am radio vocals

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BigPapaFly

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I posted this question at...the other site...several months ago and I'm going to try again here.

How can I achieve an am radio vocal style without destroyinh the lyircs. Last night I took two vocal parts and jached the mids, took the lows out, and tried different things with the highs, and bounced them to two other tracks...then I did the same to the bounced track and bounced it back to the original...I did this sveral times and applied a small amount of flange and I was thrilled with resulting TONE...but the lyrics were destroyed.

If buying a bullhorn is the asnwer I will seriously do that....where do I get one.

Also, distorting the vocal a little does a little something like am radio when you combine it with high mids...but

There was an alternative diso-ish tune out a few years ago called "I Could Never be Your Woman," anyone know this song? That is exactly what I want to do with vocals.

Any help or ideas is appreciated.

Oh yeah, I also tried singing through a paper towel holder. Nope.

TY

BPF
 
"I remember, Papa"

I was just thinking about that song the other day. It had a little rascals feel to it. Wasn't it titled "I Could Never Be (A) Woman"?
(Since it was sung by a dude)
Maybe you could try typing "AM radio sound quality" in a search engine and see what you get. Here, let me try. Hold on...
C
H
E
C
K
I
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OK Here's one: http://www.monitor.ca/monitor/issues/vol9iss4/drmidi.html

I'll be right back...
Here's another: http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/2891C24AF2AFEF368625687A007C2C1B
Hope those help. (I still say try the plastic funnel)
Later,
Jasongs
 
OOps! My goof.

You were right. It is ..."Your Woman". In fact, here's White Towns official Site: http://www.btinternet.com/~reitaira/dou/yw.htm
Maybe it'll clue you into how they achieved that sound.
I'm listening to the midi version of that song as I write. It's kinda kooky.
Ciao Nao Braon Cao.
 
I think I know the vocal sound you're after....but I've never perfected it. My closest efforts involved using the filter on my behringer composer....and then going into My POD for a distorted type feel.......I like using it quite a lot...maybe too much..It sounds so frigin good......especially a smoothe distortion across the filtered vocal

Dunno if that helped
 
am vocals

Wow. How amazing. I was out with afriend this evening and our conversation turned to how to "process" vocals. She's a singer and I have a new Tascam 788 that I'm going around the learning curve up on two wheels. She suggested an internet search for some help in how to process a voice so it sounded like a TV sports announcer standing in a locker room with the winning team with all the background chaos "there" but the voice of the reporter covering is "THERE". Obviously compressed but there's a presence to the voice that I was going to look for. Thought I'd stop by here first (been lurking for a while here & tascams forum).
These sites and this thread are certainly serendipitous. Thank you all so much for being here and for the links. :o)
 
vocals

There's also taking just the vocal track out to PC into any audio editor, "normalizing" to various percentages of 0db to taste and tracking it back into the mix on the 788 to blend with the first take.
Normalizing a whole mix adds presence in a different way than most attempts at EQ'ing, if you've found the way to move all of your tracks to a PC editor program.
ciao
 
Shoot, I'd like to chime in on all this, especially normalization but it's been a long day with a client doing Sinatra covers and a night of playing flamenco'ish crap.
 
Hmmm I think I remember that post and I said the same thing...have your tried calling yourself on the mobile phone and singing through that (use a hands free set if you need a level boost, or use one of those telephone answering machines that plays the message out loud 'live').

Otherwise, doing it with eq, I think you need to compress the hell out of it before removing the lows & mids, that should retain some vocal clarity in the uppers. You also could retain some (upper) mid levels but reduce the Q value in the middle parametric band to retain that tinny feel and some clarity.

Good luck
Rich ;)
 
This last idea by Dr Roo is close to what I tried (excpet I eq'ed BEFORE compressing)...but I must be using my compression wrong because each time I compress, the noise becomes increasingly distracting and nearly unbearable. I don't have a vocal booth, BUT, the a/c is off....no cars passing...essentially the hum of the 788 and the disc drive get real real loud. SO I click the -10db, which I think is supposed to filter out the crap lows bleeing in....BUT, the 788 doesn't hum at a low frequency.

Of course it's not necessary to build a sound proof box for the 788, generally speaking, but, maybe if you want to compress the hell out of a mic'ed perfromance like this you have to?

I was actually thinking of assembling something like a vocal booth in a walk-in closet I have near where my 788 is set up, BUT WHO WILL RUN THE 788 for me then?

All right, enough. I'm rambling now. Just had my second cup of coffee so I'm something like a frantic meth addict choking down decongestants.
 
AM-sounding vocals???

I don't think the answer is the Behringer, the Pc or POD, EQ'd, flanged, or otherwise.

The answer is the bullhorn.
 
Actually,... I don't know. Let's think about it.

Maybe an electronics store that caters to DIY'er and hobbyists,... you know, like the place where you'd get wire & components & CB radio stuff. In Burbank, we have a place called "Electronic City". Any store like that,... boing!... RADIO SHACK!!

Ohmygod, did you see that light bulb come on, above my head???

---------------

I know you can get Mr. Microphone at KB or Toys R Us.

--------------

Try Radio Shack for bullhorns, I'd bet they have at least one that they'd sell you.

--------------

Good luck. /DA
 
i know what u mean i have tried so many filter, i wish I could buy a bull horn
 
You need a bandpass filter that will only pass from 250 hz to 2.5 Khz., which is the range of a telephone.

That will give you that "old radio" type of vocal range.




Tim
 
You could try this:
Record the vocal onto a dictaphone (a good or a crap one), then mic up the dictaphone's built in speaker and record playback.

I tried this with a shit dictaphone, ripping off the Smashing Pumpkins' 'The Aeroplane Flies High Turns Left Looks Right', and got the same sort of effect.

Maybe if you tried it with a good quality dictaphone you could get a more polished recording than I did, but with a similar radio-sounding quality.
 
hmm

sing like kevin riddel ;-) haha. if you want his aim sn i could give it to you... and you could juast ask him.
 
A Reel Person nailed it. Radio Shack has a fairly cheap bullhorn for sale.
-b
 
Just put RCA plug on an old telephone handset.

DONE.

SIMPLE.

Then record it. It works .. Really.


Then grovel and thank me.



HA!
 
Or, you could try singing through a really, really, cheap Mic or, a baby room monitor?

The bull horn is probably the best idea though!

Cheers! :)
 
Article URL and Excerpt

It's all about the microphone. Same one Beck used on "Loser"

Enjoy!

-TimT

FROM: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/apr97/whitetown.html



Mishra is clearly grinning from ear to ear about how he got to where he is. The way 'Your Woman' became successful happened outside of his control, and so he relishes most the bit he was responsible for: the music. "The whole EP >Abort, Retry, Fail?_ and half of Women In Technology was recorded and mixed on the Tascam 688 using dbx noise reduction, and an Alesis Microverb 2 and Boss ME5 guitar effects pedal were the only effects used. "Most people reading SOS have better gear than I had! I don't like running virtual tracks on the sequencer, and always record whatever I sequence to tape -- when I want to listen to something, I don't want to have to spend hours loading it up and finding the right sound and effects. So everything you hear on these tracks was actually recorded on cassette tape. I mixed them to a Sony DTC750 DAT player.

"The sound sources I used for the EP and the whole album were the Emu Emax II sampler, a Roland JX3P and TR808, a Moog Rogue and Casio CZ101 -- these are both good for basslines -- plus two cheapo guitars: a Jim Deacon £100 acoustic and a Maya electric. The sequencing on the tracks 'Your Woman', 'Undressed', 'The Shape Of Love', 'Going Nowhere Somehow' and 'The Death Of My Desire' was done on an Atari 1040STFM with Gajits' Sequencer One software, which came free with an Atari magazine. The sequencing on the other album tracks was done on an Escom PC with Cubase software, which I got about 18 months ago. It was a nice little computer, but it just kept crashing. The hard drive was crap -- it kept throwing the words '>Abort, Retry, Fail?_' at me whilst I mixed the EP, which is why I decided to use that as its title."

Mishra also obviously enjoyed telling me the next fact: "Did I tell you that I used only one mic for recording all my vocals? It's a cheap Tandy mic, the Realistic PZM, which cost only £35. I put the mic straight into the Tascam 688. I also recorded the acoustic guitar with the PZM -- though I DI'd the electric. The track 'A Week Next June' is just me on acoustic guitar and vocal, with an electric guitar overdub by Rob (Fleay). I recorded the whole track in one take, just with the PZM. So I had to position it somewhere in front of me and hope that it would catch both vocals and guitar. I didn't want to use two mics, because you have to work out phasing and placement and mic EQ and so on. I thought: 'bugger all that, it's just going to get in the way of the performance.'"
 
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