.

[cardell]

I've been using less verb more recently, I must say.

Stuart

[Kolstad]

Not quite sure about that. What about post rock? Cinematic music? Indie pop?
Allthough Im not sure if these also are subgenres of the cont chri/gosp scene.

[mojobone]

Yeah, dream pop and chillwave are probably exceptions. Contemporary Christian sounds a bit like the less-aggressive side of 90s pop/rock or Contemporary Country. Contemporary Gospel comes in Urban and Southern flavors, if you're catching my drift,