A brick wall. PLEASE HELP

M

Mull

New member
Alright, here is the situation. I wrote an awesome song and got all of the music recorded. Vocal time. I've been trying to get some vocal tracks down and I've made almost no progress in 2 straight days with probably a total time of 16 or so hours trying.

I've just recently started recording seriously. My last 2 songs were somewhat mellow, but this one is very heavy. Think the gain of Pantera with the heavy layering of Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins. I'm starting to think it may be an equipment issue. I have a very simple, bare bones set up and that's why I think it may be the brick wall I'm beating my head against. Like I said, it's been ok until now. Maybe my ears are maturing or maybe I'm too close to the song.

I'll post my set up and maybe some more experienced engineers can point me in the right, decently cheap direction. The mic is an Audio Technica 2020. It's running into an ART tube MP project series pre amp then the xlr is converted to an xl into an eq. Ive been bypassing it. The eq then runs to a mixer which runs line in to a 24/96 sound card.

Help me before I go crazy.
 
its been along day...

but from what I'm reading I am confused as to what the problem is. You say it's the vocals but you don't specify what is wrong with them. You make it sound like you can't think of what to sing, but then you describe the mic so I don't quite understand the issue...
 
I feel your pain!

I've been in the same situation countless times before, in fact, I have been working on the same song now for about a week. What works...if I feel that the vibe is just not there..I simply walk away and save the song for another day (or maybe work on another project). I've come back in a day or two or three with a fresher outlook and (9 times out of 10) I nail it on the first take. I laid down MY final track last night and I will be checking the master tonight (in hopes of mastering the thing to CD)...I'll let you know what happens.
 
I guess the main problem is that I can't get the vocals to fill the space. The guitars are really big and I love them. the vocals seem small. I've tried EQ'ing. I've tried different singing styles. Panning makes it too loose.
 
Sailjunkie said:
I've been in the same situation countless times before, in fact, I have been working on the same song now for about a week. What works...if I feel that the vibe is just not there..I simply walk away and save the song for another day (or maybe work on another project). I've come back in a day or two or three with a fresher outlook and (9 times out of 10) I nail it on the first take. I laid down MY final track last night and I will be checking the master tonight (in hopes of mastering the thing to CD)...I'll let you know what happens.
Click to expand...

I thought about working on some different music, but I'd hate to do that. This song is awesome and I'm so close to finishing it, but I just may have to let it sit so my ears can have a break from it.
 
I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but...

give the vocals plenty of headroom. Lots of tracks to get that extra OOMPH. Just a suggestion though. Good luck!
 
Walking away won't hurt the song!

It's ironic but I'm working on (what I think will be) one of the best things I've ever done. I'm giving it time though, and not rushing the mix and things are filling in nicely.
 
Well, not knowing if this is even possible with your rig..

what I've done in the past (as I don't use computer DAW, but DO use an outboard digital multitrack unit) is run my Alesis 3630 compressor into the multitracks effects loop (send/return etc) and compress the signal(s) on mixdown, but you've got to pay close attention to ratios (2:1, 3:1, 4:1 etc. )and, to be honest, I do instrumental stuff so I've no experience compressing vocals. I'm sure someone else out there does though.
 
Of course the simplest solution...

is to lower the volume on the other tracks, and THEN play with the EQ on the vocals. Lowering the volume is the easiest way to gain headroom in the stereo spectrum. Again, just trying to help...my advice could be all wet, but I'm learning too...
 
Sailjunkie said:
is to lower the volume on the other tracks, and THEN play with the EQ on the vocals. Lowering the volume is the easiest way to gain headroom in the stereo spectrum. Again, just trying to help...my advice could be all wet, but I'm learning too...
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. Do you know any ways to duplicate a track and change dynamics just enough to make them sound like they arent duplicates? I dont want 2 seperate takes because I want the vocals very tight. Know what I mean? I want the full surround sound of 3 tracks. 2 hard panned and one down the center, but the tightness of one single audio track.
 
Sailjunkie said:
is to lower the volume on the other tracks, and THEN play with the EQ on the vocals. Lowering the volume is the easiest way to gain headroom in the stereo spectrum. Again, just trying to help...my advice could be all wet, but I'm learning too...
Click to expand...

Actually , I think you may have figured it out. The music is pushed way up because I mix as I go. I though about it and the reason I probably didnt get the punch in the vocals I want is because I didnt give them enough head room. When I'd come close to getting the punch I wanted, I'd start peaking and have to try and compensate. Ill try pushing all the music down, then squishing the vocals and bringing the rest of the music back up. Thanks much man.
 
Duplicating a track does absolutely nothing but make it louder. It's the exact same thing as turning up one track. The only way to "duplicate" a track is to sing it twice.
 
I pulled down all the levels and did some vocal tracks. Dual tracks. They're raw right now and I havent tinkered with them yet, but they sound good. Im going to wait till I finish before adding effects and eq. My voice is pretty much ripped for the night as I've been at it all day and it's metal. I'll have to pick it up tomorrow. The vocal style is Rammstein, Fear Factory-ish. Thanks for the suggection, Sailor. There is new hope!
 
Mull said:
I guess the main problem is that I can't get the vocals to fill the space. The guitars are really big and I love them. the vocals seem small.
Click to expand...

I suspect you've realized this by now, but there's your problem. Everything in mixing is a tradeoff, you're basically allocating a finite sonic space between different instruments. If something's huge, then something else has to give. In this case it's your guitar and vocals...
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I suspect you've realized this by now, but there's your problem. Everything in mixing is a tradeoff, you're basically allocating a finite sonic space between different instruments. If something's huge, then something else has to give. In this case it's your guitar and vocals...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm finding heavier music is more complex to engineer because you want that big , powerful sound. I pulled the music down, recorded the vocals and pushed the music back up to do tweaking on the vocals. The vocals are a lot better now, but Im still finding a little trouble making the vocals sit in the big sound of the music. To make the vocals stand out, it seems I have to push them above the music which I don't want to do because I want them to sit in the big wall of sound, but still stand out and be clear. I'll probably try puching the music down slightly. Made a lot of progress though.
 
It's all part of the learning process...

even after 20 odd years of home recording, I'm learning too and this website is a great way to communicate with others in the same boat (so to speak:D)
 
Mull said:
Yeah, I'm finding heavier music is more complex to engineer because you want that big , powerful sound. I pulled the music down, recorded the vocals and pushed the music back up to do tweaking on the vocals. The vocals are a lot better now, but Im still finding a little trouble making the vocals sit in the big sound of the music. To make the vocals stand out, it seems I have to push them above the music which I don't want to do because I want them to sit in the big wall of sound, but still stand out and be clear. I'll probably try puching the music down slightly. Made a lot of progress though.
Click to expand...

More complex to mix, maybe - I think really intimate, sparse stuff is probably more complicated to "engineer" (and I hate using that term simply because let's be honest, you and I are just two guys fucking around in their bedrooms having a great time recording music and pretending what we do is anything more than that is kind of pretentious) simply because in such a sparse context, it's absolutely crucial to get your source material perfect.

Anyway, I think you missed my point, man. A huge, wall-of-sound guitar track on its' own sounds pretty fuckin' righteous- it's this massive behemouth of rumbling sound waves that can instill fear of god into even the coldest, deadest of hearts. Yet, the problem is that same huge guitar sound takes up an awful lot of bandwidth, and what might sound absolutely epic on it's own suddenly starts clashing like crazy when you start adding bass, drums, cymbols and, in your case, vocals.

The thing with the Smashing Pumpkins guitar tone, since you've mentioned it a few times, is it's not actually THAT big. Rather, it's very focused, with a ton of upper mids, fairly scooped low mids, and fairly tight bass. It just happens to cut like a knife betwen the bass guitar (which fills out the low end) and Corgan's voice (which is pretty high).

The "secret" if you want to call it that for mixing a really big guitar tone is, perversely, NOT to make it so big, but rather to make it fill just the space that it needs to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top