Getting that full rich vocal sound

[dvs recordings]

Welll little dog explained to you why you should forget the pro sound for now.

Let me see if I can help you get a bit closer towards the sound you want.

To answer question #1 - You might just need a slight adjustment to the pre delay on your reverb. Try starting from 30 and going upwards untill you like what you hear. You might be choosing the wrong type of reverb. What are you using. Tell me in room type and what is the style of the song. You might be setting it to wet.
How are you hooking it up...on the track on through a aux.?

As to question #2 - Like everything else it depends.....If the singer can swing a second take then I tend to go for it. If he can't or I dont want that kind of sound I'll go for a delay type of double. About how to set it up....I posted a long explanation somewere a few days ago but I can't remember were...use the search button.

Read this article on reverb as well as searching a thread from sonusman about reverb ...http://24.61.194.88/ Some days its up some days it's not....

Have not been able to view sonusmans reverb info. Very knowledgeable guy. I know guys.. I'm feeding the ego, but heck the truth is the truth.

Anyways Shailat thanks for the reply... As far as my reverb settings.. The reverb is the Waves Reverb direct x plugin. I have been choosing Plate reverbs. My room is very quiet with the right amount of Prim-acoustic High density foam insulation. Followed their studio set up for a 10 x12 ft room. Real cool stuff but not too cheap either!!I am just doing vocals at this point.

The songs vary but most recently is a neighbour who sings country. My wetness has been set to 14 no higher than 20 with the room size on the plug in sying about 35 to 40. I must be honest with you though I have not ever used the pre delay. I n laymen terms what does it do?

Onto another topic.. what is the concensus out there on this product Auto- Tune?

 

[Shailat]

Anyways Shailat thanks for the reply... As far as my reverb settings.. The reverb is the Waves Reverb direct x plugin. I have been choosing Plate reverbs. My room is very quiet with the right amount of Prim-acoustic High density foam insulation. Followed their studio set up for a 10 x12 ft room. Real cool stuff but not too cheap either!!I am just doing vocals at this point.

The songs vary but most recently is a neighbour who sings country. My wetness has been set to 14 no higher than 20 with the room size on the plug in sying about 35 to 40. I must be honest with you though I have not ever used the pre delay. I n laymen terms what does it do?

In Laymen terms its a time delay before the reverb is heard. First you hear it dry (the source) then the reverb kicks in. As soon as you hear the dry part first you get the feeling that the singer is close to you giving a upfront feeling. Then the reverbs kicks in to fill the sound depending on the room you choose. Thats a simplified explanation.
With a correct predelay setting your voice can sound rich but upfront. I would also set up and aux for the reverb and not on the track itself. SO you'll have one track of the dry vocals and the Aux with 100% wet reverb signal and then you can blend the two
to your likeing.

You really have to read up on setting the predelay and the decay time and the diffusion to get a good sound. To dial up a preset on the plugin just wont get you there. After that if you still arent getting what you need then I would move on to things like H2H's trick (a pretty good one !).

But it doesnt end there...to get a pro sound like on a cd you need
to work on correct compression for vocals as they will also effect your sound for example. If your vocal isnt focused well, then it will trick you into thinking you might need more reverb then you actualy need. You might think you need to beef it up with reverb so it will sound big when you might only need a drop of compression to focus it.
You need correct Eq on the vocals or else you might think that reverb will brighten it up with a plate reverb and swamp it to much and so on and so on.......forget the pro sound and take it day by day parameter by parameter.........

Did you go to that link I posted and read up?

 

[Shailat]

Anyways Shailat thanks for the reply... As far as my reverb settings.. The reverb is the Waves Reverb direct x plugin. I have been choosing Plate reverbs. My room is very quiet with the right amount of Prim-acoustic High density foam insulation. Followed their studio set up for a 10 x12 ft room. Real cool stuff but not too cheap either!!I am just doing vocals at this point.

The songs vary but most recently is a neighbour who sings country. My wetness has been set to 14 no higher than 20 with the room size on the plug in sying about 35 to 40. I must be honest with you though I have not ever used the pre delay. I n laymen terms what does it do?

In Laymen terms its a time delay before the reverb is heard. First you hear it dry (the source) then the reverb kicks in. As soon as you hear the dry part first you get the feeling that the singer is close to you giving a upfront feeling. Then the reverbs kicks in to fill the sound depending on the room you choose. Thats a simplified explanation.
With a correct predelay setting your voice can sound rich but upfront. I would also set up and aux for the reverb and not on the track itself. SO you'll have one track of the dry vocals and the Aux with 100% wet reverb signal and then you can blend the two
to your likeing.

You really have to read up on setting the predelay and the decay time and the diffusion to get a good sound. To dial up a preset on the plugin just wont get you there. After that if you still arent getting what you need then I would move on to things like H2H's trick (a pretty good one !).

But it doesnt end there...to get a pro sound like on a cd you need
to work on correct compression for vocals as they will also effect your sound for example. If your vocal isnt focused well, then it will trick you into thinking you might need more reverb then you actualy need. You might think you need to beef it up with reverb so it will sound big when you might only need a drop of compression to focus it.
You need correct Eq on the vocals or else you might think that reverb will brighten it up with a plate reverb and swamp it to much and so on and so on.......forget the pro sound and take it day by day parameter by parameter.........

Did you go to that link I posted and read up?

 

[dvs recordings]

Thanks Shailat once again.. well put and easy to understand. I have not read your post yet but tonight after work I will. I will let you know how I made out. Can you use H2H idea as well as the pre delay info etc.. info you gave on the same vocals or would it be too much? Not sure

DVS

 

[dvs recordings]

In Laymen terms its a time delay before the reverb is heard. First you hear it dry (the source) then the reverb kicks in. As soon as you hear the dry part first you get the feeling that the singer is close to you giving a upfront feeling. Then the reverbs kicks in to fill the sound depending on the room you choose. Thats a simplified explanation.
With a correct predelay setting your voice can sound rich but upfront. I would also set up and aux for the reverb and not on the track itself. SO you'll have one track of the dry vocals and the Aux with 100% wet reverb signal and then you can blend the two
to your likeing.

You really have to read up on setting the predelay and the decay time and the diffusion to get a good sound. To dial up a preset on the plugin just wont get you there. After that if you still arent getting what you need then I would move on to things like H2H's trick (a pretty good one !).

The pre delay and decay tips you gave me seemed to help things out alot . The vocals are no longer swimming. Not trying to be perfect... but I want it to sound pretty good. Thanks... I have been trying to search your posts but cannot connect to them. I will keep trying.

DVS



But it doesnt end there...to get a pro sound like on a cd you need
to work on correct compression for vocals as they will also effect your sound for example. If your vocal isnt focused well, then it will trick you into thinking you might need more reverb then you actualy need. You might think you need to beef it up with reverb so it will sound big when you might only need a drop of compression to focus it.
You need correct Eq on the vocals or else you might think that reverb will brighten it up with a plate reverb and swamp it to much and so on and so on.......forget the pro sound and take it day by day parameter by parameter.........

Did you go to that link I posted and read up? [/B]

 

[dvs recordings]

There is no point in cloning tracks if you want them to be played at the same time. All it does is make the track a little louder at the cost of extra resources on your computer. Just turn the track up for the same effect. The reason you get distortion is because the level is now too high.

IF you do nothing to make the tracks different, this is true, the 2 tracks do increase the volume and you have to turn them down, and it's pretty much useless. BUT, if you change one of the tracks like described above, well, try it and listen to the results.

So what would be the best way to eliminate the phase cancellation? Pan the following tracks equally? I will be definitely trying what H2H mentioned earlier.

It depends on your software. Depending on what you use, if there are phase issues, you can move the track by # of samples that your soundcard is set to use for its latency. But if it is an off-line clone of a track, you usually won't see these issues because we're not running out and back in through the hardware, but again it depends on the software.
If I run a vocal track out and through a pre or something and back into the computer, then we have to re-align the tracks by sample. But this is not doing that, it's easier.

Why, when I clone a vocal track, do I get phase problems? Is this my software or some other reason?
Also, is there a regular timing offset I can apply to a cloned track to make it line up with the original, or are the results higly variable?

It's in the software if it does it. Again, it can be fixed by shifting by # of samlpes. Just shift the track back that # of samples (which are a tiny amount). Most software can do this, I am not familiar wnough with all software to know how in each type.

But as you said earlier H2H just de ess the second heavily compressed track, just away to take away the nasties..?. What do you think about stacking the vocals and panning left and right at lets say 25 to 50%.

yes, you compress, add eq, and then you basically limit out the harshness with a de-esser. Keep in mind this is basically an "effects" track, so it will not sound good on its own.

Stacking and panning will result in a different sound all together. It just depends on which sound you are looking for. This is what stacking will sound like (our last song FLY ) listen to the chorus, that is stacking.

Use your ears, that will always be your best refrence.

H2H

Question H2H ... If after compressing the heck out of the second track. should I bring it back up through the make up gain or shouldn't I ? You also said... I believe it was you, was that once you are done de essing the track... instead of boosting 7 -10 db in eq it will seem more like 2db. If you said this can you tell me if this can be viewed by either the attenuation readout while de essing or do you just go off what your ears are hearing and once it sounds good go with that.. because you will probably be around 2db of boost.

Last question...You mentioned the the delays in Time modulation to the original track to avoid phase problems how is this donegenerally. I do not believe I have this plug in. Can most softwares such as Sequoia do this. I s compression added to the original track and if so should this not eliminate phasing problems?

Thanks DVS