Seafroggys
Well-known member
Hey all! Not sure anyone remembers me, I used to have a Lorax avatar (that went away at some point). I was pretty active from 2007 to 2014, then I posted like once per year for the next couple of years, then was completely absent since 2017. I guess I just got bored and wasn't learning anything new anymore. Also been posting a lot more on Reddit, but I miss forums and Reddit sucks, so.....here I am!
I recorded this fantastic singer yesterday for my musical. Everything sounds great, but I have a bit of a problem. On her featured song, she has a verse that was a little bit high for her belt range. Not a problem, I dropped the pitch down a step and a half, intending to bump her vocal back up in Melodyne. I've been using Melodyne for a few years now, it's magic and always sounds super transparent to me, especially if you keep notes within 2 steps. I did not intend there to be any issue here, as I've done stuff like this before.
The unintended problem is that her voice had this natural warmth to it that sounds amazing. When I bump up her notes in Melodyne, it also bumps up that "warmth", and it leaves the "warmth" frequency and kinda disappears. Now if you listen to that verse by itself, she sounds fine, nothing sounds artificial or off or anything like that. But the tone of her voice changes, and if you listen to the other verses, I can hear the difference.
Now obviously the correct course of action is to re-track it, preferably at pitch or maybe a half-step down or something. But she was a hired gun, and busy and it was a bit of a drive for her, so I'd have to throw more money her way and probably have to wait weeks before she is able to make it out again...just for one verse. And even then, if all she's doing is that one verse, she might have it in her to belt in that higher range, but maybe not.
So if I'm not able to redo that verse, my next course of action is the ol' turd polishing regimen. I haven't really been following plugins much for years, not since I stopped being active here, so I really don't know what's out there. I know Bootsy started making plugins again, I should check out what he's been doing. But I'm looking for something that could maybe add the lost warmth back in. Preferably freeware, although if the price is right I might be willing to buy. Again, I'm asking this fully realizing this is a band-aid and not an ideal situation.
EDIT: I should clarify, I did play with the formant settings in Melodyne, but wasn't able to get close to replicating the sound. I'm not at my studio PC but here on my regular desktop PC I was playing around with ReaEQ and wasn't able to find an EQ setting that would get close either. I do have my UAD EQ's out at my studio that I can play with.
I recorded this fantastic singer yesterday for my musical. Everything sounds great, but I have a bit of a problem. On her featured song, she has a verse that was a little bit high for her belt range. Not a problem, I dropped the pitch down a step and a half, intending to bump her vocal back up in Melodyne. I've been using Melodyne for a few years now, it's magic and always sounds super transparent to me, especially if you keep notes within 2 steps. I did not intend there to be any issue here, as I've done stuff like this before.
The unintended problem is that her voice had this natural warmth to it that sounds amazing. When I bump up her notes in Melodyne, it also bumps up that "warmth", and it leaves the "warmth" frequency and kinda disappears. Now if you listen to that verse by itself, she sounds fine, nothing sounds artificial or off or anything like that. But the tone of her voice changes, and if you listen to the other verses, I can hear the difference.
Now obviously the correct course of action is to re-track it, preferably at pitch or maybe a half-step down or something. But she was a hired gun, and busy and it was a bit of a drive for her, so I'd have to throw more money her way and probably have to wait weeks before she is able to make it out again...just for one verse. And even then, if all she's doing is that one verse, she might have it in her to belt in that higher range, but maybe not.
So if I'm not able to redo that verse, my next course of action is the ol' turd polishing regimen. I haven't really been following plugins much for years, not since I stopped being active here, so I really don't know what's out there. I know Bootsy started making plugins again, I should check out what he's been doing. But I'm looking for something that could maybe add the lost warmth back in. Preferably freeware, although if the price is right I might be willing to buy. Again, I'm asking this fully realizing this is a band-aid and not an ideal situation.
EDIT: I should clarify, I did play with the formant settings in Melodyne, but wasn't able to get close to replicating the sound. I'm not at my studio PC but here on my regular desktop PC I was playing around with ReaEQ and wasn't able to find an EQ setting that would get close either. I do have my UAD EQ's out at my studio that I can play with.