Reducing printed reverb?

[Skinny Viking]

Out of curiousity, anyone ever try to remove / reduce the sound of reverb on instruments/vocals that had been printed or tracked with the sound already?

Basically, if I was given tracks to mix and retracking was not an option ... lets say I have some vocals that had some verb printed on them and I wanted to dry them up a bit. Any way of doing this or is it stuck like that? I tried messing around with some EQs and stuff as part of an experiment and it seemed to work to a very small degree but just wondering if anyone has ever tried messing with this kind of thing.

 

[Torniojaws]

A gate would probably give the "best" results, but there will still be audible reverb during the main sound. But you can cut off the tails with a gate. Maybe also try to EQ out the reverb a bit during the vocal parts, with the gate.

 

[Zack Uidl]

The best result that I had were with a gate, EQ and automation to help remove the tail of the reverb more

Sucked though because I was mixing the vox to remove verb/delay as well as sound good in the mix.

 

[John_C]

perhaps using the same verb again with reverse phase would help?
ofc it wouldn't solve completely as there would be the verb of the verb left over so to speak.

Works in theory but almost certainly not in practice, give it a go if you can though

 

[Skinny Viking]

A gate would probably give the "best" results, but there will still be audible reverb during the main sound. But you can cut off the tails with a gate. Maybe also try to EQ out the reverb a bit during the vocal parts, with the gate.

Yeah so far that has been the thing I was having the most problem reducing. Reverb tails I can just chop, etc ... but if its a noticeable verb sound while a vocal or guitar part is happeneing thats where EQ only has a small benefit that I can hear.

perhaps using the same verb again with reverse phase would help?
ofc it wouldn't solve completely as there would be the verb of the verb left over so to speak.

Works in theory but almost certainly not in practice, give it a go if you can though

Thats a pretty cool thought ... wouldn't hurt to try as long as it doesn't diminish the actual vocal or instrument sound. Like Zack said, it could be a pain in the ass if its an important part that needs to also sound good in the mix.

EDIT: Actually on 2nd thought, that would only work (I guess) if I did that with an exact same reverb setting wouldn't it? I mean, even if I was handed vocal tracks that someone used like D-verb on, I would need to know the exact settings they used or would it not really matter?

 

[AdamWathan]

EDIT: Actually on 2nd thought, that would only work (I guess) if I did that with an exact same reverb setting wouldn't it? I mean, even if I was handed vocal tracks that someone used like D-verb on, I would need to know the exact settings they used or would it not really matter?

And you would need to be applying it to the dry track and running the verb in reverse phase to the printed track... I don't think this will help at all when adding verb to the already verb'd track since you are reverberating a totally different source sound now.

 

[Zack Uidl]

^my thoughts exactly

 

[Skinny Viking]

so then basically it comes down to creative EQing and chopping tails off or gating them. Thats pretty much what I figured. Thanks for the input guys!

 

[John_C]

yeah my idea doesn't work, i just tried. Makes some cool shimering effects and cuts the immediate high end of the verb but not really any use for you i'd imagine