[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by KevWind

But lets back up a bit and look at this whole reverb while tracking perspective

Perhaps Consider an alternate perspective .............Perhaps you have only convinced your self you "need " reverb while tracking ?????????????????????
Because ----------------------------
Almost everybody is not particularly infatuated with their own raw voice mic'ed.
In fact I would suggest most people do not really like their voice when the first hear it mic'd RAW (especially recorded raw) .... And so the use of reverb is often used as a substitute for developing exactly what you are talking about,,,,, gettin "deeper" into the emotion of the song, and working on attack, sustain etc. You can in fact absolutely do all that sans reverb while tracking and I would suggest perhaps even more so, and better ? If you can do that with the raw vocal then adding reverb when mixing becomes very easy and quick ,,,,, such that when you do go to mix and add reverb you may well get a better result (maybe) ??????????

Consider Historically
Back in the day from the 50's crooners, to the 60' Folk legends and Rock stars
thru the 70's and 80's they all came from the same paradigm . They almost started as live acts and went through the crucible of a lot of live performance in small venues often with poor PA systems and no reverb effects (other than the room they were in). ..................................
What this did for them was allow them to really hear their unprocessed raw vocal and develop exactly the things you say reverb helps you with .

As so very usual, you offer some very wise advice and great considerations.

And I would say on the whole, I agree with you. We must always strive to perfect our craft in the raw form in order to better the final outcome.

However there is another side to the story. From my experience in so many different professions, I have found that there is no one right method that works for everyone. Style and objective often determines the correct method for the individual. This is true not only with musicians, but with every other physical sport I have been involved with.

I use to write articles for Traditional Archery magazines since I have been involved in this since the mid sixties. I have known many national and world champions. Each of them has certain specific things that worked for them. Things that they had to do in order to win. Things that they only would do & did not fit into the Norm category. On the other hand, the norm has certainly worked for many.

Musically speaking, it is often the musician who breaks the rules and invents something totally new that I often prefer.

I often marvel at the level of professionalism from many 40's & 50's musicians. No multi tracks in which to record a vocal many times and then splice the best parts together. They were true musicians no doubt.

But I say, Reverb & Delay--effects in general, lead to a whole new style of music. Not just the inspiration, but using reverb, delay or effects to become part of the instrument itself. One small example might be used with Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game". The Guitar uses Tremelo bar, reverb & delay I believe? I can not imagine the guitarist writing that haunting guitar melody without the use of those effects. He needed to hear those delays, use the tremelo bar in order to write in that style and manner. The song is ever so beautiful and reached legendary status. But would it have without that haunting tremelo, reverb, delayed guitar addition?

I rarely put up the microphone and record. Thus 99% of the time I am playing and singing dry with only very minimal room acoustics. I have no problem singing without reverb. Nor do I have any problems playing guitar live without compression.

But I find that while recording...it is a different story. For my wild acoustic guitar playing....tracking without compression does not sound normal. Compression makes it sound like I hear with my own ears when playing live uncompressed. I have many theories on why this is. And in truth..I am barely compressing. Regardless...it is the only thing that sounds natural to me.

So yes, Reverb is about inspiration. But it is much more than that. It can tell you about how sustaining a note might effect the overall sound. Thus I might taper the sustain every so slightly. Reverb in some instances, becomes part of the instrument.