Recording distorted vocals.

ChristopherDawn

ChristopherDawn

New member
I was at the practice of a band I'll be recording in a few weeks and the singer was singing through this small guitar amp that distorted quite a bit. That sound, however, is a pretty big character for their music, so I want to capture it.

Now I'm thinking about micing up the amp with a Soundelux u195 and having him singing through an sm57 to it. Then having him sing another track directly into the u195. Then blending them together.

Has anybody tried this? How did you blend them? Maybe compress the distorted vocals a bunch and bring them up behind the clean version?

Any ideas or suggestions would help. Thanks.


Oh. I have a soundcraft m12, great river me2-nv, soundelux u195, sm57s, mxl603s and a mxl v67m, as well as two rncs for my 'fun tools.' I also have waves plug ins and such if anybody has some 'wacked out ideas' for me to try. Thanks.
 
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Chris, I've done this a number of times by recording the vocals like usual and run the recorded signal through a Marshall amp.

Just the tape out into the Marshall and the line out of the Marshall back into the console.

Blend it to taste, a little salt and pepper wont help.:D

But don't try this on stage!
 
I can't believe I'm about to say this

Get your hands on a Behringer (there I said it :eek: ) Virtualizer DSP 1024. This thing does actually have a very cool distortion effect in it.

Another distortion trick I’ve heard of (just haven’t got around to trying yet) is to put the vocals into a BOSS heavy metal distortion pedal. You should be able to split/copy the vocal track and send one into the pedal while blending in the other as desired.

Please forgive me for the “B” word. Thanks :)
 
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It's all good for mentioning the almighty B. The only thing is with those suggestions is that we already have the exact distortion we want through the amp he's already using, so we just have to bust that.

Thanks Han for the response, too. That's probably the way I'll go.

What about during mixdown? Is there anything else you do to make them 'fit' together better?
 
Chris, I have the clean vocal track on a channel of the board, have a line in the tape out of that channel (I'm a tape slut) and put it into the Marshall (a Valvestate). You can distort the hell out of it by adding more gain.

The Marshall has a pre out and that is connected to another channel of the board.

I can mix the clean and distorted vocal sound, or use only the distorted, or add a little of the clean track, whatever the vocalist likes.

I've done a whole CD this way and got some phonecalls, asking me how I got that distorted sound. With a Marshall amp, I answered.

Oh great, but we've tried this on stage with a Marshall and it only makes feedback noises!:D

BTW, this process works also great with Rhodes pianos.
 
ChristopherDawn said:
Now I'm thinking about micing up the amp with a Soundelux u195 and having him singing through an sm57 to it. Then having him sing another track directly into the u195. Then blending them together.
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That should work fine. If the sound of that particular amp is important, then use it. You won't need to compress the amp'ed vocals too much. As far as blending, I'd keep the clean vocals low (for a little clarity), maybe add a touch of delay.

I wouldn't go line out from an amp. . .
 
Why don't you try using a tube pre like the super cheap Presona one I picked up. If you crank the tube saturation up it will produce a nice warm distortion on the vocal track. This seems to have tonal quality compared to artists such as ministry.
 
Sounds like you have lots of great advice already, which, of course is why I can't help myself {:-) Id play around with some of these ideas if you like... Why not? but, if the sound they get from the amp is what they want... I'd put two mics in front of the singer and put the singer and mics in isolation. Place one mic over the other so the off axis sounds follow each other. Now, run the 57 out of the mic pre to the amp and send that sound to the vocalist and to tape. Sent the other mic to its own track and not to the vocalist. Now the singer gets the sound they are used to and you get the sounds you need for mixdown. In tracking sessions, it is very important that the artists are comfortable and have the sound they are familiar with or are excited about. Treat those artists like the kings and queens they are and you'll get great performances out of it. One last thing...
Record everything!!! I always record during those "you jam a bit while get my levels squared away and then we'll take one for real" Wink wink!
Stack
 
headstack said:
Sounds like you have lots of great advice already, which, of course is why I can't help myself {:-) Id play around with some of these ideas if you like... Why not? but, if the sound they get from the amp is what they want... I'd put two mics in front of the singer and put the singer and mics in isolation. Place one mic over the other so the off axis sounds follow each other. Now, run the 57 out of the mic pre to the amp and send that sound to the vocalist and to tape. Sent the other mic to its own track and not to the vocalist. Now the singer gets the sound they are used to and you get the sounds you need for mixdown. In tracking sessions, it is very important that the artists are comfortable and have the sound they are familiar with or are excited about. Treat those artists like the kings and queens they are and you'll get great performances out of it. One last thing...
Record everything!!! I always record during those "you jam a bit while get my levels squared away and then we'll take one for real" Wink wink!
Stack
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That is a good idea as well. The only problem I see is that most artists may like the sound they are getting yet have no clue that what you hear won't work in the mix. So us as engineers have to pursuade the artist that we may have a better way to skin the cat in order to have a track that works in the mix. The customer is always right yet they may not know better. I suppose if worse comes to worse and they insist you should just advise that you tried to reason with them but its their fault it sounds like shit LOL.
 
Vesuvius,
That is why I loved recall on all those big Neves and SSLs. The client sees a console in an MTV video and decides they can mix. So I turn em loose for a while and when they say "this sounds like crap, what did you do"? I go to lunch and let the assistant re-set the console. Plus, the client wants to run a few hours up on the tab? Sure! How many times were you asked to add more BASS to an already FAT track? I grab the boost pot on the low band (eq not engaged) and ask them to stop me whan there is enough bass. "thats perfect, dont touch a thing"!!
Holy crap, I'm giving away all my secrets!!
Stack
 
headstack said:
Sounds like you have lots of great advice already, which, of course is why I can't help myself {:-) Id play around with some of these ideas if you like... Why not? but, if the sound they get from the amp is what they want... I'd put two mics in front of the singer and put the singer and mics in isolation. Place one mic over the other so the off axis sounds follow each other. Now, run the 57 out of the mic pre to the amp and send that sound to the vocalist and to tape. Sent the other mic to its own track and not to the vocalist. Now the singer gets the sound they are used to and you get the sounds you need for mixdown. In tracking sessions, it is very important that the artists are comfortable and have the sound they are familiar with or are excited about. Treat those artists like the kings and queens they are and you'll get great performances out of it. One last thing...
Record everything!!! I always record during those "you jam a bit while get my levels squared away and then we'll take one for real" Wink wink!
Stack
Click to expand...

I've done this myself works great for me ...Kings and Queens ect. Very true!



Don
 
EQ not engaged..LOL..We had one guy fiddeling with a delay that wasn't turned on..He could hear the difference..We just let him go..Somethings are priceless:D





Don
 
Henri,
It's amazing how it sometimes takes a musician to hear a change of .002 ms in the delay. However, in your case, he must have been a true pro!!
Ever plug gear in, not patching returns, just to get the lights flashing?
Man, this guy is amazing... Look at that, he's practically using everything in the rack. Pan Scans and Gain Brains are great for this. Lots of pretty LEDs.
Stack
 
it's all about the number of flashing lights...as a musician by extraction i have to admit that before i started to get educated i did buy based on such useful features. i have a behringer blue devil guitar amp because of it - never got one good sound out of it and the EQ is dreadful but man it looks impressive on stage ...

my 2pence on the original topic - get yourself a really decent clea vocal take first because you may find that the little amp sound doesn't work in the mix on tape. try a few different things, you might find a tone that sits better. the only problem might be if the singer can't sing the same without hearing the distortion...in which case line out the amp into his headphones ... you'll get clean he'll get dirty.
 
Yeah, from the information here and at the recpit I'll probably record a clean take to the u195 and then send that take through the amp and record that. Then I'll have my clean take and my distorted take.
 
headstack said:
Henri,
It's amazing how it sometimes takes a musician to hear a change of .002 ms in the delay. However, in your case, he must have been a true pro!!
Ever plug gear in, not patching returns, just to get the lights flashing?
Man, this guy is amazing... Look at that, he's practically using everything in the rack. Pan Scans and Gain Brains are great for this. Lots of pretty LEDs.
Stack
Click to expand...

Ahh yes a true pro LOL..It was amazin watching him push buttons and twist knobs..The fun part is he's kinda of a prima donna!I told my partner that I though he reprogrammed the 70..LOL..So he goes and turns the power off to the 70 and the guy is still plugging away:eek: :D I should have let him hammer on the Line 6 echo..LOTS 'O LIGHTS !Ya can't pay for this kind entertainment:p ;) :D



Don
 
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