All About Vocal Effects

Vocal effects help your singers feel more natural, and add a sense of space and dimension to your mix. But where do you start, and how do you dial in the different parameters?
Update: We’ve discontinued our t-shirt store! Thanks for being a Sound Ninja!
Music from this episode is from The Golgotha Experience www.golgothamu...
Follow me on Social!
Instagram: / attawayaudio
Facebook: / attawayaudio

[@thaddeusfields4360]

“After you’ve mastered EQ & compression on your vocals…” I’ll be back 😂

[@quannguyenvan410]

I'm a normal person, not a singer, how can I make my effects more vibrant?

[@barquis5111]

ILY I recently got a job as an audio engineer because of your lessons. (I had previous college lessons on audio engineering) but your really helped me out fill those knowledge gaps I had. Eres chingón, amigo.

[@AttawayAudio]

WAY TO GO AMIGO!

[@wxfreak]

When we started live streaming we created some analog reverb by mixing in a shotgun mic used in the baptistry, basically an empty hot tub in a partially enclosed room open to the sanctuary. It gave a sense of space on the live stream. 😆 Everyone sounds better in the shower or baptistry. lol.

[@AttawayAudio]

talk about adding some wetness

[@MikeCookMusic]

5:34 - Reverb time... 420... HA HA HA - if ya know what I mean... lol I had to point that out... stopping exactly on that number...

[@AttawayAudio]

Definitely not intentional. Although my views on plant use is nuanced. We can discuss sometime

[@mikeswell9021]

This guy looks like he’s in pain when talks 😂

[@AttawayAudio]

True story - I was in a LOT of pain making this video. A bulging disk in my low back gave me horrible sciatica for about 8 months. Made it really hard to sit and film content. All better now tho 👌

[@ericbana5508]

​​@@AttawayAudio Man I know how that feels. Underwent a month of Chinese acupuncture therapy which completely cleared it for me. May God bless you and keep the excellent contents coming 😊

[@iainferguson]

If -12dB is a good starting point for the reverb return, what's the send at? Odb?

[@AttawayAudio]

yes sir!

[@Jovanmusictime]

Thanks for sharing with great examples. I will be using what i learnt for my YT LIVE soon.

[@freemandiaz5123]

Golgotha Experience. Wow. Impressive vocals. This was a really detailed vid without being too complex. Thanks James!

[@johnmcquay82]

I've just checked out their website. Fabulous music.

[@AttawayAudio]

Thanks Freeman Diaz! She's great

[@freemandiaz5123]

@@AttawayAudio Thanks brother! You rock! Thanks for all the great content. It jas helped so much!

[@DbiPro]

Where is it. The other tutorial

[@TotalSinging]

Reverb should add space but not drown the vocal where it sounds like it's a large airplane hanger. My rule of thumb is to have the tail of the verb end before the end of the next measure. Diffuse the verb brighter or darker to fit the song. Play with the pre delay time if it feels rushed.

[@rolandtiiroja]

For my experience having a tap tempo which is a bit slower than actual song, is okay. But I usually try to not tap a tempo in which is faster than actual song. That might make a rushing effect. As a drummer myself, I know that playing something faster than actual tempo gives music a rushy and nervous feel whish is usually not wanted.

[@AttawayAudio]

great tips Roland!

[@alamaguitars5693]

I have a TC helicon play acoustic can you give me the best preset :)

[@AttawayAudio]

Nope! Not without hearing your input 👍

[@zzzfffccc]

People tell me the live worships sound better and better over time. Thank you so much for all your lessons! I went to just adjusting bass and treble in my car to mixing live with a full band and a few vocalists during the pandemic. 🎉

[@jimpemberton]

I have a general reverb on a stereo slider mapped to a mix channel that I send at various levels from vocals in instruments. My space is well-treated to take care of acoustic difficulties and uses arrays of speakers to distribute the sound fairly evenly throughout the space. So a lot of the natural acoustics of the room are deadened. This reverb channel adds the sense of a room with good acoustics back into the mix. This may be a similar case with many sound techs. It's not there to make the room feel a little bigger, it's there to make the room feel as big as it really is. Different instruments will need different levels based in large part on how much of them are creating sound without amplification, but as a general reverb, it places all the instruments in the same space so they blend together well. Without it, they are a bit dry and disconnected. I also have a general delay set up in the same way for the front vocals on top of that. At different levels and tempos it gives them textures that match certain styles and moods of music. This is the one I also use for soloists to make them soar on long, high notes. I can really push this up with some moderate effect feedback, then pull back ever so slightly on the mic channel to replace a lot of the raw feed with the echo. This gives the soloist a chance to catch a breath on their way to the next note without there being much of a break. It's kind of like a bird taking flight while one is still back in the nest waiting to pick up the song where the last one left off. If the music is good and the lyrics are right, this can really get the congregation in the feels. Just have to remember to pull the delay back down and nudge the mic channel back up into place by the time the next note comes or you get a special kind of sound tech solo.

[@AttawayAudio]

nice! I ❤ acoustic treatment

[@Bobby_Uterus]

Fresh haircut James? Looking sharp my man!

[@AttawayAudio]

Thanks Bobby! Back porch special... 🙌🙌🙌

[@dwaynearthur1476]

YessSSSSS!!! Hey ,Get In there James 👍🏽👍🏽!!

[@AttawayAudio]

thanks dwayne! glad to have you back

[@loganhuwe9458]

it helps when you have an angel for a female vocalist. most think they sound like that but really do not

[@AttawayAudio]

it all starts at the source

[@cee128d]

One thing I have learned about Reverb (and all other effects really) is if you haver to ask yourself if you have it set too high you more than likely do. And you gave great detailed information without getting so technical you want to zone out.

[@AttawayAudio]

good tip!

[@matthewneedham2125]

Is that a normal song being played at your church? I’ve never heard anything like it

[@realbosstakea]

2:30 for some reason i like the longer reverb better hahaha sounds like shes in a huge stadium

[@AttawayAudio]

Hey, it's art, so you can do what you like :)

[@realbosstakea]

@@AttawayAudio that shit sounded fire bro

[@joshuarohrer1385]

The LPF trick i will definitely have to try good to know

[@AttawayAudio]

once you roll off the highs, you'll never say goodbye... (that's how the phrase goes, right?)

[@tauhidurrahman5427]

your really helped me out fill the knowledge gaps I had.

[@romainmartin5871]

Please, Where find the multitrack ?

[@hemligthans3335]

420, spacious, what a coincidence

[@MonteleónOficial]

🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@broadcastedtube]

thanks

[@mattcarter9281]

What band is that?

[@freemandiaz5123]

kzbin.info/door/2iZBSF5Qt-Cjy_rjJfkOew Scroll down a bit.

[@orsoncorson9083]

Thanks James. More super beneficial tips. There’s a certain balance you keep between too much and too little. That’s a tough place to maintain.

[@AttawayAudio]

@Orson Corson thanks bro! I think I just stop before the nerd train becomes a crazy train 🤣🤣🤣

[@alanthomas8655]

😍😍😍

[@robertsteinberger5667]

I wonder should you sidechain reverb, have the original vocals and the reverb on seperate channels sent to the output or can you just add reverb to vocals on one channel?

[@AttawayAudio]

You can, but it's too complicated for me. Try it and let me know how it goes!

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

​@@AttawayAudio I do this sidechained ducking effect on my delay/reverb. What I've got is on my Studio One 6 DAW, I've got a dry stereo input track that I'm using only to create a dry signal for sidechain to send to the 3 effects channels. This is my main input but the fader is down to infinity. Everything is sent to 3 separate send channels pre-fader from here, 1 is compressor EQ, 2 is delay reverb, 3 is stereo widener. There's probably a better way for others, but myself in this specific scenario, I've only got a stereo input for the Livestream audio coming off my front of house mixer from the master aux that I made stereo by linking 2 adjacent channels. This is where I'm mixing my sources. This would be a Soundcraft Ui16 mixer. This aux send goes through my USB interface then to the DAW. I send this dry audio to a bus where I want my compressors and EQs to shape everything as inserts. Send 2 is my Delay/Reverb channel, with an S1 Analog Delay set to 1/4 and small feedback of 5, with 2 track ping-pong and 35% width. This delay goes into my Relab LX480 Essentials reverb. Both delay and reverb have high and low pass active, allowing somewhere about 600 Hz - 10 kHz through. Relab reverb is a vocal plate. Last is S1 stock compressor, I forget the exact ratio, threshold, etc. Maybe 6:1 or so and threshold of -24, relatively fast attack and release, again I don't remember exact setup right now. Here's where I use the sidechain, it's linked back to the dry signal before any FX. This means the compressor listens to the dry but affects this delay reverb. The effect? When I have any audio in the dry, which is where all my other compressors and EQs are inserted, the delay reverb compressor lowers the output until dry audio drops. Result is when things begin to go quiet, I'll get delay and reverb tails that gives me my "room" and fills the quiet space. Note that all my sends are pre-fader to make it work, at least for my setup. Also I did the send to delay reverb of that main dry channel so that it did not have the main compressor and EQ affecting it in any way. Sanity disclaimer: Admitted my whole setup is unique, but I get away with it probably due to the in the box DAW configuration. And it probably has some backwards madness mess that I've created, but no tech solos. Or maybe it's because I locked the door and turned off the phone. 🙂