Preferred Effects Routing

[Dr. J]

Hi guys – It seems I am never quite satisfied with my effects. Either the tail of the reverb is too metallic like or the delay is too clumsy in repeats.

For the most part I think they are not bad but I am shooting for a high seemless combination of delay and reverb. Mostly for vocals.

Would anyone like to discuss some settings or more specifically the routing of effects?

Anything….. For example… Pre, Post and the reasoning for the choice… I want us all to really dig into this and help each other.

I am willing to try any setting, routing, combination….etc…

I will go first: Fx 1 is Delay, Fx 2 is Reverb, Fx 3 is doubler, Fx 4 is Snare Verb.

Fx 1 is a delay… Nothing special but the high end rolled off to around 3-4K and high passed to around 300 Hz. Slope around 2 o’clock position..

The FX 1 output is routed to the Reverb Input (Fx2). None of the effects is routed to the Mains… But are routed to Subgroups. From Subgroups routed to L and R main.

I have to be honest here and say I am not sure why I have them routed to Subgroups but it seems like the right thing to do. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong on this. Most likely because of the compressor issue… The compressors DO seem to act on the effects when I think about this. Probably why I did it.

I don’t like dry delay repeats but I do like a smoother sound of delay being fed into the reverb so the delay repeats have verb on them.

My Fx 2 Reverb is probably what I have the most issues with… The metallic high end on it…. 40 ms pre delay, 2.97 sec decay, HF decay is 3.24kHz, LF Cut 352Hz, HF Cut at 3.57kHz.

A parameter on the reverb that is most disturbing is either the Body Difusion or Tail Difusion… It can really sound metallic ( flutter like)…
And of course the Ref Level and Decay Level… Minus -21.3 & – 17.9.

Fx 3 Doubler…. Double track, Wide, delay separation and thickness straight up. No modulation…

Fx4 – stock snare verb.

Well this got a little long… But I am hoping we can collaborate on some settings / theories here to help each other…. Heard some horrible effects last weekend while visiting a club… Ugh!

I mostly mix big 80-90’s rockers now. Believe it or not – they request liberal amounts of effects because that is the way it was recorded back then… Big Splash Snare, Lush Vocals…

Any ideas from you guys would be great!

[airickess]

Compressing reverbs is a studio technique. It can help to hear the longer tails of the reverbs. If you are compressing the reverb subgroup you should play with the compression to see if you can smooth out the reverb tails. You might be hitting it a bit too hard, thus bringing down the level of the reverb’s midrange and bringing up the higher frequencies. Try playing with the attack settings on the compressor.

[GCumbee]

I changed the diffusion on the reverbs for smoother tails. I am sensitive to that having owned done very expensive outboard units. Also I noticed right away when I got a QU that the diffusion was not as good as on the GLD. Default is 12. Change it to 20. I think it’s on the second page in the expert or advanced. Not in front of console. That change helped more than anything besides lowering LP roll offs. Most are just way too high. Not natural sounding.

[Anonymous]

I found the tails of Reverbs a bit …. tiresome as well.
Thanks guys for those tips.
I never really got time to sit and experiment at a show.
Who has the time to do that these days?
The difussion sound like the go to me.
I’kk take a sneak look today in my studio.
Is yours a QU24 or32 desk Dr J?
CHeers

[GCumbee]

A LPF of 352 is nuts. Nuts. Reverb needs some low end to be natural. Ever heard a room that sounded like a tweeter? No wonder you don’t like them.

[dpdan]

I agree with GCumbee, most rooms are muddy nasty boomy places…

GC you meant HPF?

[GCumbee]

Don’t have a console in front of me. I thought it was labeled LPF. Anyway I mean low cut. Reverb needs some low end to be full not thin and puny sounding. Most of the presets come up with too much low cut. You pull up presets on a 480L or most any outboard unit you won’t see that.

[Dr. J]

@ NZDave. Mine is a Qu 32.

[Dr. J]

GCumbee – I will try lowering it down. Thanks for your input.

[Dr. J]

Nearly all the rooms I mix in are concrete or metal. So I high pass and low pass most of the effects. I am currently using the same reverb on vocals and drums. The snare has its own verb.

I may consider swapping out the doubler for a dedicated vocal verb or drum (toms) verb.

[Dr. J]

@airickess – the mix strategy I am using is something that Dave Rat always talks about. Dave mixes for the Chilli Peppers and has a wealth of videos out there on his YouTube channel…

You may already know this…

I am pretty sure he has compression on the subgroups and the effects are also routed to the subgroups.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/MMMmR1u0CFk

[Anonymous]

There was a question there about pre/post sends.

In a live situation you mostly want post sends – so that as you balance vocals their reverb changes as well,myou don’t want to drop a vocal, only to have that vocal at full power in the fx…

However you then have to take the fx out of any “band DCA”, else the reverb gets dca’d twice, once on input and once on return… Changing the balance rather than just the level.

[Dr. J]

Anyone have a preference as to the routing of effects? Especially Delay?

I have found most of the effects on the QU sound ok simply assigned to the mains or even subgroups…

The delay routed to the Main is just too dry…. Cannot get it to smooth out… Very annoying repeats and even annoying with the feedback set to zero. So I have been routing the delay output to the reverb input.

To my ears – it sounds so much smoother…

How is your effects routing?

[engineer]

While we’re on reverbs,
1, can i put a reverb to a mix send, say for instance, adding reverb to a vocal channel for a monitor send ?
2, can i take a channel out of L-R, and send it to reverb/fx for the main L-R ?
3, can i apply reverb to the delay ? ( like Dr J above)
Not currently a Qu owner but finding them as a guest engineer, like the simplicity of this desk.

[Author]

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