Hi all,
I did some tracking of a vocalist the other night. She sounded great and the levels were all fine, but listening closer to the tracks I'm hearing some noise that I can't seem to identify. It's not quite sibilance, it's like a lower distorted sound. On the attached sample, you can hear this noise most clearly on the very first syllable of "September". There are similar instances across all the takes, but the noise does not occur on every "s" sound. Experimenting with various de-essers doesn't do anything. For what it's worth, the noise in question is not really audible in the context of the full mix with the band, but it's still driving me nuts!
Here is the recording setup:
MXL V67GS condenser mic in standard setting
Vocalist about 6 inches away, with standard fabric POP filter halfway between singer and mic
Top quality braided XLR cables
Mic cable plugged directly into ART tube pre-amp providing phantom power, no additional enhancements added.
Pre-amp plugged into TASCAM 2488 digital multitracker. Low cut on the mixers input EQ, otherwise no additional processing.
Recorded at 24/44.1 before conversion to mp3 posted here.
Thank you for listening and helping me get to the bottom of this!
View attachment Vocal diagnostic sample.mp3
I did some tracking of a vocalist the other night. She sounded great and the levels were all fine, but listening closer to the tracks I'm hearing some noise that I can't seem to identify. It's not quite sibilance, it's like a lower distorted sound. On the attached sample, you can hear this noise most clearly on the very first syllable of "September". There are similar instances across all the takes, but the noise does not occur on every "s" sound. Experimenting with various de-essers doesn't do anything. For what it's worth, the noise in question is not really audible in the context of the full mix with the band, but it's still driving me nuts!
Here is the recording setup:
MXL V67GS condenser mic in standard setting
Vocalist about 6 inches away, with standard fabric POP filter halfway between singer and mic
Top quality braided XLR cables
Mic cable plugged directly into ART tube pre-amp providing phantom power, no additional enhancements added.
Pre-amp plugged into TASCAM 2488 digital multitracker. Low cut on the mixers input EQ, otherwise no additional processing.
Recorded at 24/44.1 before conversion to mp3 posted here.
Thank you for listening and helping me get to the bottom of this!
View attachment Vocal diagnostic sample.mp3