How do you track vocals?

[VOXVENDOR]

I have been doing a phrase at a time...Works great, and you get an almost perfect performance that way... Sure it's not a true, one-off performance... But thats the way I like to do it.

For instance.... To make an example, If I were doing Smells Like Teen Spirit, I would go.....

"Load up on guns"..... Then I do it over and over (loop record) and get it perfect..... And then move on to "Bring your friends"

And, I always paste ANYTHING that repeats itself in the song...everything must be the same way twice for me.

I have been doing it like that for years and no one has ever said my vocals sound unnatural, so it must be working...

Anyways..

How do you guys do it..?

 

[Mark7]

I plug a mic into a pre-amp and sing. Easy

 

[mikeh]

Maybe I'm "old school" but to me music is about passion and talent and the ability to present that in performance (live or recorded).

So I track vocal performances. Trying to capture the purest and most passionate performance I can - if that includes very small flaws, so be it. Natrually, major problems must be coreected - normally by re-tracking (vs. editing). On occasion I may cut and paste - but only if I need to edit or coorect and the vocalist is already gone (and won't be avaliable soon).

However, there is an exception - if I'm doing jingle work and there is a "catch phrase" (name of the product, etc) then I may cut and paste to get the costly vocal talent in and out faster and to get the finished product to the marketing people faster.

 

[Michael Jones]

Re. How do you track vocals

Put gum on their shoe.

 

[Hardcore]

I basically do a verse/chorus at a time. I don't sing the whole song straight thru. If something repeats itself I don't copy. I like the little differences. To me if every chorus sounds exactly the same, why listen to the rest of the song. Also, since I'm a pretty bad singer I have to lay down a guitar track that's the exact same as my vocals so I have a reference to follow. I'm not exactly an experienced vocalist and this seems to work pretty well. I just figured that out last week when I was trying to lay down some vocals and they were horrible. Now they not too bad.

 

[DonF]

How do you guys do it..?

I usually run through the whole song two or three times, then create a comp from the best take of each phrase. At this point, there may be some phrases that are problematic, though sometimes I have to wait until the next day to be able to listen objectively enough to hear it. I'll then go back and loop those phrases until they're right.

DonF

 

[Nosferous]

Sing through the whole song, anything worth saving from it? No? Control-Z, never happened.
Something worth saving?
Un-Arm the track and set-up a new one.

After x amount of time, or the session.
Go back and listen to all the tracks saves and take notes.
Make some more cuts.

Maybe you'll have a whole track, maybe not.
If not take what's there of the best and put together.
Can it be done better than this?
Save this track and re-track vocals again, maybe you'll get a better take if not, then not.

Most the time if there's any piecing together it's first 80% of the song was good, somewhere in the last 20% it went bad.

Recording each verse, or each chorus at a time feels odd.
I feel the song needs to be sung in it's entirety as it does capture a different more emotional side of things.

Also, just recording one section of a song over and over could drive a person crazy, like when I'm making drums for a track with some software. You keep playing it over and over, and over. The small dose of repetativeness could kill a person.

So, yeah. The goal is to eventually get one solid full true take. But if it's not working quite that way and you have to, combine a few takes. So, I'm not one sided and closed to ideas, but there is a goal that would like to be had.

:edit:
oh, and only instruments would I copy and paste, verses, choruses. At least rhythm sections, since leads feel more often closer to an/as emotional as vocals. So, usually I'll try and get the lead in one take as well.

 

[Jamal Bucket]

i usaually sing all thr way through then go back and punch in where i completely fucked it up...so like maybe 20 or 30 punch ins for a 3 minute song

 

[mshilarious]

The phrase-at-a-time works OK, but make sure the vocal can be sung straight thru, otherwise it's obviously unnatural. You hear that sometimes on songs, especially going to the chorus when there isn't time to breathe and then you hear the song live and the singer is dying. That's always pretty funny.

 

[Track Rat]

I'll record two to three complete performances all in one take each. Then I'll go through and comp the best of each performance into one new track. I think you end up better performance wise this way since you don't break up any spontaneity that might be going on.

 

[Jagular]

This if about me recording myself singing only…I always do complete takes unless something is obviously messed up (ex. track clipped or I messed up the lyrics or belched or something ). I think it’s hard to get a passionate overall performance if bits & pieces are done here and there. I have also never comp’d a vocal track. Not that I wouldn’t. It just is usually quicker for me to do the whole track over with the errors in mind than to comp them. Many times the first take wins out because it has more feeling than the….say 4th take even if there are a few things I would like have done differently. Just depends on my mood I guess .

I just recently recorded a vocal track that everything was going swimmingly until the last verse & chorus. I got a mechanical error of some sort so I stopped recording. I punched in the third verse and chorus, same settings, same position & within 5 minutes of the original recording and it just didn’t sound right. It was o.k., but just lacking IMO. That track won’t see the light of day btw…I will be retracking the whole vocal once my computer gets fixed (hopefully it will get fixed )

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Man, I hate comping. Sometimes I track several entire performances and piece them to gether, but more often then not I have the singer go straight through the songs, then we go back and punch in on the same track until it is all fixed.

 

[mstudio1224@aol.com]

I do

1. Background vocals first, --- stacked choruses 1,2 and 3
2. Adlibs & phrases
3. Then the lead ---STRAIGHT THROUGH---- no edits or cuts
4. accents

all this is easy since I'm the writer & producer and I mentally arrange & structure it.

But if the song has a steady Chorus, I'll do one good take
copy & paste it

But definately sing ALL THE WAY through, VOXVENDER, your really cheating yourself doing it that way, but hey EVERYBODY'S different

 

[Porter]

I've recorded both ways.... line (or 2) at a time and singing through the song fully.

I prefer the second option.

In regards to flaws in the voice.. have you heard of Kasey Chambers?

Porter

 

[Slackmaster2K]

You do whatever it takes to make that recording sound good. We are recording artists, not performing artists (well, the vast majority). That final mix that you send to everybody and their sister is what counts. Painters shouldn't pick on other painters over painting techniques....writers shouldn't pick on other writers for using a thesaurus....

Granted if you are in a performing group and you misrepresent yourself with a great sounding CD (e.g. you suck in real life), then your fans will be irritated.

I used to have that annoying "straight arrow" mindset too...then I decided that limiting my actual goals by trying to impress people with raw playing or singing ability was just holding me back.

One thing I've noticed though is that even if you are crapping things together...you still have to have that initial performing ability or it still isn't going to sound very good.

That said, I sometimes comp together vocal takes...sometimes I do vocals in phrases.....although my best vocals are usually full performances (or a few good ones together). It's too hard to get into singing one line....

Which had me for a while pondering the problem of how to sing that FIRST line of a song...I often sing the first few lines during the click in to be ready.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[footsweep]

I can not imagine doing it one line at a time, I always need a couple of lines to get into it. The first line is always going to be hesitated or too pushy.
Singing one line before hitting the record button doesn't work for me either, most of the time it scrambles up my timing.
So I sing it all the way through. and focus on the weak parts afterwards, then coming to the conclusion the first take was the best afterall.
I however am a performing and recording artist. So a realistic performance in the recording booth is important to me.

 

[Track Rat]

One of my favorite dirty tricks is to tell the singer just to warm up with the tune in question while I set levels and make a headphone mix. I secretly press record and 3 out of 5 times this will be the keeper. When people don't think the record light is on they lose their tape nerves, ya know what I mean?

 

[Nosferous]

One of my favorite dirty tricks is to tell the singer just to warm up with the tune in question while I set levels and make a headphone mix. I secretly press record and 3 out of 5 times this will be the keeper. When people don't think the record light is on they lose their tape nerves, ya know what I mean?

Yep!
I pressed play (and record) for a song me and my bandmate were working on, and told him to just listen and get more feel for the song while I went to the restroom. I knew he was going to sing along.
I'm in the bathroom and sure enough I hear him singing. Come back in and hit stop and play it back, he didn't even know what hit him.

This doesn't work anymore, he knows when I'm recording now everytime. Or he'll change everything up so it'll be a useless track. bah!

at least there was that one time.

 

[Son of Mixerman]

How do you guys do it..?

I hate to sound like Blue Bear but, it depends.

each person has their own way of doing things. Some singers like once through and then punch, problematic peices only. For someone who is a live performer it helps them remember and work out performance issues prior to a tour. Some singers can't do it all the way through, so to save time of puching later, the pieces are done one phrase at a time. I know alot of pop producers like to it that way becasue when your digital its faster to cutNpaste good performamces than trying to repeat it manually. Im not a big fan of editing vocals or anything so I prefer main vocals to be done until its done right. If I was more digital based maybe Id be different. But it all depends. Vox, Ive heard your stuff and Id say its working for you so I wouldn't change whats working.


SoMm

 

[Jagular]

One of my favorite dirty tricks is to tell the singer just to warm up with the tune in question while I set levels and make a headphone mix. I secretly press record and 3 out of 5 times this will be the keeper. When people don't think the record light is on they lose their tape nerves, ya know what I mean?

You need to come to my house and trick me