Fans, this is what makes any song sound massive or bigger than life.
Indies: adding reverb/delay can colour your songs masterfully or destroy your track completely. Less is more! It is worth the time to learn to recognise the difference between the two, and learn when and how to use them in your productions.
It is these two that give a track depth.
This is what I've learned so far: Speaking about depth, I go into greater depth about these two variables in Volume 2.
Delay: In short, adding reverb changes or distorts the audio in a bigger more diffuse way than delay. Delay is just a repeat of what you just sang or played plus a bit of spunky feedback.
Reverb on the other hand applies a distorting algorithm to the whole audio track. Depending on the type of room algorithm you apply the track will now sound as if it is bouncing off of a wall close or far from you and it creates echoes of varying colours.
Basically, you want to use delay most often on vocals and reverb on midi tracks like strings to give them some glow.
Test and see for yourself.
A good trick is to always slap on a high pass and a low pass filter to get rid of the low frequency buildup and avoid harshness in the higher frequencies. Take some time to adjust these because it will make or break the effect.
Using a send on each vocal track to a delay/reverb and then sidechaining it in the compressor that is after the delay/reverb plugin will give you the ability to shut the delay effect down while you are singing, kicking in only within the quiet spaces between words. Using sidechain makes your mixes clearer! Check it out.
My favourite plugins:
- Waves H-delay (vocals, solo instruments occasionally).
- Logic's Chromoverb! (on strings, rock organ, some comp guitars and more.
Reference/Links
https://www.musicianonamission.com/vocal-reverb-and-vocal-delay/
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An Indie Musician's Diary VOL. 1
Non-FictionThis is how I go forward with my music - the real story from November 2017 and towards the album release but it took Volume 2 to get the whole way there. Creating, editing and mixing music is a complicated effort but loads of fun. For all you who wa...
