Reverb and acoustic guitar

[roelioo]

I use a Taylor 814 and Cubase 5.
What reverb-type can i use for recording my acoustic guitar?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by roelioo

I use a Taylor 814 and Cubase 5.
What reverb-type can i use for recording my acoustic guitar?

Hi roelioo…
I suggest recording without reverb and then adding it later - that way you can change all the settings without affecting the recording.

[Pokiehat]

First thing is what do you want to use reverb for? If you have a really nice sounding room and you like the sound of your guitar in it, you probably don't want to use any reverb at all. If you are lucky enough to record in something really nice sounding like a concert hall or a church then the natural reverberation is probably what you want and you capture that with ambient mics.

Reverb in the mix is something I usually use if I'm making dry (close miced) recordings and I want to simulate the effect of the guitar sounding like its in a room. That or I'm recording in bad sounding rooms and I'd get better results trying to eliminate room sound with close micing and then recreating room sound with reverb in the mix. That or if I want to deliberately use an artificial but nice sounding reverb like the ones you get on guitar amplifiers (spring reverb) or plate reverb.

I highly recommend SIR (Super Impulse Reverb). Its completely free. I also recommend going over to noisevault and downloading the EMT 250 plates, the Lexicon PC91 Hall reverbs (real spaces) and the PCM91 plates. The last time I checked they also had TC System 6000 reverbs and some very weird verbs from Eventide Eclipse.

All of these are free and they sound very good. The only downside is that theres no pitch modulation and convolution processing is very hard on your CPU so make sure you have a fast computer!

Also check out this site for some more impulse responses. I haven't used any of these but I've been told they are well recorded: http://www.rhythminmind.net/presetbl.../impulse-sets/

[rick-slo]

Using a little reverb is almost always helpful in improving the sound of the acoustic guitar.

Regarding Cubase in the box you can use any number of VST pluings. Convolution reverbs such as SIR (no longer free however) can be nice with the right impluse responses.
For a little money you will find excellent impulse responces here http://www.acousticas.net/
They also have Bricasti M7 impulse responses, down load those here while you still can (for free ) http://www.acousticas.net/World/IRs/AcousticasM7.zip

There are many other VST reverbs you could try the demos of such as
http://www.112db.com/redline/reverb/ and this free one (which is pretty decent) http://www.anwida.com/product.asp?pid=7

There are many more you could demo. Try a VST reverb google search.
Lexicon just came out with a native reverb which is very good but pricey
http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=163

Of course there is all the hardware reverbs you could use.

For example two guitarists with excellent recording sounds (Huttlinger and Gerhard) use (or at least have used on prior albums) a little Lexicon reverb.

The key on reverb is in most cases is not to over do it. Use enough to have it just call attention to itself and then back it off a bit.

[Pokiehat]

SIR1 is and always will be free. SIR2 costs money.

Hardware reverb increasingly feels redundant to me unless we are talking something like those crazy Eventide Harmonizers like Orville and H8000 or whatever its called. At the moment I don't think there are any software/DSP platform based parallels to units like that but boy would it be nice if there were. Its certainly possibly, you would just need alot of DSPs.

Lexicon recently released a plugin version of PCM96 which sounds better than the hardware, costs about half the price (1500 bucks) and you can use as many instances of it as your CPU/DSP can handle. Oh, and its also quite efficient.

I don't know why anyone would want to use hardware verbs if there are software equivalents like that around. Only exceptions I can think of is the hardware that clocks in at 4,000 bucks and up and even then the Eventides can be a pain in the butt to use compared to plugins.

[redavide]

I don't know why anyone would want to use hardware verbs if there are software equivalents like that around.

I use a hardware verb (Lexicon PCM70) because it sounds great for recording AND it sounds great for live situations . . .

Might as well get double duty, right?

[Ivob]

I'm of the same opinion that without reverb the sound of an acoustic guitar sounds quite 'raw' when listening to a guitar not live. It would have to be a very professional mic and all the other recording stuff to say that reverb is useless. According to me a slight reverb should be used always, it gives the sound another dimension. And the advice to apply reverb on a raw recording is good...Cubase surely has some native reverb plugin, i don't think it's not sufficient

[Pokiehat]

Originally Posted by redavide

I use a hardware verb (Lexicon PCM70) because it sounds great for recording AND it sounds great for live situations . . .

Might as well get double duty, right?

The simple fact is that DSP based signal processors in this day and age of multi core super CPUs are becoming increasingly redundant and DSP farms are basically glorified dongles. Lexicon PCM Native basically proves that since it sounds as good as if not better than a PCM 96 (which at 3 grand costs twice as much) and its remarkably CPU efficient. It allows for as many instances as you can squeeze out of your CPU which means that if you have a fast enough computer, you don't need multiple PCM 96s. If you have already integrated a computer into your live setup then its not a difficult choice.

Now all we need is for Eventide to cave and make a native plugin version of the H3000. Soundtoys are already doing harmonizer/H3000 'inspired' plugins. Makes you wonder why Eventide are letting this sector of the market slip by but high cost software for professional use has always been pirate-able as all hell...

[pathdo]

I was looking for something different and built my own plate reverb unit.
The plate measure approx. 36x60 inches and is suspended in a wooden frame made out of 2x6's. I used a Vidsonix audio tactile transducer (VX-6H72) to stimulate the plate and a simple contact pickup to pull the sound back out of the plate. The signal is then sent to a mixer for EQ and then sent back into my DAW.

Pic
http://home.swbell.net/hebert11/plate_reverb_pic.jpg
In the pic the lid isn't mounted yet and was simply leaning up against the wall mounted plate reverb unit. Its been up and running for about 2 years and get used primarily for vocals.

To hear the plate go to
http://www.vinecrestaudio.com/downloads/
and click on one of the platereverb demos.

I have a vocal and drum demo, I'll post an acoustic demo soon.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Pokiehat

Lexicon PCM Native basically proves that since it sounds as good as if not better than a PCM 96 (which at 3 grand costs twice as much) and its remarkably CPU efficient.

Haven't yet heard the Lexicon plug-in. That said and until I hear this up close and personal, I remain Biblically skeptical

[rick-slo]

Nice job on the plate pathdo and thanks for the clips (nice job on those also).

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Haven't yet heard the Lexicon plug-in. That said and until I hear this up close and personal, I remain Biblically skeptical

I did the 10 day demo on the The Lexicon Native Reverb and it does sound quite nice. Warmth and very clean tails. I can't compare it to the hardware versions
it emulates though since I have not used those in my system. However the ease of use as a VST and the mulitple instances you can use of it are big pluses
compared to hardward.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

I did the 10 day demo on the The Lexicon Native Reverb and it does sound quite nice. Warmth and very clean tails. I can't compare it to the hardware versions
it emulates though since I have not used those in my system. However the ease of use as a VST and the mulitple instances you can use of it are big pluses
compared to hardward.

Hey ric,

You know it's never the tails that I listen to although I know that seems to be the standard test bench mark for reverbs

The test for me is how the reverb "appears" in the mix. I always reference James Taylor's Hourglass for examples of stunning reverbs. Sometimes in that mix the reverbs are VERY heavy but don't necessarily appear that way. They're big hall's with LONG pre-delay's and yet sit so wonderfully. Listen to Branford Marsalis soprano sax solo on the song GAIA.

Here to fore any software I've tried just doesn't do that. They "sit" canny and intrusive. Then I gotta scramble to start eq'ing and dialing back and well...compromising.

Not saying the new breed of soft-verbs aren't better as they may well be and of course the ability to use more than one is somewhat of an advantage and certainly keeping the parameters you've found helpful in a folder for instant recall is cool.

I'm gonna try em when I get a chance but until then my M-3000 is still very hard to beat.

[rick-slo]

Tails are probably more noticeable on a single instruments versus a mix. Glad you like the M3000 (TC Electronics?) I am using the Powercore VSS3s though I would like it if they made the VSS4s available. The Lexicon Native really is pretty nice so give the demo a spin.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

The Lexicon Native really is pretty nice so give the demo a spin.

Clearly the BEST software reverb I've ever encountered. Very musical. Great space.

I won't be selling my TC verbs but this is the first time I've ever heard software sound this good.