Best Way to Record Vocals(Help)

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daChayce

New member
I have a quick question I need help with please. Lets say I have an instrumental track in the works with about twelve tracks and I now want to record vocals. Is it best to record right into that same session with the beat, or is it better to bounce the instrumental to a .wav and start a new session and throw it onto its own audio track?

I tried both and the vocals sound so much better when i just put the .wav form of the beat on its own audio track in a separate session than the actual instrumental session. The only problem with this is when I want to change the beat up a bit or make adjustments according to little breaks in the vocals or what ever, I have to close session, open the beat session up, make adjustments where I wanted, bounce it to .wav, and than put the updated beat into the other session.

Is there a way around this, like run both session at once so I can record and make adjustments to the beat Im making? Or do I have to record vocals in the instrumental session itself? Someone said something about running a "two track" but I didn't quite understand.

In conclusion, what is the best way to record vocals on an instrumental track being made in protools. Not an .mp3 or .wav instrumental, an actual file of an instrumental with its own session and tracks.
 
From my experience its best to record right in the session because of what you were saying about adjustments and needing to re-bounce it. Especially if you record the vocals and you realize they don't sit as nice in the mix as you'd like. Then you don't have to mix and re-bounce it. You can just do it right in the session. Hope that helps!
 
I bounce a wav of the instruments and start a new session using it for just vocal takes. I prepare 4 or 5 tracks and do several takes over the instrumental. Then I export just the final vocal comp and then import it into the instrumental session. Why? because I don't like having 500 tracks on one session.
 
I record vocals in the one session.

I like having all the tracks relating to a particular song in the one project and place.

I like being able to adjust levels and other things in context, with the ability to manipulate either vocals or instruments.
 
Because its for when you start mixing the track. If you need to move a certain instruments or effect them like volume automation or bring up or adjust one of the instruments in anyway you wont be able to cause your gonna have to close that session remix the instrumental and pipe it back in to your session with the vocals just entirely to much work. No pro works this way everything in one session. Having instrumental track sound better with vocals is in your head and just totally ill-relevant.
 
Bouncing is good for tape machines without enough tracks available, but isn't necessary or useful in a DAW.
 
With a small session like that i would normally record straight into the session as mixing would be much easier and streamlined
 
How can you possibly mix "in context" if you have a session split over 2 or more source files?

Keep it all in one and save your sanity while you're at it
 
Unless you're constrained by your computer's ability to handle enough tracks, put everything in the same session. The process of mixing is tweaking everything separately. If you do a submix locking in your "beats" you might as well be performing to a karaoke track for all the lack of control you'll have.
 
There's no real right or wrong, it's all about what works for you. I can see why you'd want the simplicity of just the beat when working on vocals though.

Personally when tracking I'll almost always do it all in the same session. When mixing though, if there's a ludicrous amount of vocal tracks I'll sometimes create a two track + vocals session to do editing and comping and take the final product there (not a L/R bounce, still tracks per vocalist or however I feel like sub-dividing them) back into the main session just to avoiding having to see that mess during the final mix.
 
daChayce,
just my two cents cause I happened to come across this while looking for some other info and I didn't see anyone else mention it...

they are correct in saying nowadays DAW's should be able to handle multiple tracks all in one session, no need to bounce tracks to save tracks, etc.

PROVIDED THAT you have a good processor and memory on your computer.

Otherwise, I think a good solution would be to render your individual tracks in the project. I use Logic and it's referred to as "freezing" the track so that it renders the track, instead of processing all the effects and everything else in real-time when you're playing it back. This saves valuable cpu cycles when you're hurting with a 50 track session, effects, comp, etc. and allots it to the recording process instead, minimizing risk of CPU overload. Plus, it keeps your computer cooler than the other way.. :cool:

I believe in ProTools, they refer to it as RTAS and ... something else. Well, RTAS stands for Real-Time... something, I don't remember, but maybe that can give you some direction when you do further searching. ;)

I know it's been a while, but thought I'd post my first comment! :cheers:
 
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Something that I just learned from a pro. "I know a guy" who is a professional rock and metal singer, recording artist, he even sang with Nazareth for a while. Anyway, this kind of answers the sing in the session or not question. What he does for himself and other singers he produces (yes, he does that, too,) is they come in one day to choose mics and set levels. Input levels, compressor, etcetera and saves that as automation. Because singing the same part over and over again will burn you out. So, that's all you do that day is set levels and choose mics. Actual tracking will happen on another day. I had never thought of that before.

Anyway, so you come in later, "roll tape" and go through the songs fresh. And I have seen him in a recording session. It was not uncommon to sing a pass through part of the song a few times, as the finish vocal will still be a comp'd track. That's just the way people do things, these days.

Sometimes, I will patch a fix-it in. I was doing a cover of "Children of the Sun" by Billy Thorpe and botched the middle part. A song I have sang for decades and when recording (I have red-light syndrome) went flat on the high note but I sang through to the end, then patched that problem section, later.

Other times, I make a mistake. So, I stop and pick up again, on a new track, just before the mistake and continue on from there.

And none of it is cheating. All of recording is "cheating." The only way not to "cheat" is for you to be in my house and hear me do it live and in person.

I do fine, live in front of people and have sang for a few people and a few hundred people. I didn't get run off. Then, again, I am 6' 6", 235 lbs, and I look like a biker that cleaned up for a court date.
:D
 
ronws said:
Something that I just learned from a pro. "I know a guy" who is a professional rock and metal singer, recording artist, he even sang with Nazareth for a while. Anyway, this kind of answers the sing in the session or not question. What he does for himself and other singers he produces (yes, he does that, too,) is they come in one day to choose mics and set levels. Input levels, compressor, etcetera and saves that as automation. Because singing the same part over and over again will burn you out. So, that's all you do that day is set levels and choose mics. Actual tracking will happen on another day. I had never thought of that before.

Anyway, so you come in later, "roll tape" and go through the songs fresh. And I have seen him in a recording session. It was not uncommon to sing a pass through part of the song a few times, as the finish vocal will still be a comp'd track. That's just the way people do things, these days.

Sometimes, I will patch a fix-it in. I was doing a cover of "Children of the Sun" by Billy Thorpe and botched the middle part. A song I have sang for decades and when recording (I have red-light syndrome) went flat on the high note but I sang through to the end, then patched that problem section, later.

Other times, I make a mistake. So, I stop and pick up again, on a new track, just before the mistake and continue on from there.

And none of it is cheating. All of recording is "cheating." The only way not to "cheat" is for you to be in my house and hear me do it live and in person.

I do fine, live in front of people and have sang for a few people and a few hundred people. I didn't get run off. Then, again, I am 6' 6", 235 lbs, and I look like a biker that cleaned up for a court date.
:D
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You raise a good point.

When I've referred to doing the vocals in the 'same session', what I meant (and probably what others meant) is recording in the same project, i.e. we meant session as in project, not session as in a chunk of studio time.

The main idea is that you create all the tracks you need for the song, and add your vocals to that (which could be on the same day, or a week later). But you don't need to premix all the tracks used for a backing, and render these into a single stereo track, then sing along to this. As others have pointed out, that is limiting your options.
 
daChayce said:
...the vocals sound so much better when i just put the .wav form of the beat on its own audio track in a separate session...
Click to expand...

Am I missing something? How is that possible? Are you changing something in the new session? Are you having the .wav mastered before you ad vocals?

If not, it should sound identical as it does in the original session.
 
Bouncing was good (sometimes mandatory) back when computers had little horsepower.

We don't have that problem any more.
 
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