Monitored vocal levels need boost

R

Roger Mac

New member
Hey guys.

My vocalist is recording to pre-made tracks. On the lows she can hear her self through the headphones fine but when things liven up and she's pushing some power vocals she can't hear herself in the headphones.

I've tried turning down the levels on the music track but then the music is too low. The vocal levels (in software) are already nearing clip. And the headphone volume (obviously) turns up both music and vocals when it's only the vocals I want to turn up.

I'm fairly new at this so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

Rode K2 mic
RNP mic preamp (set at +18db gain)
Lynx L22 card
Cubase under Win XP sp2
Prosonus Central Station for monitors and headphones
 
too loud, no sound response...

Howdy!

Are you running a limiter on the vocals? Often times, if you're running a limiter too hard, it can slice off the louder parts of your sound. You may have a limiter on your pre-amp. Try recording it without the limiter. Set it for a slight compression if you're worried it may overload the signal. If you say "well, I am using a compressor, not a limiter"... make sure your ratio isn't set to infinity (all the way to the right). When it's set that way, your compressor automatically becomes a limiter. Try backing off the ratio to around 2:1 and go from there. If that's not the problem, run the microphone directly into your mixer (if you're using a mixer), try the vocals and see if it does the same thing. This will tell you whether or not it's your preamp. I've found that a great home studio tube mic-preamp is the ART Tubepac. Hope this helps!

-Clintage
www.clintage.com
:cool:
 
An alternative is to use the SPIDF or AES port on the Lynx and run a separate stereo feed out to the central station. Just bring the vocal out on the second feed and you will have separate volume control for the music vs. voice.

Or, you don't necessarily need a nice stereo image for monitoring just feed a mono music signal to the left ear and the voice on the right in the headphones and use your software to adjust the levels.

There are some other options but you have all the gear you need to make this work.
 
Last edited:
Hey guys.

No limiter (harware or software during recording). I thought of trying some compression while recording but wasn't sure if the signal is then recorded compressed or "virgin".

The SPDIF/AES idea sounds interesting. I'll have to refresh my memory as to the input options on the Presonus CS and see if I can figure out the routing for that.

Great stuff. Thanks guys.
 
Get yourself a GOOD Headphone Distribution Amplifier, like a Behringer HA-4400, then you can "Sub-Mix" your vocals and "music". Every studio should have some type of headphone distribution system somewhere, you can't live without it if you're recording vocals or trying to "listen" to one mix while your vocalist is trying to "hear" something else. Also, you may be saturating your vocal input stage, are you running it through a compressor or limiter?
 
If you're monitoring through a mixer, then you should be able to fix this. If you send the vocals to your DAW by way of an insert/aux send on the vocal channel, then you'll be able to adjust the level into the DAW with the aux send level (and your soundcard settings) while being able to adjust the vocal level into the headphone mix separately with the vocal channel's volume slider/pot.

HTH, :)
-Jeff
 
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