Best reverb for vocals?

[stoman]

The best reverb is one used in combination with a delay, IMO.

Depends on the song and genre though. Delay works great for rock and pop songs, where you can experiment with some extreme settings if you like, but you have to be much more careful with it when you mix acoustic songs (folk, jazz, blues ...).

But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great.

Regards,
  Steffen

[meekofnature]

But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great.

Well said!   Too bad there isn't as much experimentation anymore... 

[Benny]

Small, short reverbs are the thing these days.

A small dark plate for vocals works well, in combination with a delay. It adds body to the vocal without really hearing it.

I use a small, to very small, room for drums and acoustic guitar. And a small hall for strings and piano works well for some of my stuff.

[Gerk]

Have you checked out acoustics.net?   It's a load of impulse responses for Waves IR-L.  I think they sampled the Lexicon 480 (the really old school top of the line model) and a few other hardware units, as well as a slew of new acoustical spaces.   I heard a new hardware reverb the other day...the bricasti.   Holy crap... that thing is pretty amazing.   Only thing I've heard that hangs with is is Altiverb (my fav convolution reverb), and it now runs on PC's as well.   

Altiverb is very very nice but expensive ... I've had just as good of luck with using the new Digital Performer built-in convolution verb plug ... it works with all the same IR's that I used to use with Altiverb and has almost as broad of a set of adjustments as Altiverb does ... but it comes with DP at no cost.  The Lexicon 480 plate for vox is grrrreat!  I couldn't afford to keep up with the upgrade costs of Altiverb, which for a while seemed to conveniently "break" with every OS upgrade forcing you to buy the new one or be without.

[Gerk]

But then it's all just a question of creativity. I don't care how many rules were broken to mix a song if it sounds great.

Well said!   Too bad there isn't as much experimentation anymore... 

Yep no kidding ... things are getting more and more cookie cutter when it comes to mixing (at least for popular music) -- that Turd Polisher plugin you posted about comes to mind LOL.

I miss all the "old school" tricks like ducking big verbs with the source channel, using delays as a "pre delay" inline with a verb, etc.  Call me old school, but I still do some of this stuff!  Of course I also don't mix popular music for mass consumption either

[meekofnature]

Have you checked out acoustics.net?   It's a load of impulse responses for Waves IR-L.  I think they sampled the Lexicon 480 (the really old school top of the line model) and a few other hardware units, as well as a slew of new acoustical spaces.   I heard a new hardware reverb the other day...the bricasti.   Holy crap... that thing is pretty amazing.   Only thing I've heard that hangs with is is Altiverb (my fav convolution reverb), and it now runs on PC's as well.   

Altiverb is very very nice but expensive ... I've had just as good of luck with using the new Digital Performer built-in convolution verb plug ... it works with all the same IR's that I used to use with Altiverb and has almost as broad of a set of adjustments as Altiverb does ... but it comes with DP at no cost.  The Lexicon 480 plate for vox is grrrreat!  I couldn't afford to keep up with the upgrade costs of Altiverb, which for a while seemed to conveniently "break" with every OS upgrade forcing you to buy the new one or be without.

We put altiverb up against a Lexicon 480L, and the Lexicon lost...HORRIBLY.   Yeah, it's 500+ bucks for a reverb, but it does smoke... think he paid 15k for the Lexicon.  OUCH!  In another test it came neck to neck with the Bricasti M7 (hardware verb, pretty amazing). 

[Gerk]

Have you tried using the same IR's from Altiverb with other convolution verb based plugins?  I use those same 480 IR's with the digital performer verb plug that I used to use with Altiverb and it sounds almost identical to what it did from Altiverb ... but a LOT cheaper

The coolest sounding reverb unit (hardware) that I ever owned was an old Klark Teknik unit .. I don't remember which model.  I bought it from some travelling soundguy for $100 (he needed a fix heh).  Sadly I lost it when a sound company that I used to work for had their doors locked by the bailiff ... along with some other very nice gear ... because I didn't have an original store receipt for it so they confiscated it along with my custom foldout stage case, ALL the supplies I had in it (it was well stocked), my Peterson strobe tuner, my BSS phase checker, and all kinds of other goodies I still pine for :/

[meekofnature]

Yikes...and those phase checkers are never cheap either.  I've been using the peterson strobe app for the iphone, very damn accurate and useable.   Alas, no reverb though...lol.