With all the power of a modern DAW and arsenal of plugins we might have access to most of what a pro studio has at our disposal in a project studio. Models of outboard, preamps, microphones, even mixing environments. The skill and experience of the studio staff is of course the most significant benefit on offer at a reputable studio but something else is the quality of the spaces in which the recordings happen. We all have good quality reverb available to us but it’s not the same as the vibe of the sound of a great band being recorded in a great sounding, real space.

In this free extract from "Vance Powell Mixing "Tennessee Whiskey" By Chris Stapleton," Vance Powell demonstrates how he uses the space in which his recording was made, in this case Studio A at RCA (having a room like that undeniably really helps!) as a reverb chamber to capture even more of the sound of the room as he felt he’d have liked more of the room sound than was captured on the original recording.

Isn’t This Just Using Reverb?

Yes and no. There are a couple of important points which set this approach apart from just dialling in a reverb from a bunch of sends. By sending the track out through speakers in the tracking space in which the original recording was made and capturing the results via microphones, Vance is trying to reinforce the sound of a band playing together in the space as naturally as possible. Because of this it’s important to make sure everything goes to the room, not something which would necessarily happen when using artificial reverberation. For example the kick and bass can’t be left dry if they are to be presented as part of the ensemble, though you can of course cheat those levels to keep things tidy, there’s no need to sacrifice fidelity for the sake of authenticity!

A great way to start if you’re a Pro Tools user is to use the Copy to Send feature. Create a send on every track, for submixed tracks choose whether to send from the source tracks or the submix but not both, and hit Command+Option+H to copy the current value (or automation) of the main fader levels to the sends. From there you can tweak as necessary but if you route this send to your “room” you’ll have a good representation of the performance ready for reverb.

What To Use As A Room?

If you have access to a real space this is a technique you really should try. It’s great fun. In the, fairly likely, eventuality that you don’t have easy access to a world class tracking space, a good quality convolution reverb and a suitable impulse response should be your first port of call. Some ready made solutions also exist, for example if you are a UAD user try out the Ocean Way plugin.

See how Vance upped his room sound in the video extract below and click the button to visit the PureMix blog where you can read in more detail how to approach doing the same on your mixes.

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