Live Effects...what are your "go to" tricks?

[clicktrack]

This crossed my mind out of a conversation I had yesterday.

I've been doing a lot of live-to-tape stuff of late and, without realizing it, I've been in the habit of automatically setting up some basic effects to sweeten things.

For example, I have a mono delay set up on lead voxes that I temp o match to the song. These faders get ridden in and out to taste. My snares have a reverse gate slapped on and added just below the threshold where you can notice it. I have 2 or 3 styles of reverbs on the ready for lead voxes.

I have a few other things that I seem to always go to. Of course, these tend to be tempered with the style and mood of the music, but 90% of the time, they are always there...set up at the ready.

What other tricks do you guys and girls keep in your bag of tricks that become your "defaults"?

[ggunn]

This crossed my mind out of a conversation I had yesterday.

I've been doing a lot of live-to-tape stuff of late and, without realizing it, I've been in the habit of automatically setting up some basic effects to sweeten things.

For example, I have a mono delay set up on lead voxes that I temp o match to the song. These faders get ridden in and out to taste. My snares have a reverse gate slapped on and added just below the threshold where you can notice it. I have 2 or 3 styles of reverbs on the ready for lead voxes.

I have a few other things that I seem to always go to. Of course, these tend to be tempered with the style and mood of the music, but 90% of the time, they are always there...set up at the ready.

What other tricks do you guys and girls keep in your bag of tricks that become your "defaults"?

Nothing to add, but 10-4 on the delay time adjusted to the tempo of the song.

[bunnerabb]

A couple of Lexi's with tap delay. (yes, tempo adjusted slap and echo are the one true way), one has a reverb that I can tempo adjust the tail on and I dial it in to the snare hits. Works dandy.

The band in today covers "Video Killed the Radio Star" and you best believe I got that reverb patch - for the female vocal on the breakdown - sorted.

Tempo taps are also good for stuff like Linkin Park's "Break" ( and I'm about to break, break, break, break... )

I mix a lot of cover bands and I try to get as close to the record's signature effects as I can.

[clicktrack]

Tempo taps are also good for stuff like Linkin Park's "Break" ( and I'm about to break, break, break, break... )

I mix a lot of cover bands and I try to get as close to the record's signature effects as I can.


Thats exactly the kind of thing I like doing as well...even if I don't know the tune, I work a feeling and ride the delay in as my gut feel suggests...most of the time it works out well. When people listen back and say "wow...I didn't expect such a "production" on these live tracks"...I am very happy :)

[Barska]

I run delay to my vocverb which is usually some 1.x secs and very much high-end rolled off. very short room for BOTH snare top and bottom - Yamaha's R500 perc plate is great to start with. I do some gigs for a dub/reggae/jazz band and they give me free hands so lots of double machine delay stuff and feedbacking on one DLY mahine. If i come to your desk you better get those return to something with an AUX-knob :D

But I don't really have anything special in my bag that I'd do allways...:Confused:

[Dr. Bob]

H3000 D/SE - Chorus - I'll take gats and push em' left channel, keys to right channel. Mix em' just under everything to fatten the whole mix.

PCM91 - Brick Kik - My goto for rock drums

PCM80 - Good ol' Plate - Automatic no brainer for whatever, but especially drums.

H3000 - Warm Hall - Vox verb, I'll tail it off pretty short... like .8

Rev 7 - Med Hall - Gats

SDE1000 - 10mS, 118mS, 225mS, 300mS - Utility delays for vox, unless I can get a D-Two tap

[burnsy]

alesis quadraverb on warehouse verb on standard settings back to my channel strip , bit of eq and whack it out when needed and off for speech. The scale of the gigs im doing at mo dont really need it as people just see it as that irratable echo.

[Mr. dB]

Nothing to add, but 10-4 on the delay time adjusted to the tempo of the song.

Same here, it's a habit I can't break.

Otherwise, it's usually a fairly generic plate on snare and toms. If there's enough auxes and outboard to do it, I'll set up similar but separate verbs for the snare and for the toms, same setting but with longer time on the toms, maybe a little more pre-delay on the snare.

I never, ever dial up a chorus unless I'm specifically asked for one, and then I'll whine and moan before giving in. I haven't wanted to hear a reverse gate ever since Phil Collins wore it out in the '80s. I usually let guitarists handle their own effects, about the most I'll add to an instrument channel is a little "small room" or "early reflection" type verb.

[clicktrack]

I never, ever dial up a chorus unless I'm specifically asked for one, and then I'll whine and moan before giving in.

Choruses are nice to thicken up things, but I find I rarely use them in live purposes. I probably would if I was doing a band or singer repeatedly, but since most of the time I only have the one chance to mix the group, its not something I would pull in.

[Dr. Bob]

I will specify that I dial in a chorus when it's old school rock, and certain types of country/rockabilly. (Which are generally what I do most) And even then, most of the time it's only on those songs that really use or need it.

I'm not inclined to put it up front, but just barely underneath... more sense than hear kind of level. Not to tweak my own horn, but more often than not, I'm complimented on my mixes. So, my guess is that I'm not over doing it... which over done FX is all too common I s'pose.

The question was what are my go to's... those are them, but they aren't what I always stick with. I've done plenty of shows with just a vox plate or a tap delay.

Not being a smartass here, just stating the obvious I guess... but you gotta use your ears and your head. Don't over process... especially for the genre's and acoustic space you're mixing (in).... right?

[ggunn]

I never, ever dial up a chorus unless I'm specifically asked for one, and then I'll whine and moan before giving in.
For one group I was FOH guy for, I used to run the lead guitarist through a deep stereo chorus hard panned during his solos. He used to nearly fall off the front of the bandstand trying to get downstage far enough to hear the mains when I did that.

[G. Hoffman]

You know, whenever I'm mixing anything, live or in the "studio" (as I like to call my bedroom), I miss the real live honest to goodness plates in the Berklee Studios. I miss those things far more than the consoles, the mics, or anything else there (way more than the rooms, which I remember as being crap). The digital plates just don't sound as good. One of these days I'm gonna have to learn to weld and make myself a real plate.

I use a lot of plate reverbs, and then will set up a short delay or two feeding the reverb so I can send everything to the same reverb (cause I like it to sound like it's all in the same room, cause, you know, it IS), but with different pre-delays. It's all the same reverb, but it's all got it's own space. I like that.

Not much of a trick, but there you go.


Gabriel

[Shotgun]

Speaking of cover-song-specific F/X, there's a 4-voice pitch-shift patch on the Quadraverb GT (or maybe just original Q-verb) that is really really fan-fucking-tastic to lay heavy on guitar if there's a band that covers the Cars' "Let's Go" without a keyboard player. It's useful anytime turning a guitar into a synth is appropriate (which is more often than you think after you hear it).

I would always use two main vocal effects back into channels, one a verb the other a short delay that I could twist a knob for delay time and feedback. Tap it if I had to, but I prefer knobs for whatever reason. With the two separate and on separate boxes I can go a, b or a + b and tweak on the fly.

A main go-to trick for me, though, is one that's not necessarily an effect per se. And that is to use F/X units that you can pre-call a new effect and engage it at the touch of a button, rather than having to dial through lots of presets to get from setting "4" to setting "12". For example, the Quadraverb2. You could be holding a basic hall verb on the verse of a song, dial the wheel over to a plate w/slapback program you customized yourself and as soon as the chorus hits (well, actually on the "uh" of 4 before it) punch the button and be filling the chorus up with delays and wash. Then dial the wheel back to the original setting and at the appropriate microbeat before the verse, punch it again. That way you get ALOT of use out of one or two F/X boxes. Of course, it means you have to know your gear well, where the patches are, what they sound like and you have to be on your toes mixing. But I really like the style of mixing where you're kinda playing your gear like an instrument rather than sitting behind the desk in your fingerless gloves and fanny pack with your arms crossed and a sour look on your face wondering where your hemorrhoid cream is.

~S

[Tim Halligan]

But I really like the style of mixing where you're kinda playing your gear like an instrument...

Yep...I'm right with you so far...


...rather than sitting behind the desk in your fingerless gloves and fanny pack with your arms crossed and a sour look on your face wondering where your hemorrhoid cream is.


Ya had me...then ya lost me.

TMI.


Way TMI.


Cheers,
Tim

[Droolbucket]

I like to get drunk and fall backwards over my guitar amp so the reverb pan crashes.










Where IS my hemorrhoid cream, anyway?

Droolbucket

[otek]

Speaking of cover-song-specific F/X, there's a 4-voice pitch-shift patch on the Quadraverb GT.... It's useful anytime turning a guitar into a synth is appropriate.

I am guessing it works well for anything Steve Lukather ca. 1986-88, too, as well as anything by Missing Persons (Warren Cucurullo).

:D

[Shotgun]

I am guessing it works well for anything Steve Lukather ca. 1986-88, too, as well as anything by Missing Persons (Warren Cucurullo).

:D


What you do with your Lukather on your own time is your own business.


~S