Hi everyone
Here is my question:In my band,I have big troubles with recording vocals.I mean,they are not sitting nicely in my music.Example of this is one song that has acoustic guitars,strings pad,drums and bass,and those sound great in the mix.But,when I add some vocals on it,it is just not right.I am trying to achieve vocal that is full of reverb,but you can't hear any reverb on it,if you understand what I mean.I need big,wide vocals,but not with that ringing that comes from reverb.Do anyone know how to set reverb to be like that,or maybe some other advice on vocal production?And yes,do you know any good,free deesser,or you have link on the net?
Other problem is how to achieve that fresh,clean sound of commercial records(or near)?I know that someone will give me tip like "Oh,it is eq's,reverbs,delays and much more",but can someone give me good starting point how to make my recordings cleaner?Concrete advice,like "take reverb and set it up like this...."
Thanks,
Best regards
Mirko
Vocal reverb&clean sound on luna 2?
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hubird
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blazesboylan
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Hi Mirko.
Get a condenser mic!
Seriously. You'll need phantom power, but a good condenser mic (or even a cheap one) sounds waaaaaaay better for vox (and cymbals, and acoustic guitar).
These days there are actually some pretty good cheap condensers on the market. I've tried the CAD E-100 and it sounds pretty durned good for my money. Looks nice too, like an AKG 414 but about 1/5 the price. There are plenty of other manufacturers though.
What this will do: let you hear every nuance of your voice. You'll hear breathing, lips smacking, tongue clacking, a butterfly in the distance flapping its wings, and of course, your spittle hitting the diaphragm... Worth every drop of it.
Sorry I'm not much help beyond that. These days I hate reverb! (Not as much as I hate Autotune though.)
Cheers,
Johann
Canada
Get a condenser mic!
Seriously. You'll need phantom power, but a good condenser mic (or even a cheap one) sounds waaaaaaay better for vox (and cymbals, and acoustic guitar).
These days there are actually some pretty good cheap condensers on the market. I've tried the CAD E-100 and it sounds pretty durned good for my money. Looks nice too, like an AKG 414 but about 1/5 the price. There are plenty of other manufacturers though.
What this will do: let you hear every nuance of your voice. You'll hear breathing, lips smacking, tongue clacking, a butterfly in the distance flapping its wings, and of course, your spittle hitting the diaphragm... Worth every drop of it.
Sorry I'm not much help beyond that. These days I hate reverb!
(Not as much as I hate Autotune though.)Cheers,
Johann
Canada
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marcuspocus
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samplaire
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After you record the voice part try to mute instrument tracks to see (hear) which one can spoil vocals. If you find one then you have to set its volume to the desired state. You can also use a sidechain compressor to control the volume of the instrument with the voice part.
Add a compression to the vocals. Compressors have presets and you should find one for vocals. Of course each preset should be a bit tweaked, but you should be amazed with the results: good sounding vocal without being very loud.
Try to experiment with eq. It's a rule you better lower the volume of a frequency rather than add other frequencies. In other words if you lack high frequencies then lower low and middle frequencies. Try to find 'unwanted frequencies' in the vocal parts: probably you have to remove 300Hz (almost completly) with a very narrow Q setting), lower the 125Hz, you can cut frequencies below, say, 40HZ (but this you should check first), add a bit of 3kHz (2db) with quite wide Q.
Some people say it's better to compress first then eq and some people say it should be equed first then compressed. My advice is the first one 
Add a compression to the vocals. Compressors have presets and you should find one for vocals. Of course each preset should be a bit tweaked, but you should be amazed with the results: good sounding vocal without being very loud.
Try to experiment with eq. It's a rule you better lower the volume of a frequency rather than add other frequencies. In other words if you lack high frequencies then lower low and middle frequencies. Try to find 'unwanted frequencies' in the vocal parts: probably you have to remove 300Hz (almost completly) with a very narrow Q setting), lower the 125Hz, you can cut frequencies below, say, 40HZ (but this you should check first), add a bit of 3kHz (2db) with quite wide Q.
Some people say it's better to compress first then eq and some people say it should be equed first then compressed. My advice is the first one
Sir 
less is more - I don't mean the reverb 
it reads as if your song is full of great sounds all produced up to the max.
When you want to add the cream (or serve the main dish) by the vocals all is fed up and no space left
For what you (obviously) want to do with the voice, the rest of the 'band' must be kept rather subtle to make the verb sound noticable at all - if you want a biiig room.
avoid (backing) instrument sound at the resonance peaks of the virtual room of the vocal verb.
good backing instruments often have a sh*tty sound on their own or sound completely flat.
use 'fat' sounds only sparse in that situation and either with enough time between the notes or with a different sound spectrum than the vocals.
I know it's easier to blah about it than actually doin it
cheers, tom
it reads as if your song is full of great sounds all produced up to the max.
When you want to add the cream (or serve the main dish) by the vocals all is fed up and no space left
For what you (obviously) want to do with the voice, the rest of the 'band' must be kept rather subtle to make the verb sound noticable at all - if you want a biiig room.
avoid (backing) instrument sound at the resonance peaks of the virtual room of the vocal verb.
good backing instruments often have a sh*tty sound on their own or sound completely flat.
use 'fat' sounds only sparse in that situation and either with enough time between the notes or with a different sound spectrum than the vocals.
I know it's easier to blah about it than actually doin it
cheers, tom
Also experiment with panning.....leave the main voice dead centre but place guitars & keys somewhere else.
Be careful with levels of thick sounds like pads.
Be aware that reverb will automatically make sounds seem more distant....a lot of records now have very little or even no reverb on vocals, and that's why they seem so present, so it pays to try & get the best possible recording in the first place, rather than using talent enhancement----er, sorry, I mean reverb.
If you do want reverb, it pays to use the best one you can - the ear is surprisingly perceptive, so an unnatural (cheap?) reverb will be very evident. The trouble is, good reverb takes a lot of DSP.....one of the best ones in Scope is the STW100 - whether it runs on a Luna is something I can't answer.
But even using a good reverb, sometimes the best results come from setting the level at 'subliminal' in the mix (for vocals).
You can sometimes increase the density of reverb by chaining two together.
As Hubrid says, if you want a really noticeable effect, you might be better off using delay.
Hey Hubird, I've just realized your name isn't 'Hubrid'.......God, I've always read it as Hubrid.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Plato on 2004-06-07 09:36 ]</font>
Be careful with levels of thick sounds like pads.
Be aware that reverb will automatically make sounds seem more distant....a lot of records now have very little or even no reverb on vocals, and that's why they seem so present, so it pays to try & get the best possible recording in the first place, rather than using talent enhancement----er, sorry, I mean reverb.
If you do want reverb, it pays to use the best one you can - the ear is surprisingly perceptive, so an unnatural (cheap?) reverb will be very evident. The trouble is, good reverb takes a lot of DSP.....one of the best ones in Scope is the STW100 - whether it runs on a Luna is something I can't answer.
But even using a good reverb, sometimes the best results come from setting the level at 'subliminal' in the mix (for vocals).
You can sometimes increase the density of reverb by chaining two together.
As Hubrid says, if you want a really noticeable effect, you might be better off using delay.
Hey Hubird, I've just realized your name isn't 'Hubrid'.......God, I've always read it as Hubrid.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Plato on 2004-06-07 09:36 ]</font>
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Counterparts
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hubird
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darkstar
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Hello guys and thanks for quick replies,
I will try to do everything that you mentioned here.I already have condeser mic,AKG c 900 emotion series,and joemeek mq3 preamp.I am recording all vocals with that,but they just don't have that sound that I want to achieve.I heard one record of our Serbian reggae band,and I noticed that they have vocal full of reverb,but it is still "dry" if you understand me.Reverb gives freshness to their vocal.Or maybe that is delay?I don't know about that.WE have songs that is full of reverb,but that song is ok,in this song,everything is "acoustic",and I can't achieve my goal with my setup of reverb.Maybe it will be of some use if I mention that I use SIR as my master reverb.
Thanks,
Best regards
Mirko
I will try to do everything that you mentioned here.I already have condeser mic,AKG c 900 emotion series,and joemeek mq3 preamp.I am recording all vocals with that,but they just don't have that sound that I want to achieve.I heard one record of our Serbian reggae band,and I noticed that they have vocal full of reverb,but it is still "dry" if you understand me.Reverb gives freshness to their vocal.Or maybe that is delay?I don't know about that.WE have songs that is full of reverb,but that song is ok,in this song,everything is "acoustic",and I can't achieve my goal with my setup of reverb.Maybe it will be of some use if I mention that I use SIR as my master reverb.
Thanks,
Best regards
Mirko
improve your room that you record in. how can the mic giive a great sound if the room sounds like sh@t?
http://www.tubetrap.com/
http://www.auralex.com/
http://www.tubetrap.com/
http://www.auralex.com/
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Basic Pitch
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- Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 4:00 pm
Well,
For me with vocals I always end up doing a similar order of effects, it just always works out well for me
Its something usually like this per instance:
- UAD-1 LA2A Soft to Med Compression. "Vinco" would work well also, but for vocals, to my ears alteast, the LA2A is just perfect and adds that special sound I need.
- UAD-1 Phasor (tweak to taste) this is for me what gives me a "wide" vocal, it gives a some what shimmering panning chorus type of effect with out being a true chorus, it just makes the vocal sound wide.
- Gate: Most any will do the job to keep any atrifacts left in the audio out, also when adding things like delays, this will give yopu a much sharper clean delay of audio.
- TC Powercore Classic Verb Plates M/F depending on gender
- TC Powercore Chorus/Delay: This plug just have very nice delays for vocals, I use the CW delays alot for backing vocals and effects on vocals but for my primary delays I use the TC, though the OhmForce is nice aswell for obscure delays..
Hope that helps some, it all varies of course by type of music, per track basis and the like, but thats a general way I achieve a wide sounding vocal, but I find most of it has to do with the plate verb you choose per song and the quality of the verb, delays of course help make things mesh well and sound long and deep.
Cheers!
For me with vocals I always end up doing a similar order of effects, it just always works out well for me
Its something usually like this per instance:
- UAD-1 LA2A Soft to Med Compression. "Vinco" would work well also, but for vocals, to my ears alteast, the LA2A is just perfect and adds that special sound I need.
- UAD-1 Phasor (tweak to taste) this is for me what gives me a "wide" vocal, it gives a some what shimmering panning chorus type of effect with out being a true chorus, it just makes the vocal sound wide.
- Gate: Most any will do the job to keep any atrifacts left in the audio out, also when adding things like delays, this will give yopu a much sharper clean delay of audio.
- TC Powercore Classic Verb Plates M/F depending on gender
- TC Powercore Chorus/Delay: This plug just have very nice delays for vocals, I use the CW delays alot for backing vocals and effects on vocals but for my primary delays I use the TC, though the OhmForce is nice aswell for obscure delays..
Hope that helps some, it all varies of course by type of music, per track basis and the like, but thats a general way I achieve a wide sounding vocal, but I find most of it has to do with the plate verb you choose per song and the quality of the verb, delays of course help make things mesh well and sound long and deep.
Cheers!
First, try as many mics as you can get, because you never know which one will suit a particular singer best. Some good pop vocals were tracked with an sm-58! The combination of mic-preamp is important to consider too.
Compression is important too, you might want to set it to a minimum to achieve the desired results in 80% of the song and adjust the volume automation when needed.
To widen a vocal part, a good trick is to copy the voice to other tracks and apply different effects/eq. Try to triple (or more) the track, pan the copies across the stereo field and try different eq settings or even different reverb/delays on each. This gives some dimension and depth to a track without damping it with reverb.
Sometimes a careful mix can make a big difference on how a voice fits in the picture without too much eqing and messing with plug-ins.
Good luck!
Compression is important too, you might want to set it to a minimum to achieve the desired results in 80% of the song and adjust the volume automation when needed.
To widen a vocal part, a good trick is to copy the voice to other tracks and apply different effects/eq. Try to triple (or more) the track, pan the copies across the stereo field and try different eq settings or even different reverb/delays on each. This gives some dimension and depth to a track without damping it with reverb.
Sometimes a careful mix can make a big difference on how a voice fits in the picture without too much eqing and messing with plug-ins.
Good luck!