How To Handle an "Up and Down" Artist?

[The Engineer]

One of my boys that records at my studio always tends to get up and down while recording, he's not very level. Some of his words peak to around -2, but they average around the -9 level, then he has some real low words that are around -12 or -15db ... How would I handle that without overcompressing? I never use make-up gain, because everything raises and not just the low db's ... I'm not sure how to go about compressing his vocals .. any tips or help is much appreciated!

[gtrman_66]

don't sweat it, keep the levels on the conservative side and don't let him clip, especially if you are recording at 24 bit. You won't gain anything by heating the levels up except maybe a nasty clip or two.

If it is varying too much at mix time, hit it with a little compression or limiting to even it up a bit. Most of all, if he is comfortable performing like he is and is getting good performances out, don't risk screwing that up by making him self conscoius about where his levels are hitting and trying to get him to correct them.

I'll take a great performance with a little less than perfect recording over a "perfect" recording of a stale performance any day.

[ndycus1]

just make sure that he doesn't clip. and if you're using a DAW, you could easily go in and manually increase the levels of his quieter passages to make them more consistent with the louder ones.

[The Engineer]

Well I set a light compression during tracking and it doesn't seem to help much, and I don't want to over-compress while tracking and end-up ruining his dynamics. So little to none while tracking? then compress to my liking?

I'm recording to PC, by the way ... not DAW. I'm also recording at 16-bit because I'm too lazy to learn cubase or nuendo, so I'm still working with CEP 2.0.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Automate the volume. I do this all the time.

[The Engineer]

How do I do that?

[ez_willis]

Punch him in the mouth and tell him if he doesn't start singing at a more consistant level you'll be forced to punch him in the mouth. Then kick him in the ding-ding so he knows you ain't playin'!

[tourettes5139]

Originally Posted by The Engineer

I'm recording to PC, by the way ... not DAW.

I believe that a PC setup is generally categorized as a DAW. Not to be nitpicking or anything.

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Get him to practice his mic technique.

He learns a useful skill as a vocalist, you're job is made easier- everyone's a winner.

[The Engineer]

I thought like a Tascam FW1884 was a DAW. I thought DAW was like a digital recorder (hard-ware) I'm still new to terminologies though.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by The Engineer

I thought like a Tascam FW1884 was a DAW. I thought DAW was like a digital recorder (hard-ware) I'm still new to terminologies though.

It's a kind of nebulous term, it seems. Many folks refer to a DAW as a self-contained piece of hardware that includes I/O, mixing surface, and HDR all in one box. At the same time, many others refer to audio editing software used in a computer as "DAW software". Still others with larger studio configurations have referred to their Pro Tools subsystem as the "DAW" component of their studio

The way I figure it is that since "DAW" stands for "Digital Audio Workstation", it can mean any of these things and more. You just gotta figure how the speaker is using it in context.

G.