breathy, dreamy vocals

N

natmj

New member
How can I record/mix vocals to sound sort of breathy and dreamy? I'm thinking Love and Rockets' "So Alive" or Primitive Radio Gods "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand." Or, heck, even Enya.
 
Working the mic properly, using a pop filter and after the fact a compressor set up as a de-esser.
 
I don't have an outboard EQ, and my FD-8 only has three band EQ with sweepable mids. How effective can de-essing be in these circumstances? (My high is pegged at 10 K and the sweepable mids go up to 5K. I don't know how wide the band is.)
 
If you are talking about the backing vocals: I read in an article that Enyas trademark sound is produced by stacking many times the same vocal line. That is, she sings the same part over and over exactly the same (which due to humane imperfection will never be the same). She does one harmony at least 10 times. So imagine that times 4 harmonies...
Same effect as Def Leppards Backing vocals. I love that sound...

Hans
 
try this

try to have the person whisper the voc's give him/her maby 3-4 tracks to do this with and it should give you the result you want
 
Well, YOU ARE ALL WRONG!!

2 mic's...

Mic #1, up close and personal, compressed to hell! I'm talking from 6 or 10:1 fast/slow!

Mic #2, room mic, 4 to 8 feet away and more standard (mild) if any compression. My booth is only 6' deep and my mic's were 2 inches (Mic#1) and 3 feet(Mic#2) and umm... I almost had to whisper since the Blueberry blue (UP close) though compressed, just didnt sound cool screaming into it, but not actually whisper, just cool sounding. Controlled.

THE BEST VOCAL I HAVE RECORDED YET!

p.s. Read it all in a book, I dont KNOW anything, but I did try it and it did work great!

ppss.. all you that were 'wrong'... Dont take it so hard, not everyone is as right (Or COCKY) as me.
 
Actully rj if you would have read my compression article you would have seen that suggestion at the bottom of the article.
Instead of another mic I suggested to use reverb to enhance the effect.
A better solution then another mic IMHO.

Soory but... I'm never wrong
 
I saw an interview with Enya once upon a time, and she said she has done as many as 200 vocal layers on some of her stuff. She said it takes on a whole new life of it's own at some point.
 
Dijoux said:
If you are talking about the backing vocals: I read in an article that Enyas trademark sound is produced by stacking many times the same vocal line. That is, she sings the same part over and over exactly the same (which due to humane imperfection will never be the same). She does one harmony at least 10 times. So imagine that times 4 harmonies...
Same effect as Def Leppards Backing vocals. I love that sound...

Hans
Click to expand...

I remember back in the 80's that Mutt Lange stated in Home Recording that He compressed Def Leppard's BG vocals at 14:1 Ratio with a slow release...he said that way they were essentially 1 voice, and extremely smooth.....


Tim
 
I've been doing it for years. Lots of takes of each part, really tight and acurate, the Beatles started it ;)

Cheers
John
 
"compressed 14:1, slow release"
Now that's a piece of information I can use. Most of my backing vocals at this time are in Def Leppard's kind of style. So I'd like to copy it first, then to move on to my own style.
I had read a couple of M. Lange's trademark "secrets": recording each harmony AT LEAST 5 times, scooping out the mid's and adding some chorus, etc. But I had never though over extensively compressing the tracks. (Even though now it seems obvious, doesn't it?). I guess Enya ain't that far away.
Thanks for the input.


:-)

Hans
 
In my book, Mutt Lange is pretty much the "King" of Slick Productions-and there are certain aspects of his, and Max Norman's styles that I steal left and right.
These guys are two of my Favorite producers.

Tim
 
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