doo do doo do doo do doo

so in that song ("take a walk on the wild side" by lou reed) there is a part, when "the colored girls" sing and their voices start sort of far away and gradually get closer. how did they do that?

Try this: bus your reverb (only--all wet) to a seperate track or bus from the dry tracks, when it first comes up set the level on the wet really loud, just enough dry, and then shift the balance to all dry. If you're in a DAW and it has a cross-fade function, I bet that'll make the trick easier.

Bear

what if you put something in a big room and record with omnis at a distance and are simultaenously recording with another mic slightly out of the nearfield, and then another mic close up. then in the mixdown you start with only the omnis and gradually move forward by bringing down the levels on them and the level up on the second mic and then the level down on it and the level up on the close mic. then on top of that you do the reverb thing.
thoughts?

Probably worth trying but I wouldn't expect quite the same result. Most rooms don't have that echo-chamber sound, and those that do would give the problem of giving weird reflections to your close mic. My (vague) understanding of classic echo chamber design is that they pump up the output to the speaker in the system in order to get a decent level out, so I would think you won't get the same reverb sound by distant-micing a vocal.

(A good touch point for the sound of distant micing might be the first two R.E.M. lp's, Murmur and Reckoning. They sound spacious and natural, but not really sodden with reverb.)

Bear