what F/X for live vocals

[ce24]

OK what do all of you that gig do for your vocals....we use a bit of reverb. I use to use a short delay...I know not a lot of difference there but some. I don't have compression. just looking for a little opinion


Cheers
ce24

[smsuryan]

sounds like you got it brother...keep a bottle of H2O close by for inbetween tunes or whenever you need it, and some light herbal tea in the greenroom or where ever you take a break to soothe your throat...and of course when i wanna do an encore and its the last tune, shoot a shot of the most rot gut, nasty, potent whiskey you have handy, and down a cup of hot strong coffee....then get up there and play that blues tune they didnt think you could sing.

[woodman]

a touch of reverb to make the vocals float is all i ever use. when i was doing a lot of rockabilly, i used to use slapback echo, but it sounded too weird when talking over the mike between songs. IMO, effects should never call attention to themselves — keep it simple and concentrate on the performance, not the gear.

studio work's a whole nother thing, though.

[Tim Bowen]

I've always used effects sparingly or not at all for live vocals. With my duo, I use a touch of reverb for my voice, and my partner's voice is bone-dry, or at least has been up to this point*.

We use a Mackie 808S powered mixer which has DSP presets (which we've ignored for the most part, other than for the tiny amount of reverb on my voice). We decided that it would be cool to have some slapback on his voice* for a few tunes - "Matchbox", our little Elvisbilly set of "Mystery Train" and "That's All Right", and possibly some of the honky tonk numbers such as Johnny Paycheck's "Eleven Months and Twenty Nine Days".

Unfortunately, the Mackie doesn't have have a slapback patch (shame, bad call!), so I'm going to try something new for tomorrow night's show. I'm going to bring along one of my spare analog delays, a Maxon AD-80, and insert it into my partner's vocal channel with a 'send and return' Y cable. As woodman said, the last thing you want to deal with is an "effected" signal for between-song banter with your room, as nothing is more hokey and goofy. Hence, the footswitch stomp-ability of the pedal.

Effects on vocals in full band situations should be FOH mains only, in my opinion. Effects sends to onstage monitors can cause no end of problems; definitely more trouble than it's worth, in my experience.

[studio1087]

A touch of Reverb and a touch of medium delay. Goes a long way filling things out.

[Dave_O]

Originally Posted by Tim Bowen

I've always used effects sparingly or not at all for live vocals. With my duo, I use a touch of reverb for my voice, and my partner's voice is bone-dry, or at least has been up to this point*.

We use a Mackie 808S powered mixer which has DSP presets (which we've ignored for the most part, other than for the tiny amount of reverb on my voice). We decided that it would be cool to have some slapback on his voice* for a few tunes - "Matchbox", our little Elvisbilly set of "Mystery Train" and "That's All Right", and possibly some of the honky tonk numbers such as Johnny Paycheck's "Eleven Months and Twenty Nine Days".

Unfortunately, the Mackie doesn't have have a slapback patch (shame, bad call!), so I'm going to try something new for tomorrow night's show. I'm going to bring along one of my spare analog delays, a Maxon AD-80, and insert it into my partner's vocal channel with a 'send and return' Y cable. As woodman said, the last thing you want to deal with is an "effected" signal for between-song banter with your room, as nothing is more hokey and goofy. Hence, the footswitch stomp-ability of the pedal.

Effects on vocals in full band situations should be FOH mains only, in my opinion. Effects sends to onstage monitors can cause no end of problems; definitely more trouble than it's worth, in my experience.

Great idea, Tim. I think along the same lines, especially in a drive-it-yourself PA. Just a touch of 'verb, and not much else.

[ce24]

Thanks for the replies guys....it's comforting to know I'm in the same ballpark on some of this detail stuff.

Cheers
ce24