How come I hear really lush natural reverb recordings in churches and such, but

[mc1]

when I tried to record my guitar in an empty room with tons of reflection it just sounded hissy and awful?

Does the room need to be big? Is it mic placement? Multiple mics?

Are there easy ways to get natural reverb recorded at home?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by mc1

when I tried to record my guitar in an empty room with tons of reflection it just sounded hissy and awful?

Does the room need to be big? Is it mic placement? Multiple mics?

Are there easy ways to get natural reverb recorded at home?

Probably because your home room isn't a cathedral :-) In small rooms, you get EQ issues due to room modes, so that may be the "awful" part. The hissy part seems like noise? In large buildings, you aren't going to get the room modes so much, and you will just get the ambience of the room, which is sometimes wonderful - there are lots of reverbs that try to capture the sound of various churches or other performance spaces. The easiest way to get the sound of one of those spaces (without the rent payment) is to record in a relatively dead, but good-sounding room, and apply a convolution reverb of the space you wish you were playing in.

[TBman]

I'll add reverb as the second to last thing I do in my DAW. Volume level is first on my edit list, noise removal is the second.

Adding reverb to a "dirty" recording makes it worse.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by mc1

when I tried to record my guitar in an empty room with tons of reflection it just sounded hissy and awful?

Does the room need to be big? Is it mic placement? Multiple mics?

Are there easy ways to get natural reverb recorded at home?

The reflecting surfaces, other than the floor, are usually a lot further away so reduced intensity and increased delay and so usually more pleasant and blended.

[mc1]

When church modes meet room modes in a room not a cathedral.

Thanks D, B, R.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by mc1

when I tried to record my guitar in an empty room with tons of reflection it just sounded hissy and awful?

Does the room need to be big?

Yes

Is it mic placement?

Yes

Multiple mics?

Often

Are there easy ways to get natural reverb recorded at home?

Depends on what you mean by "Natural" are you calling those church and such recordings with no processing done in mixing "natural" ?

As far as doing that at home you would have to have pretty large "great room", high ceilings help, irregular shaped walls and ceiling planes helps , , if rectangular it helps if the room dimensions are not in the known problematic ratios, and it has been effectively calculated and treated with both absorption and diffusion, and obviously has some reflective surfaces.

Other than that there are mixing methods and judicious processing that can get you fairly close . One method I prefer is using parallel reverb.

[Brent Hahn]

Having done it a bunch, not every church and/or hall sounds great on its own. I'm pretty sure the only recordings I've ever worked on that didn't get some additional artificial reverb were classical recitals at Avery Fisher and Alice Tully. And that includes the small hall at Carnegie (there are 3).

[mc1]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Depends on what you mean by "Natural" are you calling those church and such recordings with no processing done in mixing "natural" ?

Yes, in this case I meant reverb that was inherent in the environment, and part of the recording, as opposed to added after the fact.

Mainly I was just curious as to why my echoey room recorded so muddy and poorly, when I thought it had potential.

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Having done it a bunch, not every church and/or hall sounds great on its own. I'm pretty sure the only recordings I've ever worked on that didn't get some additional artificial reverb were classical recitals Avery Fisher and Alice Tully. And that includes the small hall at Carnegie (there are 3).

Interesting, thanks.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by mc1

when I tried to record my guitar in an empty room with tons of reflection it just sounded hissy and awful?

Does the room need to be big? Is it mic placement? Multiple mics?

Are there easy ways to get natural reverb recorded at home?

Lots of great information given so far. As an aside, try listening in an purposefully small and highly reflective area. I love sitting on the edge of my tub / shower and playing singing. It's not cathedral, but it is interesting!

Many years ago, not long after the last stretches of interstate were completed, I used to go out to a rest area that had a large open all marble (or granite/) wall construction because it sounded like playing in the Taj Mahal. Loved the sound, but you couldn't do that today as it would be considered loitering. At that time you could get away with simply pulling ot a guitar there.

[stevecuss]

Man, having recorded and mixed some home studio/amateur recordings, I've come to the conclusion that professionals get paid the big money because they are reverb maestros.

And of course, room treatment and mic placement go WAY further than you think when recording at home.

But people who really know reverb - how to eq it, adjust attack and sustain etc, are worth their weight in gold.

[runamuck]

Demo Acustica Audio's Ebony Reverb. It's the best reverb that works well on almost everything that I've heard.

VERY lush and warm without the strident metallic overtones that most digital reverbs have.