Help fixing an irritating high pitch female vocal

  • Thread starter Thread starter jerberson12
  • Start date Start date
J

jerberson12

mucis procedure
Second Post

Guys, I fix it......
What I did fixes that bad resonance and some other minor issues I have like the sibilance and some other issues which I didnt mention like the sound are too wide throughout the frequency spectrum and I had to EQ drastically to make the track doesnt sound wide and take the whole spectrum and run out of space for other track.
Yes, I also had a recent post about irritating female voice but with a different singer which I think has something to do about this post.

So few issues where fix by what I did last night.

And I am right, it has to do with my chain.......

Initial Chain

Mic -> PreAmp -> Mixer -> Interface -> Software

What I did is take out the mixer and connect pre-amp directly to the interface which is a typical connection based from the manual. Both Preamp and Interface has the same brand, Digidesign.

So new chain

Mic -> PreAmp -> Interface ->Software

I thought the mixer will not change any sound quality on the chain but it does. It is not powered and they are all line in.
After all, it is not about how I mix and apply those FX to make it sound good. Just some stupid connection I had. I can now hear that my plugins work well with the recorded sound since they did not go through the mixer now which make sound more fatter and closer and also some resonance.

If somebody still wants to experiment the vocal track, here it is


____________________________________________________________________________
First Post

Hi guys, check out this link
Karmin - Brokenhearted (Benison Zerrudo feat Mitch Duq Cover) - YouTube

Please listen at the chorus especially the words "all day" and "baby"

Some of my singers dont have that kind of issue except for this one. Her voice is kind of powerful, aggressive and lack of control especially if she sings high. I think she just let it out all the way.

If you can listen to those words I mentioned, it sounds like that theres frequency that will irritate your ear, like it will tear a hole in your eardrum. If I cut those frequencies, the vocal will sound something is lacking.
It also sounds like the disc from the condenser mic is really there close to your ear.

How do I fix this stuff after the fact? like compression technique?

Is there something I should have done during the tracking? mic angle, placement? the vocalist was 6 inches and 12 oclock from the mic. No in line effects, compression, EQ during the tracking. I use all software FX.

Or is it just how she sings it? if yes, how should I handle it during the tracking?

TY
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure what it is your reffering to . (Might be my monitoring system)
the sybillance is really cutting to my ears.
What effects did you apply?
 
The sibilance is a different one.

I think Im referring to mid frequency around 500 to 1000 somewhere between. It pops out real bad when she sings those words.
Think of it like, you stretch a piece of paper, hold it on your front face and yell at it. You can hear a very pretty close sound and the paper will vibrate and will irritate your ear, something like that. You may not hear it on your good quality monitor and headphone but I tried listening it on my car stereo and a generic PC speakers and there you can hear it.

I had this issue before but it depends on the singer.

I have been suspecting before that something either my microphone or my preamp is bad.
 
I've just finished reading the engineer Geoff Emerick's autobiography "My life recording the Beatles". In it, he makes a whole slew of really interesting observations about the various abilities of the individual Beatles and various songs and vocals and guitar playing and songwriting. I found that I disagreed entirely with his views ~ because I come from the point of view of one who loves the music. And for the last few days I've been thinking on how people can have such widely differing views on the same subject.
This thread is a case in point.
I find nothing at all disagreeable about the singer's voice. Kip4 says it's really sibilant and I agree with him on that. That's something to do with tracking and mixing though. In terms of the voice, I can tell you straight off, if she lived up the road from me and I knew her, I'd have no hesitation in asking her if she'd do some vocals for my little ditties. I don't know if she was autotuned but there's no pitch issues that I could detect, she holds melody well and I didn't catch any out of control~ness. I didn't find her in the slightest bit irritating.
But I can sympathize with jeberson12 because there is no rhyme nor reason to what makes a particular voice irritating to particular ears. There are some new wave vocalists from the late 70s/early 80s that I can't stand hearing with their wailing, doomy, moany faux suicidal timbres. I want to dive deep into the saltiest ocean when I hear Whitney's tones on "I will always love you". I would hail Lifetime's "This time, this song" as a jazz rock masterpiece of almost mystical and unrivalled proportions but I can't even listen to it, along with a few other of their numbers, because of Tony Williams' voice. It makes my skin crawl without control. I can't listen to some death/thrash/speed metal screamers. And though highly regarded, I find Ashley Holt's voice, when he was in Warhorse, almost unlistenable. I'm tossing their debut album because of it, if anyone wants the CD !
I used to find the same sort of thing in church meetings when some shouting preachers used to get it on. The timbre of many of those voices just used to do my head in.
But as for Karmin's voice and vocal here, I like it.
I think jeberson12 just has a natural aversion to this dame's voice and there's little that can be done about it. It's like being allergic to apples.
 
As an aside, there was thread remarkably like this last year. I'm sure the singer was sort of oriental too. Maybe it's her cousin Ramona !
 
If you're hearing some pronounced 'bad' frequencies (and others aren't), are you sure it is not your monitors and/or listening room?
 
I think I hear what you're talking about. It's just a resonance, if so. Do a parametric sweep to nail it down, then notch it out. And seriously.... wow on the sibilance!
 
I just watched the video? She's a great singer. I'm supprized you don't have a pop filter? Is that just for the video? Did you record w/one? Also, your room looks pretty "live..." Have you considered some sort of little mic wrap around to help cut the reflections? Other than that, it's pre-amp settings used to De-ess, and mic technique, EQ, and other plugs... Good luck, she really is a good singer.
 
dude yes yes yes I think you get what I mean.
But the thing is, if I sweep out that frequency, the vocal will sound missing something, especially I sweep the whole track. Should I just sweep the needed part?
What EQ do you use for it?

I just search about resonance and it has something to do with the vocalist, it's her fault, but Im not sure
 
Any parametric EQ will do. I'm not suggesting to do anything drastic that will make it sound like it's missing anything other than that resonant frequency.

Basically take your EQ - Set the Q as narrow as it will go, then turn the gain all the way up. Turn the frequency knob slowly until you find the most god-awful sound that makes your ears explode, then turn the gain knob down - that's what I meant by "notch"ing it out. If you had an MP3 of that chorus, I'd look and tell you what frequency is causing it, but I can't do much with the youtube clip.

Glen wrote a whole article about the technique a while back: The SouthSIDE Of The Tracks - Glen Stephan - Independent Recording Network
 
Just listening with computer speakers, I hear a volume thing on those words that could be easily fixed with the faders, but not a frequency issue. The sibilance, on the other hand ...
 
You know, this has come up before with jeberson12 which leads me to conclude what I did before - he's just irritated by particular voices. Certain ladies just set his teeth on edge. I'm like that with sopranino saxophones. The only way you'll make it acceptable to my nerves is not to play one at all !
 
The thing is though i quite like her voice it just feels a bit over processed. It might not be the case but i still cant get passed the sibillance.
Anyone thought of the pencil technique?
 
I just looped some da/ad to record the youtube video. The resonance I heard when I first listened is at 1920 hz or so. There's also a much less nasty one down around 980-1000 hz. I notched the higher one out -12db and attached before, after, and nulled difference. You could go further if needed, or less - do what you do.

I left the lower one in there because it's not what got my attention in the first place. Listening to the diff file, you can hear the higher pitched sound is very clearly a non-musical resonant sound you picked up somehow. If that's not what you were talking about... it should have been? lol :p Naa, idk what you're talking about if not that.

HTH
 

Attachments

Hi Hippo,

I believe that you know what I mean and you tried to fix it. Actually thats what I was doing. I did the notching and I came up with the same result as yours but I listened to your reso-after and now its lacking that frequency and made the whole track bad.

I listen a lot to Adele song which is a closer voice with my singer. Adele has that resonance, but whoevers did the mixing did a really good job taming it down. It sounds like they use a high end sweeping device or smoothing device to her voice which makes her resonance more pleasant. I believe it could be a more expensive microphone, more expensive preamp, more expensive EQ or compressor or just plain mic'ing technique, or vocal technique. Im pretty sure its one of it.
 
Well... Ideally you wouldn't notch it out of the whole song, lol. It's only on the vocal track and only for like 2 seconds in the chorus. And use a narrower Q so you don't get anything but that sound - you know... spend some more time with it. I was just showing what I heard and thought you were talking about, because nobody else seemed to hear anything like what you described. I heard that resonant sound. Was that it? If so - notching it out is the only thing you can do after-the-fact for sounds like that.
 
TyphoidHippo said:
Well... Ideally you wouldn't notch it out of the whole song, lol. It's only on the vocal track and only for like 2 seconds in the chorus. And use a narrower Q so you don't get anything but that sound - you know... spend some more time with it. I was just showing what I heard and thought you were talking about, because nobody else seemed to hear anything like what you described. I heard that resonant sound. Was that it? If so - notching it out is the only thing you can do after-the-fact for sounds like that.
Click to expand...

Yes thats it thank you and you have a great ear. It is something in the chain, like I said maybe a better equipment or just a simple micing technique but Im not sure. But if you said that notching is the only for this after the fact then Ill take time experimenting on EQ's, I dont think we can do another take, and EQing is the only way. Ill just remember next time to work more on micing technique if she sings for me again. Thanks you
 
I am so lucky I don't have ears so good that they destroy such a beautiful piece of work. I can hear the sibilance of course but any of us here could reduce that without hurting her voice. I don't hear anything irritating about her except that she can sing a lot better than I can :)
 
I use de-essing settings on my pre-amp on the way in. And there are tools, good ones. The one I use is Izotope Alloy? There are others too. There are a lot of ways to address this, I've just tossed out a couple.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top