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vox effects

dan k · 6 · 9729
 

Offline dan k

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what are the most common vox effects and why?
can anyone help me?



          DAN K,


Offline Tacman7

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The number one most (over)used vox effect...

The audience says

REVERB

If your like me (can't sing my way out of a paper bag) your looking for anything and everything to enhance your voice.


A lot of reverb is to sound like your in a certain room which can be good.
Delays can be used the same way.

I like micro tune effects. An example would be you have the original sound in the center then 4 copies panned from left to right each a little detuned or sharp. Micro delay can also be added. Adds fullness and depth and cuts through the mix.

I don't look at compression as an effect, more of a necessity.


Offline Billy

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I guess it really depends on whether your are in a live or in a studio setting. I would agree reverb would be top of the list. Compressor/limiter would also be a must. If you're an experienced singer you would normally move slightly away from the mic when it comes to a part of the song where you open up vocally...or sing loudly. The limiter would help keep a balanced input.

Billy.


Offline Gerk

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I'm a delay fan as well.  Reverb is ok for some things, but delay really helps thicken things up without being too obtrusive.

There are also a few things that are really awesome to do with reverb ... you can use most gate type plugins to do ducking when you're using large/thick vocal reverbs.  It works the opposite way of a gate.  A prime example of ducking is when a TV announcer comes in over top of other audio that's rolling, and the background audio drops down a few db while the annoucner speaks and then comes back up to normal levels during the silences.  Using that type of approach with larger reverb on vocals is really nice, it allows the clarity of the vocal to come out and now be drowned out by the effects, but when the vocal level drops down a bit from the foregroud the effect automatically comes up to fill in the holes ... obviously you want to tweak it a little nicer than the blocky approach they use for a TV announcer, but it's the same general concept.

Also combining delay and reverb is a favorite of mine.  You can run a reverb on the delay return (instead of directly off of the vocal), which softens up the echo/delay considerably (and still keeps the actual vocal track very clean for clarity purposes). 

Sometimes I will also use the above technique in a bit of a different way... I will not put any of the direct echo/delay into the mix, but only the "effected" delay -- usually through a delay or maybe a flange/phase type setup, or again through a reverb or room ambience.  It helps make the effects "richer" without sacrificing clarity of the original vocal track.

Hope this helps :)

Mark


Offline dan k

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thanks alot guys,


  how about chorus, what are your thaughts on using chorus.
I've used chorus before to thicken up vocals but it always sounds too manufactured or fake.


               DAN K,


Offline CosmicDolphin

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thanks alot guys,


  how about chorus, what are your thaughts on using chorus.
I've used chorus before to thicken up vocals but it always sounds too manufactured or fake.


               DAN K,

In general I wouldn't use chorus on a lead vocal - you may get away with it on some backing vocals, but like you say it sounds kinda fake.

Back in the good old/bad old days when you couldn't have an effect unless you went out and bought a piece of hardware the first thing I spent my money on was a reverb , so I guess that'd be the number one for me , then I got a delay , then a muti FX unit that did reverb and delay and other stuff like lo-fi FX too.  Eventually I bought a compressor and a Aphex exciter....then I sold most of it on Ebay when you could do it all in the box.

The good thing about learning from hardware , was that because you'd spent a fair amount of money on it, you really learned to use it , not like today when you can get a ton of free plugins that sound good and just discard them if you don't like the presets instead of learning how to use them fully.

CosmicD
We never finish a mix... we simply abandon them.
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