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Gear / Technical Help => Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity => Topic started by: WiFiJeff on January 03, 2020, 09:49:03 AM
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Two weeks ago I was recording in the smallish hall where I usually record piano or chamber music recitals, but instead of a piano or string quartet the program was Bach cantatas with twelve vocalists and over twenty instrumentalists including three valveless trumpets and a kettle drum. The group had performed the program the two previous nights in a large church so they just walked in, set up, and played, no rehearsal or sound check. I was using a Zoom F6 so I had peace of mind that I wasn't going to have a problem with levels. HOWEVER...
The sound in the church had been, as one friend put it, of "genuine majesty." My setup in the hall was a Josephson C700S with a pair of Schoeps MK22s in DIN (not used in my mix but archived). The sound is way too dry and boxy, but (typical of the C700S) absolutely directionally precise. Everything was in the right place. But it was not a satisfactory recording. I decided to try a little reverb, picking up the free Freezechamber plug-in and playing around with some of the presets. I was able to improve things overall, but losing the boxy sound seems also to degrade the nice directional honesty of the recording. I have no experience with using reverb plug-ins, in case that's not obvious.
Does anyone have any recommendations on a favorite reverb plug-in and presets or settings to turn a dry but accurate recording into something that sounds like a church, without exaggerated reverb and keeping all the sounds in the correct locations? Any how-to manuals on this?
Jeff
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I've no recs on what verb to use, but try playing around with the pre-delay setting to help retain good imaging and initial transient clarity while developing a sufficiently large hall lushness tail trailing it.
I suspect the boxiness will be harder to correct than the dryness. If it is from early reflections in the smallish room, they are likely to be in a similar temporal relationship as what a good setting of pre-delay seeks to avoid. Some EQ before the 'verb may help a bit.
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I used Ambience plugin before getting Ozone. It has a bunch of settings for some serious tweaking, which I never delved into - and it's free.
https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/17-Reverb/426-Ambience (https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/17-Reverb/426-Ambience)
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I have used the Waves RVerb plug in to wet up a few very dry onstage instrumental recordings.
It's full featured and configurable with pre-delay, diffusion and wet/dry mix controls but the presets have always worked out for me.