"Dirty Vocals"

M

murphyd311

New member
Hi all,

I've been lurking here for a couple of months, reading, learning, and applying (or attempting to). I've been using Pro Tools MP for about 6 months. I've read a couple of 'Home Recording' books to get an idea of how things work and how to apply concepts to my recordings.

I recently started playing bass with a local band, they (we I guess) are a mix of melodic rock with some screaming. I've been recording and mixing one of our songs to kind of get my feet wet. I've gotten the guitar, bass and drums about where I want them, but had been waiting on vocals to complete the mix. I got the vocalist over last night and laid down some good tracks. I took a step back last night and didn't mix it (as much as I wanted too).

I recorded 6 takes, 3 "clean" takes with an MXL 990, and three "dirty" takes with an SM58. The clean takes were emphasis on the singing, while the dirty takes I wanted the vocalist to emphasize the screaming parts. The only problem I have is the singing parts are kind of sterile, kind of like they were sung in a vacuum, it clashes with the song a bit right now. They're a bit "bright" as well, especially on the 990. I know that the 990 needs to be replaced future.

What tricks do you use to "dirty" up a vocal track? I'm assuming a little reverb and EQ, but I'm trying to get an idea of what other options I have. I was hoping for some ideas before I mixed these vocals in.

Thanks!

Dan
 
I don't play the kind of music you're probably talking about. But I've read people saying that "whisper" tracks can help make vocal tracks bigger.
 
I'm not positive what you mean by "dirty up" a vocal. But it might be interesting to send a bit of the vocal to an aux bus with something like one of Voxengo's amp sims (like Voxengo Tube Amp). Set it to a distorted setting. I've been meaning to try that for a couple years myself just to hear what it sounds like. I just keep forgetting. Shows you how keen I am on it.
 
I also don't quite know what "dirty up" means (dropping a few choice epithets seems to be in vogue, at least according to the New York Times), but it's quite possible TripleM has put his finger on it.

If, say, you're looking for something like the vocal sound that characterized The Sonics (if, of course, you even know who The Sonics were), you're looking for distortion. An amp sim intended for guitar could well do the trick. If you don't have that - or if you want to be more "authentic" - try overdriving a mic preamp, most likely (though not necessarily) one with a tube. You might try chaining two mic preamps, with the one you want to distort going second.
 
Send an aux to a limiter and smash the hell out of it. Then put a deesser on it to kill some of the highs. If you don't have a de esser then you can probably just use a high shelf eq and drop the highs down about 5-8 db starting from about 4k. You can also run another aux to a distortion plugin just to grind it up a bit.

Now just adjust the levels of the dry mix, smashed mix, and distorted mix to get the sound you want. Then as always, add delay and reverb and maybe chorus.

My vocal tracks have like 7 sends and use probably 4 plugins on the channel. A dry vocal mix is probably the worst thing you can have in a mix!

Also, I had a screaming vocalist use a 58 recently for our scratch tracks and the sound was "unique". I prefer the sound of screamed vocals with a condenser but for something different the 58 might work better!
 
Good suggestions, I'm mixing it now. By "dirty" I mean not sterile and bright. Now that I read comments basically it means it has too much highs. I'll try killing the high end and see how that works. Right now I only have the default Pro Tools MP pluggins. I added a touch of distortion on the scream parts, and it really helped.

And I'm having to revisit the bass/drums/guitar parts as well. It's my first real mix and it has been fun, so far, but I can tell I have a long way to go. It seems like one of those things that the more you learn, the less you really know.

bobbybizzle said:
A dry vocal mix is probably the worst thing you can have in a mix!
Click to expand...

Dry! That describes it perfectly!
 
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