Adding realtime light reverb when recording tracks?

wgbeatty wrote on 7/14/2003, 6:27 PM
Hey all-
I've been trying to figure out how to add a little reverb while recording a vocal track - don't want the reverb printed on the track, but just to add a little to the realtime recording. Is this possible? I know about the Input Monitor on each track, but using this gives me a weird delay-type sound while singing - almost like being in a glass jar or something. It seems to only be a millisecond or less delay, but prevents me from using the Input Monitor on tracks.

Any thoughts? Is what I'm asking about possible?

Thanks- Warren

Comments

PeterVred wrote on 7/15/2003, 4:16 PM
I have mentioned that "robotic" sounding input monitor in forums before...no one ever commented on it, glad i'm not the only person with that totally hideous sound. Input monitor was one reason i bought Vegas 4.0...and it is useless.

Anyway, I always monitor vocals with some reverb.
This verb does not get printed to tape, but is only in the mixer loop.
You ARE using a mixer are you not? And you can record multitrack with your sound card?
You should be able to take the vocal signal from a direct out of the XLR strip on the mixer, and run the verb thru the L/R mix to monitor...no verb will be on "tape".

I also liketo print the reverb, if i like it, to another track in vegas, in stereo.
If it still works withthe mix later on, i will use it.
Pete
bgc wrote on 7/15/2003, 4:43 PM
Input monitor WILL give you funky/nasty choppy problems if you use plug-ins that aren't "in-place" plug-ins. What I mean by "in-place" is that some plug-ins don't give the same number of output sample for the number of input samples.
Given that, I've tried input monitoring with the Sonic Foundry Express Reverb and the Timeworks 4080L reverbs and they work fine.
bgc
wgbeatty wrote on 7/15/2003, 10:16 PM
Yeah - robotic is a good way of putting it!

I am using a mixer (Yamaha MX12/4), and I'm sure if I play around a little, I can do something similar to what you're doing. The mixer has four buses, and built in effects, so I could use a little of the reverb from there. I'm recording into an Echo MIA MIDI card.

Thanks for your input.

Also BGC - thanks for the thoughts on the plug-ins....never dawned on me there about sample rates, etc. I was trying to use the standard Reverb plug-in thats included with Vegas. I did however notice that even without trying to use effects, when I enabled the Input Monitor I still heard that "robotic" type sound.

Warren
pwppch wrote on 7/16/2003, 6:51 AM
Are you using ASIO drivers? If so, what is the sample frame size you are using?

While it will be argued that even a 1-2 ms of input latency can be heard/felt, this is the nature of the software input monitoring beast. This is also the only way to monitor with software based FX. We understood this when we added input monitoring to Vegas 4.0. Many users find it useful and usable once configured correctly.

Hardware based monitoring is possible using ASIO 2.0 - and the correct driver - and we are looking at this for a future revision of Vegas. However, this will not permit you to process the monitored signal with software based FX.

Peter
wgbeatty wrote on 7/22/2003, 4:56 PM
Peter,

Hope you see this - I'm a bit late on posting a reply.

I am using ASIO Echo WDM drivers with the Echo MIA card. These are their latest 6.08 version drivers. I've got a 2ms / 128 samples setting, and also have a checkbox checked in advanced congiguration : Enable ASIO 2.0 Direct Monitoring (my understanding from what you've said above is that Vegas doesn't support this yet?)

I also have "Automatically detect and offset for hardware recording latency" checked in the audio device properties within Vegas.

Thanks. Warren
pwppch wrote on 7/22/2003, 9:05 PM
What reverb are you using on the track? Any other FX on the track?

128 samples/2 ms is as low as they get (some cards can do 64 samples as well.) If you can hear this 2m delay, then there is nothing much that can be done. This is the nature of the input monitoring beast.

Peter
wgbeatty wrote on 7/23/2003, 10:46 AM
I'm using the standard SF Reverb plugin....just to clarify, the problem isn't a delay after the track is recorded, but a delay type sound when I'm actually trying to monitor while recording. After the track is done, all is great. When I'm recording, I cannot use the Input Monitor - this is what gives me the "robot/mechanical" sound. With Input Monitor off, I can monitor while recording, but I can't add a little reverb to the monitoring.

Warren
pwppch wrote on 7/23/2003, 1:12 PM
>>With Input Monitor off, I can monitor while recording, but I can't add a little reverb to the monitoring.
<
How are you monitoring input when you have Vegas' input monitoring disabled?
PeterVred wrote on 7/26/2003, 1:57 PM
my input monitor sounds robotic even with NO plug ins active.
PeterVred wrote on 7/26/2003, 2:03 PM
I Was using ASIO, with a frame sample of 512...can the high number be causing the robotic sound?

When i used lower sample rates before, i had problems with my ADAT lightpipe inputs getting wacky. I will try it out again.
thanx peter
PeterVred wrote on 7/26/2003, 2:23 PM
OK...tried the 128 setting in layla, and in echo console for the ADAT input.
The robotic sound was greatly reduced!!
However, now i'm getting clicking and popping as other audio tracks start processing data. The cure to the clicking was to MUTE ALL EFX during record.
Which is fine if you don't need the efx during dubbing.
anyway, Sonic, thanx for the help.this is an improvement.
doctorfish wrote on 7/26/2003, 2:29 PM
I've had success with the Sonic Foundry Reverb plugin used for input monitoring. Had my soundcard (Egosys Wamirack 24) set to 128 sample buffer and the vocal sounded fine. I've even routed the output digitally to another input on the soundcard and recorded the effected track with no problems. I've done the same with guitar and Cakewalk's amp sim plugin. Perhaps it could be something in your system.

I'm using Win XP
1 gig ram
1.7 gig cpu

Dave
pwppch wrote on 7/26/2003, 6:12 PM
Which FX are you using?

Peter