A boxy singer

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sixways

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I working on a track for a guy now, simple (in theory) acoustic guitar and vocals. I've got the guitars just damn near perfect other than needing to pull a bit of bass out, but I just can't seem to get the vocals to blend. They sound boxy and really up front in the mix. I've cut everything under 40hz, I've tried pulling it down in the 200-400hz range, and it just doesn't seem to be blending at all. Looking at the frequency in a graphic analyzer, he seems to be a bit heavy around 100k and gradually falling off on up in the highest frequencies.

I've compressed, I've eq'ed, I've reverbed, I've short delayed...and it still just sounds like he's singing in a box really loud.

Any tips or pointers without actually hearing it?

Thanks,
6
 
No, the room is pretty dead. Its a 6X3 space that I have treated with duvet covers.

6
 
Just my thoughts...

It all starts at the tracking stage. Great sounding tracks, sound good right from the start. I would explain to him that you can make improvements if he would be willing to sing it a few more times. Try different mics, different techniques, different rooms...(if you haven't already.) When you end up with a track that sounds like it doesn't need any EQing at all, then you have a keeper.

Good luck,
RawDepth
 
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Don't know what you mean by boxy. Are you tracking the vocal and the guitar at the same time? Both with their own mic? If so you have a phase problem.
 
Well, its not a phase problem, so I can rule that out. The two are recorded seperate. I think it may all come back to mic placement. We punched him in to retake one part and he sounds better on that part, I believe he was standing slightly different.

I've heard it desribed as a "vocal honk", perhaps instead of boxy. Seems to be some unpleasantness in the low middle frequencies that I have yet to clean up. I've cut them, but then track seems thin...maybe I should look into boosting the other frequencies around the LMF.

Regardless, does it sound like EQ is my problem? I can't see compression fixing the issue...

6
 
sixways said:
Regardless, does it sound like EQ is my problem? I can't see compression fixing the issue...
Click to expand...
It's hard for any of us to tell anything without hearing it, but it sounds like the tracking setup may be thr root of the problem. I'd try re-recording well before I started throwing a bunch of hardware and software at it.

First off, the room sounds like a big problem. Recording vocals in what is basically a dead closet is taking away natural reverb and high end at the same time, while probably playing havoc with the bass, squeezing out all sorts of bass modes. This could well explain what you're seeing on the RTA.

If you can get the artist to re-record, have him come out of the closet (literally, not psychologically ;) ). If you want a similar sound as the guitar, record in the same location that the guitar was located. Put some absorbtive backing behind the vocalist if you want to deaden the rear reflections the same way the guitar is deadened by the player's body. If you want a livelier sound, try moving the vocalist to the kitchen, bathroom or large stairwell to get some natural bright room reverb.

Also, you might want to try changing up vocal mics if you have a choice. Matching mics to vocalists is a black art; what works best on vocalist A doesn't necessarily work best on vocalist B.

OTOH, if re-tracking is simply not an option (e.g. the singer has died, or even worse, moved to New York City ;)), then you have to choose the lesser evil of trying to fix the tracking you have.

My first question is if he's heavy at 100Hz (skip the RTA, does he *sound* heavy at 100Hz?), why haven't you cut there?

But instead of that, I'd do the ol' parametric sweep first, sweep through the frequencines on the vocal track with a narrow-Q, high-boost band of parametric EQ and look for the frequency or frequencies where the "boxiness" really jumps out at you. When you have those frequencies figured out and isolated, pull back on the gain until you are cutting them by a few dB instead of boosting them.

Do the same thing with the guitar. sweeing the guitar track(s) to look for honking freqs there as well. They hopefully and probably won't be that similar to the bad vocal ones.

Then once you have those offending freqs notched out, pull back on the overall level of the vocals by just a couple of dB and add some ambience to the track in the form of a "warm room" or "medium plate" reverb. Don't make the tail too long, and don't make the vocal so wet with reverb that the casual listener will notice it's there. Just enough to make it sound natural with a bit of the edges rounded off.

Then try mixing the two together, adding a little of the same kind of verb to the gits if you have to to match the sound.

HTH,

G.
 
I'll be tweaking more tonite. If I still cannot get this sounding decent, I'll pull all the eq/dyn/verbs and post a clip on lightningmp3.

Thanks for the comments,
6
 
Perhaps we need some policing done on the "rep point giving" around here...I got this feedback for asking a question about my own problems:

"GO FUCK UR MOM U BITCH ASS SON OF A BITCH PUNK ASS WHITE MOTHER FUCKING WHOREGO FUCK UR MOM U BITCH ASS SON OF A BITCH PUNK ASS WHITE MOTHER FUCKING WHOREGO FUCK UR MOM U BITCH ASS SON OF A BITCH PUNK ASS WHITE MOTHER FUCKING WHOREGO FUCK UR MOM U BI"

Of course, its unsigned, and most uncalled for.

6
 
When you're done with your mom see if you can post an audio clip somewhere because otherwise we are just shooting in the dark. :p
 
I'm going to have to post the whole clip, I don't have any DAW software on this computer to cut it down to take a segment of it (sorry). The song is about 6 minutes long (again, sorry, I didn't write it). It has about a 15 second lo-fi intro before everything else comes in.

This is the absolute best I have been able to get it thus far. I realized part of the problem I was having came from trying to be "Mr. Loud" on the mastering end. I took some advice from around the boards and went for a more classic approach, not trying to get it to "0" and its a bit better now.

Opinions please?! Sorry this isn't in the Mp3 mixing clinic, but we started out here.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=5417


Thanks, and thanks to whoever for helping me offset my moronic rep point!

6
 
Is that "out of phase" sound intentional? That's the only thing offensive I hear.
 
Sound like a tracking problem to me ... or maybe room emulation
If it's not emulation, then I'm wondering if you myabe have a broken microphone, or forgot to turn on the phantom power before recording?

is that phasy sound there when you take off all effects and solo the vocal track?

I notice that much of the undesirable sound is comming from the low end and also from around 2.6-5khz (or so) FWIW
 
I'm thinking more and more that it is in fact the room. There aren't any effects on the voice, a smidge of EQ and a light compression. Its been a learning experience for sure. Just because guitars sound good in a room, I assumed vocals would too. Theres a part in the tune where we punched in and those vocals to me sound much better...I guess he was standing differently.

I'll chalk this one up to experience and retrack his vocals (if I ever hear from the guy again!)

6
 
You could try putting a light towel or blanket/sheet behind the microphone to stop reflections from the wall behind it and have the singer sing not so close to the mic (this is esp for large diaphragm condensers that pick up sound from both the front and rear)

not the most ideal solution, but it works for vocals anyway
 
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