Headphone mix and reverb question....

[ClintB]

I've attached a picture so you guys can see how I'm routing things....

I'm doing a headphone mix with direct monitoring. The master out is going to my headphones in my control room and for my vocalist headphones, they are coming out of my headphone bus to outs 5/6 which are my physical outputs on my saffire pr024 going to my hp4 headphone amp.

On my audio track I'm using sends A AND B. A is sending the audio to my headphone bus and B is sending the audio to my reverb. Then on my reverb bus, I'm using send A to send however much reverb she needs to that headphone bus. Also, I have both A and B faders set to pre instead of post.

Now, when my vocalist is singing, i can use the send on the reverb bus to control the amount of reverb she needs in her headphones. That part of it fine. works nicely.

The issue is when I'm monitoring on my headphones in the control room, I'm only hearing the reverb signal. I want to hear the dry and wet signal like whats she's hearing.

Does anyone know how to do this?



https://www.dropbox.com/s/etppzl1l2vqak ... b.png?dl=0

[yur2die4]

If you were interested in hearing 'exactly' what she's hearing, I would turn the A send in the Return B strip all the way up. Then, instead of having her control that knob, have her either control Send B on the vocal input audio channel, or control the volume of the Return B channel.

Edit: oops. I just noticed that you have the main input turned all the way down, and that's probably the problem you were referring to...

Do you have it down so she can hear the original music without hearing herself? I'm confused.

[ClintB]

Do you have it down so she can hear the original music without hearing herself? I'm confused.

so basically, i have the fader turned all the way down for my direct monitoring. So I have to record with the latency, I use direct monitoring to avoid having to mess around buffer size etc...The audio I'm monitoring is coming from my interface first and I'm not monitoring through Ableton which will have some latency with it. This method works like a charm.

So, when if someone is singing and while they're monitoring they decide they need more reverb, I can send them as much or as little as they need. My issue is when I'm monitoring the vocalist through my headphones, I'm only hearing the reverb signal and not the blend of the original vocal with the reverb. I'm just hearing wet signal.

I hope that makes a little more sense....

[yur2die4]

It appears that currently the vocalist would hear both the direct zero latency audio, And their delayed audio coming into the vocal recording channel (Send A is maxed out).

In order for them to hear Just the reverb, you would set Send A to zero on the vocal channel.

Then, I would bring up the volume of the vocal channel, since they won't be able to hear it anyway (it is going to the Master).

Edit:

I think I had it backwards. Now I get that you have the volume -inf vocals and the overall mix going to the Master.

What is the 5/6 for? Is that intended to be heard in your headphone amp? It seems like that is the place where you are routing the vocal channel along with a mix of the track via sends.

[zeropoint]

edited.....need more time to tweak it

[fishmonkey]

if the idea is for the vocalist to only be using direct monitoring, then Send A on the mic channel should not be on at all. you can then have the mic channel fader up and it will only be going to the Master (which i presume is where you are monitoring from).

also, you probably don't want to be sending the Cue Out to the vocalist's foldback as well. i say this as you should always be very careful about what you are routing to a person's cans, as accidentally blasting the talent through their cans is really bad form...

[fishmonkey]

here is another idea for you...

personally i don't really like using the Sends to do submixes (like you are doing for your vocal foldback), as i always prefer to have faders when possible. to me it's much easier to follow what is going on, and to tweak things.

so another alternative is to use a submix bus, by creating shadow channels for all your tracks. i.e. for every track you create a new audio track, which takes its input from the existing track. set the shadow channels to Post FX, with monitor In. you can then group these tracks, and then route the group straight out to the foldback outputs. with this setup, you no longer use Return tracks to create the submix. you can put the reverb channel in the group as well.

with this setup you now have meters, faders, and mute and solo buttons for every foldback channel. if you want to playback a take through the vocalist's cans you no longer need to mess with a send, you can just unmute the foldback vocal channel. to me this is a much more intuitive way of tracking.

if you are familiar with digital mixing desks, this is like having "sends on faders"...