another EQ question

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polarity

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I'm using Studio One as my DAW and recording my vocal take.. Still just putting it over backing tracks and trying to make the vocal sound good.. Not so much even sit in the mix just sound.... polished? Anyway it comes with something it calls ProEQ (prolly not very Pro). I've tried turning every knob and button in it, I've tried the presets, and I've tried just small adjustments off the presets but it always seems to make the vocal worse IMO. Either makes it muddled or hype the high end or any other number of things.

Is there a better EQ plugin I should try, should I not be EQing it at all, or is this just user error and I should keep working with what I have until I figure it out?
 
Tried some other EQs and didn't have the same problem. I assumed all EQs were created equal, I was wrong.
 
Presets are crap (well, only around 97% of the time).

This is simple "know what you hear and know the tools" territory. You need to be able to listen to it and go "Meh, a little less 250 and a little more 3.5kHz would take it from where it is to where I want it" and if that hasn't happened yet, you need to work on your listening skills until it does. Anything else is guessing.

THAT ALL SAID ---

Does it sound fine as-is...?

Is there something else that's the problem (wrong mic, wrong source, nasty preamp, tracking too hot, etc.)?

There shouldn't be a struggle unless the source isn't right for the rest of the sources.

(EDIT - You've posted again)

Or it's just a crappy plug. Haven't heard too many "bad" EQ plugs, but I suppose anything's possible...
 
I definitely don't have that level of knowledge and you are dead on, this is all just a guess for me.

As for the other questions though it wasn't tracked hot, in fact it was tracked too low (normalized and that solved it). Could be wrong mic, wrong source, wrong pre or any mixture of those as I'm still trying to figure out what works best with my voice.

I don't know that there was anything wrong with it, it just sounds like a plain vocal take to me. It still just sounds like a vocal take in a bedroom to me though, nothing seems out of place or odd but I would never mistake it for something professionally recorded.

Room could still be coming into play as my treatment is not up yet. I have the roxul, the fabric, and ready to go to work. Went to Home Depot today to pickup the wood (need them to cut it as I have no saw) and their saw is down and has been for a week. Maybe that is part of it.

As for what I'm using it's definitely nothing Pro but I was hoping it was enough for a better result.

I'm using a Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2
AKG C214 mic
Mic cables are red, maybe I should switch to black. Maybe the red is coloring the vocal too much (bad attempt at a joke, sorry).
Recording straight into Studio One.
 
You're using an incredibly sensitive mic (which *IME* isn't much on vocals except for choirs and opera singers in wonderful rooms and marginal at best with anything reasonably aggressive - not knowing what you're doing exactly) in a non-treated space. That mic is hearing the spider breathing in the corner (leave him be -- He's got your back) and every issue in the room that your ears and your brain ignore until you hear that room coming out of a set of speakers - in the room.

Try it with a 58 and half your problem is gone. Treat the room and 90% of the 50% left of the problem is gone.

Normalizing the vocal -- Nah. I'm fairly sure you're not tracking too low (assuming you're hitting somewhere in the -18 to -12dBFS-ish area) but everything else is probably too hot. Turn those other things down. NORMAL volume (that is, typical levels with plenty of headroom at every possible stage in the entire production process) is where you want to be. There's plenty of opportunity to screw that all up later. If you normalize your vocal, you've just clipped the mix (unless there's nothing in it except for that vocal track).

(Headroom, headroom, headroom -- Plenty of it -- All the time -- Every source, every buss, every send, every group, every time, no exceptions, ever)

Otherwise -- Toss the trapping in and everything is going to change anyway. Still, you're going to need a truckload to "remove the room" while using a mic that's designed to capture every possible nuance of the room along with the source.
 
I have a handy 58 sitting right beside me. I'll try to resing the take and see how different they are (I'm sure it will be huge). I'm always looking at new mics, maybe it's time to go ahead on my next purchase (after the damn traps get done). I did check the input in my daw and I was averaging around -18 and peaking at around -14. Then compared to the track I imported (just a backing track). the volume was so low you couldn't hear the vocal, I made the wrong choice to boost the vocal instead of turn down the other track.

With the mic recording at that level I didn't feel like I was hearing a lot of room or ambient noise but maybe that's the problem. Maybe that is what I'm hearing that just makes it sound like a normal vocal track instead of one tracked into a properly treated space.

As for what it's recording it's just a mostly acoustic take on Avicii "Wake me up" which is almost folk in it's singing style? Not sure folk is right but something more down that line than say rap or rock.
 
I will also add that before I was using a Mobile Pre and an AT2035, it was so easy to hear the crappiness of those 2 combined that it almost sounded like an audible hiss no matter what level I was tracking at. I figured that was the sounds of the crappy room and the crappy gear together. When I got the better gear and all that disappeared I assumed my problems had gone with it.

Like I said, it just sounds like a normal take to me. No hiss, dogs barking, etc but I would never listen to it and go "that was done somewhere awesome!"

I might need to go back to my cable idea, damned colored cables always messing things up!
 
polarity said:
I'm using Studio One as my DAW and recording my vocal take.. Still just putting it over backing tracks and trying to make the vocal sound good.. Not so much even sit in the mix just sound.... polished? Anyway it comes with something it calls ProEQ (prolly not very Pro). I've tried turning every knob and button in it, I've tried the presets, and I've tried just small adjustments off the presets but it always seems to make the vocal worse IMO. Either makes it muddled or hype the high end or any other number of things. Is there a better EQ plugin I should try, should I not be EQing it at all, or is this just user error and I should keep working with what I have until I figure it out?
Click to expand...

Assuming by your post I think that you should spend some time on EQing.
Even with stock plugins you can do a pretty good job if you know what you're doing.

That being said, the engineer behind the tools is what matters the most. I don't mean to insult you I just want you understand this :)

And a friendly advice: Don't rely blindly on presets. Each audio file is recorded in a different way so presets are just for starting points.
 
polarity said:
it was tracked too low (normalized and that solved it.
Click to expand...

Polarity, there's almost no such thing as "tracking too low". I mean, unless you're tracking at something like -50db, which I doublt you're doing. Don't normalize. Your tracking level should be peaking at around -12db or even as low as -18db. It could be higher too, the main thing is don't go anywhere near clipping. The point I'm trying to make is you almost can't track too low, only too high.
 
I had about 8 hours of Q&A with Mr. Steen yesterday that really helped. I was tracking very low, but not too low. He had me move it up a little.

He also took a look at a few of my files and gave me some good input. Part of the problem I was having was boomy sound on the vocals (possibly proximity effect). Otherwise the rest of the problems he saw were pretty much between the ears (more confidence and ability to listen to my own voice without crying).

The first tracks I sent him were normalized and he didn't really seem to notice, I had to point it out after. The goal now is to complete SOMETHING and post it in MP3 clinic, hopefully get some honest feedback and gain some confidence and get better.
 
yeah, it was all error on my side. Heading in the right direction now though I think.
 
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