How to sit a vocal in the mix?

F

FUNKY

New member
First, do tell me..Do you make the lead vocal mono or stereo file? I think that it should be dead centered in the mix?

Then, what plugins do you use for better sitting in the mix?

I've tried Voxciter with side-chaining and it got me good results..

What about some pitch-shifting and phasing tehniques? Can someone tell me more about this? How to make it?

Is it done with some short delays or what?

What about it's EQ? Should I encrease some frequencies to get it pierced thru the mix?

Also, give me some advice on reverb thing?




Thanx
FUNKY
 
123

Try this, too.... record your guitars in true stereo (dual mic'ed) and then rotate them with Waves S1, make them sit all around your head. Then bring the vocals in dead center, mono, and the vocals will seem to be in front of you, while the guitars seem to be coming from around your head.
 
Any mono file can be panned left and right,but lead vocal is usually dead center,as is bass ,kick and snare.However,often the vocal is doubled (ala Beatles) to add texture.
As to "sitting down",the real key is to plan a space for the vocal.Not to make it compete with all the other midrangy instruments like guitar and keys.Use EQ to tailor your instruments each to sit in its frequency space.
A frequency analysis program (FFT,cool edit etc.)will tell you where each track is sitting.Compare the overlapping freqs and EQ to tame the head-butting.
As to effects,use what you like but be subtle.The listener should not notice the effect more than the program material!

Tom
 
and?

Thanx for the info..

Can someone tell me more about "vocal doubling"?

I'm using my lead vocals in mono file , dead centered..Is it correct or what? How should I doble it? Should I have some delays?

How to "Compare the overlapping freqs and EQ to tame the head-butting" ? What program to use?




FUNKY
 
Vocal doubling is simply singing the same part again (same person) as closely as you can.No matter how hard you try,you can't exactly duplicate the timing and delivery.So the result is a kind of natural chorus effect.Especially good if the vocalist has a weak or thin voice.The doubling helps thicken the sound.
You can use Cool Edit to analyze frequencys.Click-drag a region of a track and the analyze function will give you a graphic readout plotted on an x-y axis.Move the mouse to the peaks and the program will give you a readout of the frequency in Hz.You can then compare your various tracks one at a time this way and find out which frequencies are competing for the same space.Use parametric EQ to "trim" some space for the various tracks to sit.
Let me emphasize this technique is a make do for improper tracking.A good engineer plans out his sonic space before laying down tracks.So this kind of conflict is minimised.
That's why I suggest parametric EQ with narrow Q or slices rather than graphic EQ.Too many guys gouge out great hunks of space with a graphic EQ.You are welcome to do that,but to me it sounds awful!Parametric is at least more precise and much less noticeable.

Tom
 
I second that. Doubling vocals is not easy. If you cannot do it right, I have a suggestion that has been proven to work time and time again. Its called:
PRACTISE!!!:rolleyes:
 
Yo Funky One:

Boil, boil trouble and toil....I dig Shakespeare....

Try recording a "thin" voice on two tracks on the first take. Then, play with the pan and eq and reverb. Try some delay to get syllable articulation -- I like the 300 ms on my Alesis MidiVerb for some singers.

Then, you won't have to have the vocalist do a flying Walenda to duplicate the origianal vocal cut.

Green Hornet
 
|The solution is first to understand what the exact problem is.

Is a fading in and out so that sometimes you hear it well and sometimes not? the solution would be compression for starters.

Can you hear it all along but it is to thin or the color is problematic? It might be solved with freq content and Equing. It might need a little push with eq.

Do you need it just to stand out a bit more then it might be doubling.

Are you misusing reverb? overdoing? burying it in the mix?

are you doubling and phasing it?

The issue is - there are many ways to bring vocals out. The question starts with what exactly is the problem first.
 
Good call Moshe!

Funky. You are basically asking people how to "do it". Why don't you "do it" and see what happens? Are you lazy? I am serious. Nobody here has ANY idea of what your tracks sound like, nor how you WANT them to sound, how are we supposed to answer this question?

For all I know, your vocals could sound just fine and you are trying to make them sound in a way that they won't sound. Maybe the voice is totally wrong for the song? Ever consider that? But mainly, I cannot understand why you don't try some of these ideas and see what happens. THAT is how you learn, by DOING. It is cool to try other peoples ideas out, but usually I have found that I modify them severely to accomadate what I want to hear. You already have touched on many possible ways to mess with the vocals in your original thread. What you haven't done is actually try them. I don't understand why....:( Do you want some magical "turn up the idiotalizer plugin" type of advice to solve all your problems? EXPERIMENT!!! Maybe post an mp3 with an example of what you are talking about.

I remember walking in on a vocal session at the studio I worked at where the other engineer and the singer were listening to a take. The hair rose on the back of my neck when I heard this vocal take. It was dripping with honesty and emotion. I had never heard this singer before in my life but was instantly impressed with that take! He wanted to redo the take to fix some little problems that I failed to hear! (trust me when I say that I can hear problems that most don't......) I didn't even know the guys name yet, but when he suggested doing the take again, I told him "That would be crazy! That was a killer take". He kept it. When he released the CD, the one vocal take that everyone comments on is that particular one. Everybody LOVES it.

The point of the above story is that your perspective may be far off for what is good for your song.

I do know this. Once I stepped up to a bigger variety of time proven mics, and started using killer preamps and a class A compressor after the preamp, making vocals sit well in a mix required very little processing at mix time. I try different mics and preamps until I find a combo that works well with the artists voice. If I have to compress a bit, or even EQ a bit to tape to make the tone happen, I do. No compliants so far. The point of this is that you may not be getting a usable sound on vocals to tape. The mic selection and decisions about compression TO tape, eq TO tape, and the preamp you made might be all wrong. You may be able to ultimately make a poorly recorded vocal track sit well in a mix (or at least well enough) but I cannot think of one single thing to try that will assure this.

You obviously don't have enough experience in mixing to make your own judgement call on what to do with a poorly recorded track. But, you have listed some things to try. TRY THEM AND SEE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!!!

Now you know why producers make the big bucks.

Ed
 
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Ok..Read this :)

Thanx for your comment,Sjoko and thank you Ed,too..

What's the deal?
These five years I had a producer which made all the studio job for me: mixing, recording..I was just singing and writing music.. Now when I opened my studio I have a new role: producer.. And I confess that have a poor expirience with mixing, mastering, frequencies, vocal mixing...

That's why am asking these things..Want to know the fundamentals of these job? Spent weeks and weeks in mixing the track, dealing with frequencies, read a lot, read, read..Tried everything..And then I asked myself? What am I doing wrong.. Why my tracks sound ok but in comparison with pro's tracks they have some problems..They're not "punching" ,They do not have a huge bottom end ( low end), also with the hi-end..Why on the spectrum analyzer the bars aren't jumping all at once in all frequncies...And some other things..

Then I realised that I have to ask about these thing how the pro's are doing it..There must be a recipe for doing that.. In other way, you're right about the experimenting..I 'm doing it..And will post a mp3 with the results..

When i get to some results, I will share it with everyone..But the main question, what about the people (us) who have a DAW's and no outboard and no expensive gear. I think this is the main reason for existing of this forum.. How can we (homerecorders) make great production with our less professional gear?

I' m 100% sure that it can be done, and don't give a damn about the stories that a good record cannot be made in a home rec studio or in a studio without expensive gear..

I recorded my album in a studio with a similar gear as my..The producer made the producing and mastering damn good that I was astonished..God, I thought..He had almost the same gear as mine..It gave me strenght to learn these producer secrets and to learn and to learn..That's why I was asking this...



FUNKY
 
There are few "producing secrets" except for "what sounds good". Bottom line. There are millions of "techniques", but it would be impossible to share appropriate ones without being there and getting a feel for the project.

I can tell you to compress the vocal xdB and to cut/boost some freqeuncy xdB, and tell you to throw x reverb on there, and use x delay time, and try the x pitch shift mixed xdB back from the lead. What would that get you? I have NO idea. I haven't heard a single track you are referring to.

I would at this point be VERY interested in hearing a comparison between the stuff this "producer" did for you and what you are doing on your own.

I would have to say that 90% of engineering is intuitive. You hear something, and it might sound kind of good, but you intuitively know it won't work in the mix. That skill is something I have no way of explaining otherwise I would have already.

I can say this. Tracking is the MOST important thing in recording. If you strive to get mostly the EXACT sound you are looking for, mixing becomes much easier. When the mix is pretty decent, it is much easier to master it. Blah blah blah......

Do you know what an eq does?
Do you know what an compressor does?
Do you know what each parameter with a reverb does?
Do you know what each parameter in pitch/delay effects does?
Do you understand some basic acoustics?
Do you understand the Fletcher/Munson Relative Loudness Curves?
Can you read RMS AND Peak metering?
Do you understand gain structure?

A yes answer to all of these means you should be getting pretty decent results. Any no's in there and you better get on to those specific topics and start learning.

Ed
 
Yup, totally 100% agree

But the beauty withn audio is - you have the tracks there!
So, if you are not happy with the way something sounds, change it, and keep doing it until you are happy with it
A lot of work, a lot of practise, and if you're in the studio working for 16 hours a day? So what. If I can't get something to sound right, I can't sleep - so I carry on until I'm satisfied i've given it my best.
 
And I agree with you sjoko2! I have spent 18 hours on a mix once. Several mixes at about 15 hours.

I have ran stuff back through preamps, guitar amps, other mixers, track direct to effect processors, etc........Whatever it takes to get the "texture" I am after.

I never understand really why so many here have such a tough time mixing something. You guys have all the time you could ever want to work on your projects. It is not like people are paying you for your time! In those kinds of situations, where I am either mixing for my own ends, or the deal with the artist is to "mix until it is right" for a certain price (I have done quite a few of those!) I will spend whatever time it takes to make the mix as good as I can get it. It is during those times that you don't see me around here much. I am too busy trying to deal with the mix!

Mostly though, I have to work on budgets. That is why I do the "mix until it is right" stuff, so when I HAVE to get the mix right within 4 or 5 hours, I have enough experience with trying stuff to have a feel for what will work in a certain situation.

Marathon mixing takes a great degree of concentration, stamina, and patience. The mix will go in and out of "sounding good" several times before THE mix happens. Then you will find yourself spending yet another 4 or 5 hours just messing with little things, like Low Pass filters on the reverbs, and release times on kick drums, and fader moves on the guitar tracks. I am not sure many people have what it takes really to dedicate themselves to mixing like this. You REALLY have to be into it!

So Funky, I am not really trying to be mean here. It is just that you can spend as much time as you want on your material to get it right. Put in the time at the console, and you will then know why I responded the way I did! You will then see how hard it is to explain how and why you make certain decisions in a mix, and how it is impossible to share "secrets" in mixing. There are few "secrets" (although, there are some "tricks" I don't share....:) tough shit for you guys! I am holding on to them for a bit! ;)), only a lot of stuff you try and see if it works. You would be surprised sometimes at what kinds of things do work!

Dig in! Start on those marathon mixes! Try everything you can think of on whatever instrument you are working on to make it sound the way you NEED it to sound in the mix. Nothing is "wrong" to do. If it ends up making the track sound right, then it is the "right" thing to do.

Ed
 
Thanx

Yep, thanx for the answers, Ed.. Sjoko ,too..

Considering the fact that I'm almost 18 hours a day at my studio gives me hope that I'm actually on the "right way" :)

I agree with all you have said and just want to tell that I also have "dead-lines" and timing for finishing the mixes..That's why I was nervous sometimes, and probably you were..

Actually I'm locating my problems together with you guys ,who know those things..

Maybe they are -bit problems or frequency..Can you get good mixes runing on 16-bits and 44100 during the process?
Is it possible?
Or it makes a big difference when making those 24-bit files with 48000 and the dithering them?
I worked 16-bit (44100) till know and I made some progress when got into 24-bit in some cases..

If this is true, how can you then make 24-bit files of the samples and instruments which are 16-bit recorded and 44100? What about this, ED?
That's the main reason which worries me moving everything into 24-bit...

And also, I thought that much of that "polishing " the track is done with mastering..Is this in my case? I have everything sounding good at right level but the track doesn't have a big punch and good freq ends..Can It be done with mastering and compressing the final mix? That's what I was looking for..

Will post a mp3 example these days when mix is over...
If you're curious , you can listen how my producer and me made the older tracks on mp3.com/alexandarmitevski...
But it was done mostly by my producer who knew those things damn good..

So, I want to achieve this and to gain experience in this area..And so, I thank you all guys for helping me and the other guys which are into this "producer" bussiness as well as me..





FUNKY
 
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