Vocal Challenges???

Hi everyone,

I just recorded a song with a group I am working with and had a few challenges with one of the emcees in general. He has a real soft voice so i can not record his levels hot enough. In the end his voice sounds sort of muddy when blended with the track. During recording I applied slight compression and then added more with a plug in afterwards.

Basically, I wanted to get some input from more experienced people here:

1. What effects chain should I be using during recording, if any???
2. What effects chain should I pply after recording?

Here's an idea of what equipement I have:

1. Yamaha 01X Mixer
2. Studio Projects C1 Condenser Mic
3. RNC Compressor that I bought from a friend but have not used yet. i will be setting it up tonight and testing it.
4. I run everything into Sonar 6.2.1 Producer Edition

Maybe you can get me some pointers on what effects to use? Even the settings I need to dial in on my compressor as a starting point. Any advice would be great. I ahve been out of the music thing for a few months so I am a bit rusty. Hopefully someone can help??? Thanks,

generally speaking, most people have difficulty dealing with their voice electronically processed (dry is still electronically processed) because we hear ourselves in a way we normally don't.

The human brain automatically filters out most of the sonic frequency of our own speech (because it's mostly heard from inside the mouth out from the inner ear back to the eardrum).

Headphones put our voice in our actual "hearing/listening" space.

This takes time to get used to for most people.

Also the standard schpeal you'll always hear about having a dry, silent vocal booth creates an extremely artificial environment for hearing a voice.

This has to be compensated for with a bit of reverb or delay. It gives singers a sense of space and freedom when listening to and singing.

This can be added to the monitor, and left off the recording.

Just what should go where is all a matter of taste.

There is NO right or wrong,

HOWEVER, some combos do inherently work better.

For singers who have a hard time controlling their volume - use some compression, and some gating or a gate/compression. The options for all such plug-ins are endless. If you're using hardware the arrangement is not so endless.

For singers who cannot hear themselves - EQ it. Bring out the part of the voice that will sit in front of the music while they sing.

The key is experiment.

If you're hoping for a "formula" the best you'll get are "standards" from over the ages, that may or may not apply.

NIN Nails, clearly uses some heavy gating, mega compression, expansion, EQ massively, repeatedly, and let's not forget distortion, and I don't hear him use delay and reverb like many do.

When he first started, I would doubt if he followed any rules, and I wouldn't be surprised if he happily used some guitar distortion pedals to cover in a messy smeared way the need to compress, gate n add a sense of space.

As we all know it worked fantastically and continues to do so.

It worked so well, that the basic vocal processing he used (sans distortion) seems to have become the way to do vocals. In the past delay was the #1 effect, think Madonna swimming in delay in "Get into the Groove." Today you're more likely to hear Britney Spears (ok a few years bck) with her hyper-compressed, corrected, gated in "warmed" vocal sans delay and reverb (or very little).

Thanks to everyone who has replied. Here are a few things I wanted to point out as well:

1. As of now I am just recording right in the middle of my room. I don't have any space for a vocal booth right now... I am thinking of donating a bunch of my older clothing to charity or something and using the extra space for a booth like I did in the past.

2. Right now my biggest issue is room and headphone noise. I have a nice pair of Sony headphones that give a great sound for the singer or emcee. The do tend to bleed a tad bit and it picks up in the recording. What would you suggest???

3. Should I be using a gate while recording? I have tried using the gate while monitoring but then the singer complains of a slight delay. Very slight but it does seem to play games with thier performance.

I understand recording dry and applying effects later. That is well noted now!!! To Roy, I will do a search and see what I can find on an external preamp. I appreciate the advice there. Maybe you can explain before hand the process of connecting and external preamp to my 01X? Thanks,

He has a real soft voice so i can not record his levels hot enough.

Hello,

You're looking in the wrong place for a solution. The solution is not in your equipment the problem is with the performer. Very soft voices are not just low level, they are "airy" sounding too. By "airy" sounding I mean they don't create enough air velocity to really grip the vocal chords. Is like a fiddle player that doesn't put enough weight on the bow. Sometimes you hear the fundamental and sometimes you'll hear only a harmonic. The result is an audio clip that has no "center" or "density." It is hard to get a bite with EQ or compression.

The first step (although this is now after the fact unless you can re-record) is to see if you can at least get the performer to speak or sing louder. You may be able to do this by turning him down in his cans (phones) which will (hopefully) cause him to sing or speak louder to overcome the backing track. If there's no backing track you can still make him very low in the cans which will cause some increase in volume. You can try coaching. I would play back the track and let the performer comment on the performance. Sometimes you can get a reaction like, "I didn't realize I sounded THAT way." This may cause some self-correction.

If you have to "work with what you've got." The best advice I can give is to apply a parametric EQ. First, roll off the low end with a slope that bites into the bottom of the audio, then sweep the track for a 800 - 1200Hz bandwidith that makes the most difference to intelligibility. And that is about it.

Regards,
George

George,

Thanks for the advice... I will be recording with this performer again so i will deffinitly try what you said. Thanks,

recording rap vocal r some what different than recording say rock or r&b vocal try send ur emcee a loud music mix thru his headphones but lower his vocal volume .This works 4 me every time i record a soft rapper ..........i also dont have a vocal booth i think they r overrate in our genre of music recording

Try a dynamic mic right against his mouth. Condensor mics are not always the best choice.

Try normalizing the track. It may be salvageable.

To all the replied I just wanted to say thanks for allthe great advice! I have been away for a while and I am actually going to be recording tonight so we'll see what I can do with what you guys gave me. I also just recently went out and bought a new mic preamp as recommended by a few other Yamaha 01X users on the 01X forum.

The next thing I need to focus on is stepping my microphone arsenal up since I only have 2 condenser mics. I would like to get a few more different mics including dynamic and condesners.

I will also nee to test the room for all the spikes and reflections as suggested. I know this may be a stupid question but I am also a newbie in the game here and self taught everything I know along with the help of all the great knowledge here but... When I do those spike tests I will need to have my monitors turned on and play the sound threw them while my mic is armed for recording? Correct?

I always thoght that having the monitors on and the mic on would cause a huge feedback sound? Or does the mic have to be within a certain range of the speakers before that happens? Can someone maybe clear that up? Thanks again to everyone...

themidiroom,

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I have a lot fo work and experimenting ahead of me. I always take in everything everyone says to try and see what I can get out of it! Ill try it all out tonight.

Ok so I know this is going to be funny to some but it was a learning experience for me. I spoke with a guy at my local music store and he explain what the little switches on the back of my mic were. I experiemented with those last night and found a great setting. I did a record test with some vocals and I had some nice levels... No problems!!! I think for now I have this issue solved. Thanks for all the great advice to everyone!!