Recording and mixing the vocals (tips)

A

A.D.Ryan

New member
Hey guys! I was wondering if any of you could tell what are the priorities when you record and mix the voice? I`m aiming for top notch quality, yet I`m a noob. Keep dreaming, you might tell me...I still wanna give it a try.
After recording ( Rode NT2A condenser) the vocals, what would be the basic stuff that needs to be done? Let`s say the first 5 steps? getting rid of the background ni\oise , effects etc...
Also, if I have a small voice, should I be recording on 2/3 tracks at the same time, or just use the volume settings from the effects? Thank you in advance!
 
A.D.Ryan said:
Hey guys! I was wondering if any of you could tell what are the priorities when you record and mix the voice? I`m aiming for top notch quality, yet I`m a noob. Keep dreaming, you might tell me...I still wanna give it a try.
After recording ( Rode NT2A condenser) the vocals, what would be the basic stuff that needs to be done? Let`s say the first 5 steps? getting rid of the background ni\oise , effects etc...
Also, if I have a small voice, should I be recording on 2/3 tracks at the same time, or just use the volume settings from the effects? Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...
First of all, there should be no background noise in your vocal recordings. If there are fans, cars driving by, doors slamming, etc., you should re-record.

As for beefing up a small voice, singing it twice to separate tracks and mixing them does help. If you have two vocal tracks, putting a short tape delay plug on one of them can sound pretty good.

There are several things I do to "thicken" vocals. I typically will apply a ping-pong echo with the ping at 1/32 note and the pong at 1/16 note. Keep feedback off, so there is only one ping and one pong. I also use some saturation plugs, which add some hair without destroying clarity. I'll even use a rapid narrow pan plug from time to time to give a vocal some motion. With delays and echoes you don't want to over do it. Keep the times short and the effect low enough that you can't really hear the delay or echo. It just sounds better when it's there. Unless of course you want the echo effect, then turn it up. Depends on what the song calls for and the vocal track.

Some people like to detune the second vocal ten cents up and a third vocal down ten cents, as well as delaying it. I have not found this effect to sound all that good to me. To me it just sounds processed, plastic, fake.

Then some judicious use of reverb. I use plates a lot on vocals, but just experiment, and when it sounds good, it is good.
 
Thank you for the help! I must say it sounds really difficult for a rookie like me. So trial and error is the way to go...:) I can definitely do that! Are you also using Reaper?
Cheers
 
Just remember, for all the treating of the room, proper mic setup, quality equipment, etc. there is NO substitute for a good performance. In fact, I think the most important part of any quality vocal recording is a strong performance. A strong performance that isn't captured as well as it could have been will always sound better than a crappy performance captured in the perfect studio. For this reason alone, I don't mount my mic on a stand. I hold it in my hands when I'm recording my vocals. Then I close my eyes and try to get into the song, haha. I find that for me this works pretty well.
<-- a sample of my lastest recording where I used this exact technique. The mic was a Behringer B2 condensor, and the pre was my little Line6 toneport UX-2.

That being said, there are somethings that you should keep in mind. Generally you will want to compress your vocal track, especially if it has any dynamic variation. There's a great free compressor I used for my vocals, the "blockfish" compressor. It's a vst, and it should work in just about any DAW. I typically load up the "up-front" vocals preset and do a minimal amount of tweaking.

You might also find you need to apply some EQ. In your FX chain, EQ should go before compression. Every voice is different, but typically you want to get rid of anything from about 80hz and below, and put a high-shelf on it starting at around 6k. If your vocals lack beef, boost around 350 - 500, although be careful because you can very easily make your vocals sound boxy. If your vocals lack overall strength, you can boost at 1.5k. In fact, I purposefully avoid boosting any instrument in my mix at the 1.5k range, just so I can save it for my vocals.

After that, any other effects are purely preferential based on what you want. I like a touch of large-hall reverb because I try to go for that "huge" sound on all my recordings. Depending on the genre, I might also run my vocals through a doubler. if you don't have a doubler plugin, you can essentially get the same effect by following the steps that guitar zero described.

Hope this helps!
 
Well, A.D., if you weren't screwed up before you posted this thread, you"re on your way to being completely screwed up now.
 
What Rami is trying to say, I guess, is that there is 'walk', and there is 'run', and one comes before the other.

The priorities for recording vocals are to get a good clean recording first; no effects, no tricks. If you are getting background noise (like the other GZ notes), deal with it: reduce gain, reduce sources of noise. If the voice is 'small', live with it, or work on getting it bigger (i.e. as muffins notes, work on the performance).

You might get away with holding the mike for recording, but I wouldn't recommend it (it's like trying to control a camera without a tripod).

There are things you can do after the event with EQ and compression; but no-one here can hear your voice, nor know how you are hearing it through your monitoring chain, so suggestions for settings are really stabs in the dark.

There are also tricks you can do with vocal multi-tracking, as others have suggested. You need, though, to be happy with a single vocal first.
 
gecko zzed said:
What Rami is trying to say, I guess, is that there is 'walk', and there is 'run', and one comes before the other.

The priorities for recording vocals are to get a good clean recording first; no effects, no tricks. If you are getting background noise (like the other GZ notes), deal with it: reduce gain, reduce sources of noise. If the voice is 'small', live with it, or work on getting it bigger (i.e. as muffins notes, work on the performance).

You might get away with holding the mike for recording, but I wouldn't recommend it (it's like trying to control a camera without a tripod).

There are things you can do after the event with EQ and compression; but no-one here can hear your voice, nor know how you are hearing it through your monitoring chain, so suggestions for settings are really stabs in the dark.

There are also tricks you can do with vocal multi-tracking, as others have suggested. You need, though, to be happy with a single vocal first.
Click to expand...

Thank you Gecko! At the moment I`m not walking and i@m not running either:) I`m crawling....sigh
I did learn today that ig the volume for instruments and mike is all the way up... you can hear the background noise I was talking about!
I do have a tripod
for my microphone... paid 65 bucks for it:) I know, silly...but it looks nice and sturdy... I will upload the vocals when I`m done.
Cheers!
 
FadeToMuffins said:
Just remember, for all the treating of the room, proper mic setup, quality equipment, etc. there is NO substitute for a good performance. In fact, I think the most important part of any quality vocal recording is a strong performance. A strong performance that isn't captured as well as it could have been will always sound better than a crappy performance captured in the perfect studio. For this reason alone, I don't mount my mic on a stand. I hold it in my hands when I'm recording my vocals. Then I close my eyes and try to get into the song, haha. I find that for me this works pretty well.
<-- a sample of my lastest recording where I used this exact technique. The mic was a Behringer B2 condensor, and the pre was my little Line6 toneport UX-2.

That being said, there are somethings that you should keep in mind. Generally you will want to compress your vocal track, especially if it has any dynamic variation. There's a great free compressor I used for my vocals, the "blockfish" compressor. It's a vst, and it should work in just about any DAW. I typically load up the "up-front" vocals preset and do a minimal amount of tweaking.

You might also find you need to apply some EQ. In your FX chain, EQ should go before compression. Every voice is different, but typically you want to get rid of anything from about 80hz and below, and put a high-shelf on it starting at around 6k. If your vocals lack beef, boost around 350 - 500, although be careful because you can very easily make your vocals sound boxy. If your vocals lack overall strength, you can boost at 1.5k. In fact, I purposefully avoid boosting any instrument in my mix at the 1.5k range, just so I can save it for my vocals.

After that, any other effects are purely preferential based on what you want. I like a touch of large-hall reverb because I try to go for that "huge" sound on all my recordings. Depending on the genre, I might also run my vocals through a doubler. if you don't have a doubler plugin, you can essentially get the same effect by following the steps that guitar zero described.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

This is very helpful, thank you!
I listened to Nothing Changes. Great stuff!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top