Hip hop vocals

[Chris Jahn]

I did my first hip hop recording the other day, and i was wondering if anyone had some good tricks to make the vocals sit in the mix.

Its a "mix tape" style recording so i have no control over the levels of the individual instruments in the track, just vocal on top of a mastered song basically, and thats the problem, they just sound "on top"

any suggestions?

 

[Mindset]

EQ the instrumental to fit with the vocals, maybe dipping out at a certain frequency and either lay the vocal on there, or bump it at that frequency and then place it on the instrumental. Also what kind of other things have you done to it? This genre of music majority has no dynamics (sadly), almost everything is compressed & smashed to bits. It is kind of harder that you can't mix down the instrumental but it should still be workable, as long as quality isn't an issue. Along with that, a few overdubs & adlibs also help the vocals sit better. Maybe some timed delay.

 

[bknot1]

give me some time to look at my notes..

and know i have something like this somewhere..

 

[Chris Jahn]

I will definetly try that, and it makes perfect sense, cuz what i dont want is that terrible fucking sound on the "throw some D's" remix with Kanye, its like he recorded his vocals into a shit mic and then dubed it from a cassete tape onto the top of the original track, i was so disapointed. this new "mix tape" (its a long way from the times of the zulu beats show) era of hip hop is throwing sound quality out the window and i dont want to be a part of it.

 

[Mixxit12]

I was actually going to mention, in a way, that's the good news. Since it's "mixtape" style; sound quality is not the primary aspect. I think if it sounds a little more "street" it'll be okay. That said, try some eq on the track and comp the VOX. If that doesn't work, do like everyone else does and smash it until you can't make heads or tails of it anyway (I kid, I kid)

 

[bknot1]

this might help...

Your best bet would be to carve out space with eq. Load the instrumental, load the vocal or whatever it is your adding. On the track that you have the instrumental on, grab the middle eq and drop it a few db. Now press play and sweep the frequency range that the mid eq sits in. Once you hear that the vocal is standing out like you want, Grab the eq know and raise it back up a db or 2 or 3 or whatever until you get a nice balance of Instrumental track and vocal track. Quite honestly, this is about the only choice you have if you don't have access to the multitrack. You're right about the limiting ,Don't compress the instrumental track to death in order to reduce volume, it will sound like ****.

 

[mystasynasta]

well i have a lot of experience in hip hop recording (3500 songs and counting). i pretty much only record hip hop and r&b on a regular basis 50 hrs a week.

i now have a template that i use for hip hop. the most important thing about making the vocals sit in with the beat is compression. there is literally no dynamics when it comes to hip hop. since the beat is an industry instrumental (im assuming since you said it was mixtape) the beat is already mixed well (no eqing required). HEAVY compression i mean HEAVY! up to 15 decibels of gain reduction (usually my threshold is set at -30db with a gain make up of 19 to 19) at times with a 4:1 ratio, very fast reaction (less then 10 ms) time with a medium to fast release time. put this on each vocal track (even the add libs). turn the addlibs down about 6 decibels less then the main track. this makes it fit inside the beat because its usually the peaks that make it feel on top of it. i buss all of the vocals together and depending on the person, sometimes i need to add a little gain to 8k and above to add presence. if you want you can check out my myspace for a quick example of what ive done ("shut yo mouth" -quick 5 minute mix)

if all else fails send it to me ill create a very clean mix if it was tracked out well


good luck!

-Lee


EDIT: i almost forgot. hip hop vocals are usually pretty dry, but if you add a VERY little amount (at least 30 decibels below the main level of the vocals, you should almost no be able to hear it at all) of delay set at 300ms or so with no feedback it brings the vocals forward without making them sit on top of the beat too much. if you had reverb, use it very very lightly and with a fast decay (small room).

 

[Chris Jahn]

thanks, all of the above helps alot!!!

 

[JohnCutts]

well i have a lot of experience in hip hop recording (3500 songs and counting). i pretty much only record hip hop and r&b on a regular basis 50 hrs a week.

i now have a template that i use for hip hop. the most important thing about making the vocals sit in with the beat is compression. there is literally no dynamics when it comes to hip hop. since the beat is an industry instrumental (im assuming since you said it was mixtape) the beat is already mixed well (no eqing required). HEAVY compression i mean HEAVY! up to 15 decibels of gain reduction (usually my threshold is set at -30db with a gain make up of 19 to 19) at times with a 4:1 ratio, very fast reaction (less then 10 ms) time with a medium to fast release time. put this on each vocal track (even the add libs). turn the addlibs down about 6 decibels less then the main track. this makes it fit inside the beat because its usually the peaks that make it feel on top of it. i buss all of the vocals together and depending on the person, sometimes i need to add a little gain to 8k and above to add presence. if you want you can check out my myspace for a quick example of what ive done ("shut yo mouth" -quick 5 minute mix)

if all else fails send it to me ill create a very clean mix if it was tracked out well


good luck!

-Lee


EDIT: i almost forgot. hip hop vocals are usually pretty dry, but if you add a VERY little amount (at least 30 decibels below the main level of the vocals, you should almost no be able to hear it at all) of delay set at 300ms or so with no feedback it brings the vocals forward without making them sit on top of the beat too much. if you had reverb, use it very very lightly and with a fast decay (small room).

Now that's smashed! I'll have to give it'll try. I smash my rappers vocals using threadhold -25 or so, 6:1 ratio with about 6-10db gain reduction, very fast attack and fast release, and about 10db makeup gain which I thought was a lot lol. I do have to say the more compression add the better the sound at least in my opinion for a rapper. I find that adding a little at 3k and 5k give a presence for the rappers I've worked with but of course every voice is different. The person I commonly work with voice is very bass and I have to cut at 200 when most rappers people need to add at 200. And I have to agree rappers voices should be hard, strong, dry not light, soft, and wet.