How do you warm up your vocals?

Especially after a vocal take. What effects or what can specifically be done in Sonar or X1 to get the vocals sounding warm?

syntheticpop


Especially after a vocal take. What effects or what can specifically be done in Sonar or X1 to get the vocals sounding warm?

The first thing to sort out is to define the word "warm" in your opinion. It means so many different things to people, it's good to know what you consider "warm" to mean to you. That word is actually banned on another site I frequent due to how people take it and use it so differently.
 
To me it means "no harsh, biting high end with just the right amount of mids". To get this out of a vocal, you have a few options.
 
1. Select a mic that has a sound that doesn't come off as harsh or abrasive.
 
2. Low pass from 8-10k on up and then sweep the frequencies until you hear the right amount of air in the high end. Warm just means "no harsh highs" really.
 
3. Use a tube mic pre-amp for tube warmth and natural tube saturation.
 
Not to go against what mt said above, but I've not heard anything in these tape/tube simulators that actually "warms" anything. They add a bit of grit to the sound over actual warmth in my humble opinion. You're better off using an eq and just taking out the frequencies that may be harsh, offensive or abrasive.
 
4. De-esser's remove the harsh S or T sounds and can warm things up a bit as well.
 
5. The right compressor AFTER an eq can also warm things up while keeping transients in check.
 
The only two simulators I can recommend for actual warming would be the Waves Tape sim and the UAD Studer 800. Anything else I've tried has left me shaking my head due to sounding way too synthetic and not warming anything at all. That's just me though...other people have different results. Good luck. :)
 
-Danny

I sing close to the mic....and insert a distortion/tape saturation plug and adjust that one to taste. Less is more in this area. 

jamesyoyo

timidi


Have Paul McCartney sing it.

As long as he doesn't have to sing past Middle C. Love the guy, but anything high and his voice goes to pot (!).

hmm. Never noticed that. 

Per Danny,

My vocs have to be *warm-colored* as they are a bit uni-dimensional.

A tube pre goes a long way (with Russian tubes or other vintage tubes) ... and gets it 'warm' at the source ... (I'm pretty sure Bat and others would agree with getting it warm at the source with a condensor mic usually)

else your stuck with VSTs and UAD Tube-emulators or the PSP Vintage Warmer (which I don't have yet).  If you're rich and/or savy (I'm not) ... you can run it to an outboard tube pre, EQ, comp, or even your Avalon or such.

Also, using Voxengo's SPAN or another tool like that can really help you locate where the harsh frequencies are at. When you use the Ctrl-click feature to sweep through the frequencies, you usually hit a range that will jump right out at you!

I do ofen need warm up vocal either, the long singing time just makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes, at this time, I would like to warm up my vocal to sing better.