Please post all of these to the actual podcast platforms. (If you are, they're not showing up.) Can't listen to UA-cam in the car without having UA-cam as the displayed app (which means no Waze). Thanks!
You can almost think about pre-delay as "how far away are the walls from the source sound?" So, just imagine you're standing on a stage in a large venue, but you're just a few feet from a vocalist. The vocalist (the source) is close to you, but the walls are far away, so you'd want a longer predelay. Now, imagine the vocalist walked out into the room - they're now getting CLOSER to the walls, and farther from you. So, you'd want a shorter predelay here because there's less distance between them and the wall. Now yes, in real life, there would also be a time delay from their voice to your ears, but in a recording, we don't always want to simulate THAT delay. Instead, we're really just trying to simulate the timing of the source vs. its ambience. So to rephrase: if you want the source to sound close to you, and the walls to sound far away, use a longer predelay. If you want the source to sound FAR from you, then you need a shorter predelay (because it is "closer" to the walls)
So, for example, often we want our lead vocal to sound "closer" to us than our backing vocals. So on your lead vocal, its reverb should maybe have a longer predelay, but on the backing vocals, their reverb should have a shorter predelay. That will make them sound like they're farther back in the room, closer to the walls, but the lead vocal is closer to you, farther from the walls. This is all just one way to look at it. And it won't apply to EVERY mix situation necessarily; the goal is not always to sound "real." We can create whatever environment we want.
I understood also optimal to have the reverb and delay synced to the tempo. Math isn't that hard to do this. Like, a quarter note delay on a BPM of 120 = 500ms. Subtract a little from this, for the predelay you want, to not soften up the initial attack. Or something like that...
Long time listener here. I really appreciate your knowledge, experience, and ability to explain things well. Always a treat! 🙏
Best explanation of depth
This was so good. I will have to listen again. also, your teaching method had me hung on to every word. I did not want you to stop. Well done!
Please post all of these to the actual podcast platforms. (If you are, they're not showing up.) Can't listen to UA-cam in the car without having UA-cam as the displayed app (which means no Waze). Thanks!
Recording Lounge is on all the major platforms. Spotify, Apple/iTunes, Overcast, etc
You can go to my website (recordingloungepodcast.com) for direct subscription links on Spotify / Apple Podcasts.
Could expand the predelay and reverb timing I would like to hear more about getting that right in the mix
You can almost think about pre-delay as "how far away are the walls from the source sound?" So, just imagine you're standing on a stage in a large venue, but you're just a few feet from a vocalist. The vocalist (the source) is close to you, but the walls are far away, so you'd want a longer predelay. Now, imagine the vocalist walked out into the room - they're now getting CLOSER to the walls, and farther from you. So, you'd want a shorter predelay here because there's less distance between them and the wall.
Now yes, in real life, there would also be a time delay from their voice to your ears, but in a recording, we don't always want to simulate THAT delay. Instead, we're really just trying to simulate the timing of the source vs. its ambience.
So to rephrase: if you want the source to sound close to you, and the walls to sound far away, use a longer predelay.
If you want the source to sound FAR from you, then you need a shorter predelay (because it is "closer" to the walls)
So, for example, often we want our lead vocal to sound "closer" to us than our backing vocals. So on your lead vocal, its reverb should maybe have a longer predelay, but on the backing vocals, their reverb should have a shorter predelay. That will make them sound like they're farther back in the room, closer to the walls, but the lead vocal is closer to you, farther from the walls.
This is all just one way to look at it. And it won't apply to EVERY mix situation necessarily; the goal is not always to sound "real." We can create whatever environment we want.
I understood also optimal to have the reverb and delay synced to the tempo. Math isn't that hard to do this. Like, a quarter note delay on a BPM of 120 = 500ms. Subtract a little from this, for the predelay you want, to not soften up the initial attack. Or something like that...