Latency when reamping for acoustic reverb?

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honkyjonk
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Latency when reamping for acoustic reverb?

Post by honkyjonk » Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:59 am

I've always sort of wondered about this. When sending a track out to a speaker in a room and then capturing the sound for reverb purposes, does one add a bit of delay to avoid latency? Or by virtue of it being delayed anyway (in a natural space and the distance from mic to speaker/wall etc) is it unnecessary?

I'm using a digital hard disk recorder most of the time (rather than a DAW) so I would have to utilize an analog delay at the board to put the latency off a tiny bit.

I understand the pre delay thing anyway with reverb as a standard practice for purposes of making the dry source more distinct by putting the reverb just off the source a bit, but sometimes I don't want a predelay before the reverb.
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Nick Sevilla
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Post by Nick Sevilla » Thu Apr 07, 2016 12:00 pm

If you are re recording into the same machine,

Just do a quick test to see if the latency is too large for your taste, if any.

Then, move the original audio EARLIER to where that latency is no longer an issue, record your room, and then MOVE BACK the original audio.

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A.David.MacKinnon
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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Thu Apr 07, 2016 1:14 pm

Seems totally unnecessary to me. If I'm re-amping stuff and it's close mic'd I'll sometimes slide the tracks around to sort out any latency based phase issues (provided I'm going to use both the original and re-amped tracks together in the final mix). For room sounds and reverbs I don't bother. The distance between the speaker and the mics is already creating some delay. A few ms more or less doesn't make enough difference for me to think about one way or the other.
People were re-amping room reverb long before the era of digital fuckery and latency. They used to call it an echo chamber.
Last edited by A.David.MacKinnon on Thu Apr 07, 2016 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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A.David.MacKinnon
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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Thu Apr 07, 2016 1:16 pm

Nick Sevilla wrote:
Then, move the original audio EARLIER to where that latency is no longer an issue, record your room, and then MOVE BACK the original audio.
Unless your disk recorder makes this possible the question is moot. A delay by it's name and nature can't do it.

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Post by Rigsby » Fri Apr 08, 2016 11:42 pm

I used to use the warehouse space beneath my studio as an echo chamber for pretty much everything. Never had a latency problem, best verbs I ever had. I mean, try it and see if it sounds wrong to you and adjust for latency if necessary, but I don't think you'll have a problem.
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Post by vvv » Sat Apr 09, 2016 6:29 am

And, FWIW, you can go the opposite direction.

I believe I read that Albini sometimes adds some time to his overheads, for example, to give a bigger room sound.
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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:32 am

he delays the room mics, not the overheads.

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Post by vvv » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:47 pm

I believe you are correct! 8)
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Post by drumsound » Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:15 am

If you're not recording the room sound back into the recorder it shouldn't matter if you're mixing and you like the sound.

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