Hi
I’m starting to think that many of my rackspaces that sound great through my reference headphones are not quite right for live use. I often use reverb and other effects, but am finding that in a live context through PA, things can sound a little muddy. We have a good quality PA and I’m using a whole range of all the latest top quality plugins. Would be keen to hear what effects others who play keyboards live use, and what they avoid. What helps to cut through and maintain clarity?
Thanks.
Actually I am going through the opposite process. I had never used any reverb. Now I am starting to add a bit.
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You have to account for the natural reverberance of the room you’re projecting sound into. My rule of thumb for adding reverb for live applications is to get it sounding the way you like in your reference headphones, then slightly dial back A) how much is being added to the mix and B) the length of the tail. Obviously there are some other parameters that can be addressed (early vs. late etc), but minding those two basic parameters will get you most of the way to where you want it to be without much difficulty.
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So following on from that, and given that some venues will be more reverberant than others (e.g. hall vs local pub), I suppose I could put a reverb and or delay into the Global Rackspace and have that as a quick dial up/down option for all songs.
One other thing I read about last night is side-chaining the reverb with a noise gate. I don’t really know how this works or where I would get a noise gate from.
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Guitarist here. For my live rig(s) I generally have some small-space reverbs on some of my amps, to get that sound of an amp in a small room (hmm), and then some special effects reverbs like shimmers and so on, for particular sounds and effects. But for overall “space,” which if I use it is the last effect in my effects chain other than maybe an overall eq and compressor/limiter, I have a global reverb level control so that I can tune it to the space - it’s also important to remember that the natural reverb in most venues except huge or tiny ones can change dramatically if you’re lucky enough to get some bodies in there to soak up the sound! Another reason to have a global control, although you can’t really tell on stage what’s going on in the audience sound-wise…
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YES TO SIDECHAINING REVERB!
As musicians, we lean to use reverb by turning a knob on the amp. Mix engineers have additional tricks. Some need automation that might be impractical live, but others, like sidechaining, are set-and-forget.
The idea is that when you sing or play, the original signal comes through, so it isn’t muddy, but during the gaps, the reverb fills things in, so the sound doesn’t feel exposed. You can also add echo, which is muted during a phrase, but comes in when the phrase is completed.
First, set up you reverb/chorus/echo 100% wet. Feed it into the main input of your compressor. Feed your dry instrument into the secondary (sidechain) input of the compressor. Not all compressor plugins have sidechain input. Look for those with four (two stereo) inputs. The SSL G-Master Buss Compressor from Waves is one example. You don’t need anything exotic, but it must have the second stereo input.
The output of the compressor will just be the effect. Combine/mix this output with the dry signal for the final result.
To set up the compressor, set the ratio high, like 20:1 so your main signal comes through clean, set the attack to its minimum, so the main signal takes over immediately. Set the release to a middle setting to start. (On the Waves SSL, I set the mix to 100%, the trim to 0, and RATE-S to minimum.) Now let’s tune it…
Start with the Threshold at its max. Start playing. The reverb will come through normally, as if there is no compressor. Adjust the level of the reverb, or the compressor output gain (MAKE-UP on the SSL) until the reverb sounds strong, but not ridiculous. Now start turning down the threshold. At some point, the signal will come through with just a hint of reverb, but with a strong tail. Now fine tune the reverb or compressor gain until the reverb tail is at the desired level. The last step is to adjust the release of the compressor. If the release is too fast, it can sound like the reverb switches on quickly. If it’s too slow, there will be a gap between the end of a phrase and the reverb. Adjust the release until the transition sounds natural and isn’t really noticeable.
When using this on a single instrument, you can go wild with the effect and the reverb gain in order to make a strong statement. For instance, you might play a line, and have it followed by a really strong echo as a special effect. For vocals, you might enable this only on specific lines or words. On the other hand, if you use this on a final output or on an effects buss with many instruments, go gentle with the gain so it fills things in, but is subtle.
This is an amazingly effective technique for keeping instruments and the mix punchy and clean, but also providing strong effects and a full sound. You can add way more reverb this way before getting into muddy wash territory.
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Hi Tony, thank you for your advice. I have just spent quite a while disabling most of the echo and reverb effects in my rackspaces and replaced them with your global reverb level control suggestion. I think this is going to work really well, allowing me to adjust to different venues on the fly. Will try it out at my next gig.
Hi Jon
Thank you for your very detailed reply and instructions. I have started to play around with this sidechaining idea, and from my initial impressions this is going to be really useful. I actually discovered that my Valhalla Delay plugin (which can also do reverb) has ducking - so can produce a similar effect to what you described. Following that I tried out a compressor called TDR Nova with Valhalla Vintage Reverb - this is more complicated and will take me a while to get to grips with, but I’ll keep experimenting. It would be much easier if I had the Waves plugin you mentioned but I’m not using Waves anymore after a couple of bad customer experiences with their licensing model and performance issues with GP startup (not GP’s fault!). But I’m now a convert as I think this clever application of auto-leveling will really help to improve the clarity of our live sound. Thanks again.
I’m glad that was helpful. And yes, there’s no need to use the Waves SSL compressor. Unlike a mic compressor, where the character can really change the sound, this is more of a functional compressor that gets the job done. Almost anything with attack, release, ratio, and threshold will do the job.
Rather than put this on the whole output, I’ve got separate signals for vocals, guitar, bass, keys, kick, snare, kit, and “other”. I route these to a reverb buss mixer and run it to the reverb and light echo and into the compressor. The sidechain gets my overall mix. The reverb buss mixer lets me keep the bass and kick relatively dry and put a bit more on vocals, guitar, and snare.
Other sidechain tricks include the kick cutting a hole in the bass, the snare cutting a hole in the kit, and the lead vocals cutting a hole in the whole mix. A raucous band in a really loud venue might not need this, nor might a jazz group with great touch, but if you want to play loud music in a small space (or make a recording for speakers with limited dynamics), these are great techniques.
In this case, rather than a compressor, try Track Spacer. Rather than compressing the whole signal, it just compresses the frequencies where the signals are in conflict. It’s potentially more subtle than using a compressor.
For reverb ducking, you want the whole reverb to get out of the way of the main signal, so the compressor is the right tool. But if you’re mixing voice and piano, you don’t want to turn down the whole piano during singing, you just need the mid frequencies to get out of the way.
I love that Gig Performer lets us approach live mixing much like mixing and mastering recordings. Automatic tricks like these can help the music almost mix itself.
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