getting the reverb on a vocal just right

[leighbeynon]

when you hear verb on a mastered track it sounds quite subtle but also very important,
im struggling to get that nice balance of a subtle reverb for vocals but without over doing it,
i know you can back off the wet dry but some tutorials would be great tried looking on youtube and found nothing but the reverse reverb effect

any tips? this is for house music so vocal needs to be powerful rather than dubby or atmopheric but of course not dry

[Samaritan Sound]

Play around with damping vs. decay/room size and pre-delay.

[Vios]

It also could be the reverb itself doesn't match well with the vocal track. You can play with the settings of the reverb, but I would recommend trying out a few other reverbs to see what will give you the best sound. I think a good music producer should have 3-4 reverbs they're comfortable using. My favorite is Omniverb, which is free! Google it. It also could be something else that's wrong and the reverb is just the "symptom". Maybe the vocal isn't recorded well or needs EQ or doesn't fit well with the rest of the track. Couldn't tell you without hearing the track.

[k-toh]

Another thing you can add, again in a subtle manner, is some panned delay, just a few ms panned either side will give it some presence

[Angstrom]

Yep, a lot of people use just Early Reflections to create a space for the lead vocal to be in. Sometimes full reverb can cloud up your mix too much. Depends on the genre, eg: a pop radio mix favours very tight clear vocals that sit right up front.

[yur2die4]

Hate to sound insane but a method I enjoy is throwing a reverb up, mangling the settings, and then working With that, adjusting wet/dry (usually 100% wet, so instead adjusting send amount), and then adding Other fx to compensate for the messed up reverb. Sometimes even a second reverb haha (that one can use wet/dry since I might want part of the original verb coming through).

But no, this is bad advice in application, yet good for learning your options (being willing to think outside the reverb itself)

[leighbeynon]

cool yeah early reflections sounds good, Yur2die4 Woohhh ha ha that is crazy but you could learn from this method !