What makes a recording sound dry or wet?
Musician, Tony Furtado's Raleigh and Spencer, for example, is quite "wet". Have a listen to the opening of the piece where the drums are hit and, if you turn up the volume, note that what makes this "wet" is the reverb. With each whack of the drum a long resonate cycle continues to reverberate.
Dry would have meant the opposite where the drum head vibrated on its own without exciting the room (or in this case the reverb unit).
The room—whether real or manufactured—plays a critical role in the moisture level of any recording.
It's why live recordings done well are so effective. They capture the natural reverberation of the space they are recorded in.
I often use Tony's track to demonstrate how good the system sounds. The better the system, the more lifelike this track becomes.
Given a choice, I'll always lean towards wet.
