Vocal tips?

Good vocalist makes the job easier.  Then a nice front end, and by that I mean a good mic and preamp, a little compression and EQ.

Once in teh program automation, then some soft comps.  Sonitus is good, tho the prochannel is better.  We just had a long thread somewhere about this.

@

Singer
Room
Microphone
Processing

In about that order.

Don't be afraid to play with microphones and the position of the singer in the room. I'll quite often throw up 2 quite different mics for a singer to see which one suits them best. Some of the chinese ldcs have quite a lot of presence boost on them which may or may not be suitable for what you want to achieve. Condenser mics aren't always the way to go and I think it's nice if you've got some dynamics to try too.

In terms of the room, if it's not stella sounding my preference is to put them in the deadest corner, singing out in to the room, if your room's not treated get a corner where you can at least hang up a couple of duvets / blankets to tame it down a bit.

You've mentioned that you understand that the vocalist is the most important part of the chain, acknowledge this and look after them well. Your job is to enable and awesome performance as well as to capture it.

Give them a really great headphone mix, possibly with a bit of 'comfort verb', Try and establish a working method they are comfortable with, get a feel for how much lead in they tend to want for a drop in etc. Offer them cold or warm water, keep communicating with them about what you're doing and what's happening (don't drown them in detail but don't leave them standing in the strange silence of headphone world without knowing what's going on).

As for tools in sonar, yes automate volume / gain to get some evenness in to the part, use eq to sculpt and notch out any odd or nasty freq's, unless it's a baritone I'm quite liberal with the hpf, I'll have it in on the mic or pre on the way in and will also hpf with eq once it's there.

I do a lot of stuff that sounds quite dry so I quite like ambience with a bit of predelay or short single repeat delays. There's a good tut posted on reverb in the sonar forum at the moment.

Child

If the search engine of this forum wasn't non-existant you coiuld find dozen and dozens of threads concerning vocals.

James I wasn't talking about melodyne or autotune (when properly used to fix out of tune croaking) 

I feel your pain on that topic....I too suffer with that problem and MD is a lifesaver.


I was actually referring to the guys that use tons of reverb, echo, chorusing and other "destructive" types of processing in an attempt to hide a "croaking performance"....

Room temperature water ONLY for the singer. NEVER chilled or warm. If chilled is the only option, the singer MUST swirl in mouth till water is warm before swallowing. Otherwise vocal chords will become tight and your takes will SUCK!

Janet:

Would you like me to send you the raw tracks so you can tell the rest of the world of the horror?

jamesyoyo

Guitarhacker


Processing is the icing on the cake, and should not be used to try to fix or improve a sub par performance. Processing, if not used properly to polish an existing good vocal performance, will make a poor performance worse.  If the performance is not good, record it again.

Couldn't disagree more!  I cannot sing in key and have some awful tones to my voice, yet thru the power of processing my croaking actually is somewhat passable.

No Offense nor flattery to the *wonderful vocs* out there ... but I'd follow Yoyo's logic 1st and foremost ... else I'd make no productions.
 
Perfect pitch is first and foremost, IMHO.  1st takes are great for producers ... who are not afraid to enhance the fresh vibe.
 
Having studied Yoyo's vox and determining most of his samples to be the greatest on this planet ... by a long shot ... (to my ears) ... it seems ridiculous to hear crap-vox fallacies ... or the political viewpoints of *great chops*, etc.
 
I've begged many of you to sing because everyone has the gift.  There's really no excuse not to sing, haha!  That guitar and piano gets old fast, haha!  But your vox is always refreshing and new!
 
I'm a thousand times worse than Yoyo or any of you, but nothing will stop me from singing and enjoying the gift I was born with.
 
Like every instrument, every vox needs fx and processing from a performer's and producer's viewpoint. 
 
Perhaps, Yoyo may think he can't perform live as well as others, but his diligent enthusiasm is worth my emulation.  He's not afraid to use the tools necessary to exploit his chops.  Neither am I.
 
Tonight I studied Yoyo's vox for several hours on a collab I'm forever tweaking (thanks to him) ... that he joined me with a year or 2 ago (that he transformed with his outlandish 'utterances'): His technique seemed to include:
 
... backing harmonies (of himself)
... solid pitch correction
... snappy timing (not robotic) ... and/or splicing
... explosive and lustful enthusiam(s) for the material
... an urgent passion for the song
... pouring his heart out relentlessly ...
... dramatizing outlandishly
... hyper-compressing the vox in the lows and highs
... compassionate and syncronized singing
... upward singing (I think)
... Hass effect on his backing vocs
... rich saturation (tape), low and high presence
... a strict parallel copying of the melody and its timing (my piano middle-8)
... he seemed to keep his 1st takes and process them with his alchemy.
... he sings diverse utterances and mingles multiple styles/genres
... his vox is fresh and unpredictable ... he sounds like other singers/genres.
... he respects all sincere vocs that are going on in that song.
... somehow he manages to find the perfect places in a song that needs 'merits redeeming'
... there is some majic involved ... he connects with the vibe and explodes with it.
... he sings like his vox is a precious instrument ... diligently upon recording it seems.
 
I'm not trying to embarrass Yoyo, just supporting his excellent magic and dreams ... which help me exceedingly.  His vox-vibe is eternal to my ears and heart.
 
I seem to continue to cherish/emulate his singing above all others on this forum, despite his hit-and-miss antics ... though I treasure all of us singers immensely ... when you/I sing diligently with heart.
 
Other personal pearls:
 
-- I sing like ... predestined to sing ... responsible to make a joyful noise (for the Maker)
-- If I drink coffee... the low registers get messed up ... I should plan on drinking water, orange juice, or something that helps the vocal chords
-- Many folks will hate my vox ... but I prefer my vox in 80-90% of songs I write ... and that would be 100% if I wasn't so imperfect.