[Track] First track with vocals, help please

ORIGINAL: samhoff
Lastly, I am becoming increasingly aware that my utilization of P5 is FAR different from all of the rest of you (no drums, no loops etc.). I am grateful for all of your help but wonder if it is time for me to move to a forum somewhere else to post the rest of my songs. From here on out, they will likely be either (1) new-agey type solo piano stuff or (2) Christian original stuff, and this just doesn’t seem to be the forum for that. Any advice on where to go from here?

Sam,

I have downloaded your tune and I'll listen and see if I have any ideas for you, but first and foremost, DO NOT give up on this forum. The portion of your post that I quoted above, well...I respectfully disagree. If you listen to everyone's tunes, not all of them have loops, or drums. Jeez, I tossed up a track that was improvised solo double bass...you can't get much further away from drum loops than that!!! P5 allows you to create ANYTHING, no one said there had to be drums, heavily edited .sfz files from a B Rock tutorial, or looped acidized wave files. There is NOTHING wrong with solo piano and vocal. We love it. Post it. We'll comment, dissect, disagree, compliment, rip it apart...whatever you ask us to do. This is ABSOLUTELY the place to post your music....so don't give up on us.

Now, let me have a listen to your tune and see if I can help you in any way. More later.

WC

ORIGINAL: samhoff
1. I have the input gain on the mic turned WAY down. Is that normal? It is a Studio Projects B1 mic, three prong connection (I forget what you call that, XLR?). I have the foam cover on there and am singing from about 2 inches away.
2. In order to make the vocal sound even remotely acceptable, I had to add some reverb. In this case, I added Piano Room Medium from P5 Studioverb. Is it too much? Too little? Should I be doing something different? Please direct me only to reverb tools that are already in P5 so that I don't have to download or buy another one!
3. How’s the balance between piano and vocal? (The piano is Art Vista’s VGP). I just gave it a listen now, fresh, this morning (at work) and I think the vocal is too loud, relatively speaking.
4. Any other comments? My voice was a little gravelly on this recording, but as I said I’m more about learning at this point than coming up with a perfect recording.

Let's scratch question number 4. You have a very nice voice and it sounds good on the recording. Keep it, don't worry about it.

Question 1:

Many professional condenser microphones have what they call a "-10db" pad. Sometimes it's a switch that can be toggled,
sometimes (usually with small diaphragm condensers) it's a screw-on attachment. At any rate, from a quick check of the specs of
the B1, your microphone doesn't appear to have that option, so your microphone naturally comes out "hot". Nothing wrong with
that. The vocal level that you recorded works just fine. But if you're looking for an explanation as to why you had to turn
your levels down so much, that's probably it. And yes, XLR is the correct term.

Also, I don't know anything about your studio setup or what equipment you have. Sometimes the mic preamp will have a -10db pad.
If that's the case with your equipment, try selecting it and you'll see that you now need to turn the levels of your microphone
much higher than you did when you originally recorded.

Question 2:

Nothing wrong with the reverb on the vocal track. You can continue to play with it, but you did an acceptable job of widening
the vocal mix. More on this in a bit.

Question 3:

This is going to make or break your tune. It's not that the vocal is too loud, the piano is too soft. First of all, if you can
turn it up, do so. If it's already at peak volume think about some compression. Insert the
compressor as an FX on the piano track and try playing with some of the presets. You might have to lower the volume on the
piano track if it's a full volume already. If you don't like any of the presets, try
looking at what the various presets do to the knobs and widgets, and then adjust them yourself. You're not going to ruin any
presets or break anything, just keep playing with it until you get a sound that you like.

The piano might be able to use some light delay or some light reverb as well. Project5 comes packaged with those FX
as well. Do some playing with those and see if it helps your mix.

Back to Question 2:

One tried and true trick with vocals is to make a copy of your vocal track so that you now have two vocal tracks. Once
you have two tracks, pan one of them 25-30% left and pan the other 25-30% right. Make sure they're symmetrical. This naturally
widens the soundstage for the vocal mix. You can go even further and add a VERY SLIGHT bit of delay to one of the vocal tracks
and maybe lay off some of the reverb. With some experimentation you'll be amazed at how your voice sounds.

I know you said you didn't want to download anything, but many of these problems could have been solved if you were using
a master limiter or compressor as you recorded. Check out THIS SERIES
of free plugins. Having these initially may have helped you out a lot in the first place.

These are just ideas off the top of my head, perhaps someone else smarter than me will pop in here with some more ideas.

WC

refreshing track. this is the forum you want to post in. friendliest forum on the web. lot of diversity here and just plain good people.

ORIGINAL: triscuit

Reverb should be sensed not heard.

Just to play a bit of devil's advocate here... I think that subtlety is often missed by the listener altogether. I prefer to use reverb quite liberally and in fact OVERuse it intentionally. I like to make a spectacle of it. Maybe even showcase it in the instance where the vocals aren't up to par. I know this works better in the genre I produce, and I whole-heartedly agree with Tristan...I just wanted to note the exception to the rule. There's ALWAYS an exception in music!

Okay...NOW I will disagree with you WHOLEHEARTEDLY!! LOL

I love the P5 reverb! Why don't you like it!? I use it as my MAIN reverb on almost EVERY track and for certain in the Auxes.
I sometimes use Glaceverb in its place, but typically the P5 studioverb is one of my favourites!!

but... maybe i dont get out much.

I tried to take as much advice as I was given. I:
1. doubled the vocal track, panned one right 30 and the other left 30;
2. compressed them using the compressor that comes with P5 (I had no idea what to use for settings so dinked around a little and ended up with attack of 1.0, release of 200.0, threshold -4.0, ratio of 4.0, predelay of 4.0).
3. bussed everything through to a reverb of Piano room, Medium, so it was all reverbed the same.

Then I tried to play the bugger. The vocals were WAY too loud, presumably because doubling adds to the volume. Then I tried to balance it out so the piano and voice were even. (That’s the toughest part!). Then I listened to it versus the original and WOW what a difference! (Listen to both of them here.) The vocals sound so much more crisp and clear; I realize now how muddled it is in the original. I think that’s the compressor doing the work, no?

So, what now? I know I need to read up on compression because I still don’t really understand it. What happens if you add too much? What setting(s) do you all use, and since I know I'm going to get the standard answer, "Use your ear," let me ask, what should I be listening for?

Also I tried to download those free files; unzipped as dll’s, thought I put them in the correct directory but can’t seem to pull them up inside P5. A little help appreciated there.

Thanks everyone for the help thus far,

Sam

Yeah it sounds much better I must say.

It sounds like you overcompressed a tad.

Compression is a very involved topic.

Read up on it, but for now the most important settings are the threshold and the attack. For vocals I usually set the realease to max. The attack adjusts how fast the compressor is going and the theshold tames the peak. The P5 compressor is kind of hard to use because you can't see where the sound is peaking. I set the attack then adjust the threshhold. The point is so you tame the peak and make the sound louder without crushing the sound. Just make sure you can hear some dynamics.

Also, it sounds a little wide. Right now I'm into setting the width to a more narrow field so you can place the sounds in the stereo field more easily.

were's the track? am i missing something?

ORIGINAL: :10:
were's the track? am i missing something?

Hey Sean,

It would be way cool if you could help Sam out, you know so much about the things he's asking.

Sam, your link isn't good. Direct people to HERE INSTEAD to hear your songs.

WC

samhoff,

I like to read, well only if it's about pro audio and computers. Well, Pocket PCs too, I have to add them in also; hx2750 owner here.

Anyway, the majority of the time I go to Borders or Barnes and Nobles and just read the books there on audio while guzzling down about 3 Lattes and 4 cappachinos. If you can, buy Sound on Sound magazine or visit the website, Sound On Sound Magazine Type in the search box "Recording vocals" and commence to reading all that you find.

Here is an article I was reading once that is saved as one of my vocal favorites when I first wanted to start recording, How to record Vocals read other great books about recording too, you will learn a great deal.


Also, never become discouraged by what folks say about your music, alway see it as constructive criticism that will help you improve.

Peace