Things I don't know, Pt. 1

A while back someone put up a link to a video of Michael Jackson working with Quincy Jones in the studio on some vocal tracks. His takes were amazing in how precisely they matched the original. Whatever else he was, he was an amazing singer.

I almost always (very very rare exceptions) let the drums and the bass stay constant through out the entire song. The perceived level changes should be coming from the player, and how they are playing from the verses to the choruses. To me these 2 instruments are the fundamental backbone or foundation to the music and need to be constant.

1 - DEFINITELY depends on the song. Some songs might have some really soft drumming parts which build up and the natural playing of the drummer doesn't quite get the perfect volumes needed. Other times, you might want the drumming pretty constant. Even then, sometimes the chorus 'could' go up 1-2db but that might just be the kick and snare, or the whole kit, or a parallel compressed copy, or a change in snare reverb etc. Me personally, I tend to use volume automation on most tracks these days. Anything can vary. Drums, guitar, bass, vocals, it all depends on the song. The better your ear gets are listening to dynamics, the more you realise how much you can subtly bring things up 1-2 dB here and down a little there just to make things flow. I RARELY find a clip that plays over an entire song will want to be at the same level the whole time.

You can consider yourself highly educated, then. Everybody doesn't know 8 million things, but hardly anybody knows which ones they are.

skullsession


A couple of tricks for double vocals.

1:  Ask the singer to leave off the ending consonants to the last word of the double.  T's, S's, D's, K's, etc.  Even singers who are "naturals" when it comes to doubling often have trouble hitting those exactly....and then you either re-track it or you end up editing off those double/triple consonants. 

timidi


This is wonderful 'doubling'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSrSFhi9Hk

I can't figure out if this is doubled or delay? whatcha think.

I almost always (very very rare exceptions) let the drums and the bass stay constant through out the entire song. The perceived level changes should be coming from the player, and how they are playing from the verses to the choruses.
To me these 2 instruments are the fundamental backbone or foundation to the music and need to be constant.

If programming midi drums try subtle velocity (rather than volume changes) to emulate the difference in expression that a drummer would naturally use.