SonicExplorer
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Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
Hello, I have some vocal tracks that have more headphone bleed than I feel comfortable with. Probably due to foam pads and a little too much volume and high-end in the phones during recording. Anyway, is there anything that could be done to cut back the bleed in the tracks after the fact? The tracks were sung to a stereo wav file within the project so the "bleed source" is preserved and constant-aligned throughout the project. Maybe some sort of phase-reversal tricks? If I could somehow get even just a 30% reduction in the bleed it would be good enough, things are just borderline as they stand right now. Any helpful suggestions will be greatly appreciated, Thanks, Sonic P.S. I'm also wondering how much mix engineers tend to freak out over headphone bleed... With these particular tracks the bleed is mostly in between phrases - you have to solo a vocal track and REALLY strain to BARELY be able to occassionaly hear something WHILE the singer is singing. What's the consensus, are such tracks still usable?
post edited by SonicExplorer - 2007/02/16 16:35:56
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bermuda
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 16:26:36
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Did you use Closed back headphones?
It is possible to pick up a decent pair for $79!
I'm wondering if inverting the phase on a take of you standing there and recording the bleed would help subtract it from the mix....
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MarkSeibert
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 16:32:09
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bermuda, I had the same thought...but the more I thought about it...I figured it wouldn't work. You'll probably just get phasing, not cancellation. I’m not sure there’s a real solution to this problem other than re-recording. Maybe using envelopes or croppping very close to the ins and outs of lines?
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Stringrazor1
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 16:33:47
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ORIGINAL: SonicExplorer
P.S. I'm also wondering how much mix engineers tend to freak out over headphone bleed... With these particular tracks the bleed is mostly in between phrases - you have to solo a vocal track and REALLY strain to BARELY be able to occassionaly hear something WHILE the singer is singing. What's the consensus, are such tracks still usable?
Split the vocal into clips. Slip the clips' start/end points to remove the wave in between the phrases. I often do that anyway to remove excessive breath noise and/or throat-clearing or other extraneous noises. BTW, I picked up a set of EXTREME ISOLATION 'phones and they are fantastic. Great for recording close to a mic and for drummers trying to follow prerecorded tracks.
post edited by Stringrazor1 - 2007/02/16 17:01:06
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Jesse G
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 16:57:08
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How about headphones to retain the noise from leaking. Head phones are under rated, but you can't record vocals using cheap headphones while a backing track is playing, it's just going to be record too. What about the brightness of your mic? If you have another mic, how about switching it out for one. maybe take an extr step away from the mic and sing a bit louder ofr your signal to reach the proper level . Decisions,...decisions. Peace 
Peace,Jesse G. A fisher of men <>< ==============================Cakewalk and I are going places together!
Cakewalk By Bandlab, Windows 10 Pro- 64 bit, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI, Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Processor, Crucial Ballistix 32 GB Ram, PNY GeForce GTX 750, Roland Octa-Capture, Mackie Big Knob, Mackie Universal Controller (MCU), KRK V4's, KRK Rockit 6, Korg TR-61 Workstation, M-Audio Code 49 MIDI keyboard controller.[/
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themidiroom
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 17:03:02
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I had to deal with that also on a project. I just chopped up the waveforms and used fade ins and outs the best I could. Unfortunately, the vocals were tracked by someone at another studio and re-tracking the vocals was not an option. True, good headphones are important but that is a non issue here since it's too late.
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SonicExplorer
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/16 18:50:26
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The headphones used were Sony MDRV6 monitoring headphones, which at around $100 are not el-cheapos. I think the problem was mostly due to the "pleather" being worn completely off the pads so only foam remained, combined with the fact the vocalist's hearing isn't 100% so he likes his phone mix cranked a little louder than average.
Yeah, only thing I could think of was to maybe take the original music track he sung over, drop all the low end out, and phase it against the vocal track to see what happens...
Sonic
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corrupted
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/17 01:02:24
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Throw on an expander/gate and it'll clean up well... along with some EQ to take out the 4k to 6k harshness. Try floorfish from digitalfishphones for a start.... but any expander/gate will do. If the vocals are "solo" in the track, then you're probably hosed... but if they're soloed, there shouldn't have been much in the phones from the start... These bad boys are about $100 USD each... and WELL worth it for recording... nice isolation: http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite/productdetail.asp?transid=004974
post edited by corrupted - 2007/02/17 01:25:08
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papa2004
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RE: Fixing headphone bleed in vocal tracks post-facto?
2007/02/17 04:42:20
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ORIGINAL: SonicExplorer
Hello,
I have some vocal tracks that have more headphone bleed than I feel comfortable with...
P.S. I'm also wondering how much mix engineers tend to freak out over headphone bleed... With these particular tracks the bleed is mostly in between phrases - you have to solo a vocal track and REALLY strain to BARELY be able to occassionaly hear something WHILE the singer is singing. What's the consensus, are such tracks still usable?
If the bleed is between phrases you can simply (as has been pointed out) edit the track or use a noise-gate...Headphone bleed on vocal tracks is something that's going to occur from time to time (much the same as live drum tracks bleeding into other live instrument tracks) but we learn to deal with it...Just be sure to keep the "bleed" in mind when you're EQing or processing the vocal tracks in any way...
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