how to get a telephone/radio sound on vocals?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason M Hancock
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Jason M Hancock

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Hi,

Can anyone recommend how to get a vocal track to sound like it's come from a telephone or radio relative to the other tracks? The mix includes a rather full sounding acoustic guitar mic'd trough two channels, some bass, and light/subtle drums. I have a feeling heavy compression (with some light phase or flange?) is what I need to apply to the vocals but I'm not sure.

And I'm using my brand spanking new Korg D-1600 which I just got this week, so if anyone can recommend something using the onboard effects for this, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

Jason
 
Hi Jason!

You can try for that effect a severe Hi Cut and a Lo cut. I mean, Make a real rude cut below let's say 250-500 Hz and one above 1-2 KHz

If not enough, move the cut frequencies a bit sideways till you get the desired effect. Let's say make a bandpass filter from 250Hz to 1KHz or from 125HZ to 750Hz or 500 to 4K. Try till you hear something you like.

For radio sound you may also want to add some static-kind of noise. Any Vinyl plugin can do the job.

Hope this helps

Peace.

PC
 
A Question.

I own a Korg D8 and it has both effects Radio and Phone. Don't you have them too?

Peace.

PC
 
Waves' Parametric EQ (Software Plugin) has a "telephone" preset.

Basically, it just cuts all frequencies below 250hz and above 4khz, so you're left with just the mids.
 
"This is the Central Scrutinizer..."

You could always go quick and dirty with a megaphone. The cheaper the megaphone the better. Get a toy MP from radio whack and whisper into it. That's what Zappa did, and that's what most radio DJ's do for phone bits.

Carl
 
Jason the easiest way to do it is to boost the hell out of 1KHZ and cut everything else

Tukkis
 
The average telephone system's frequency range is from 300Hz to 3.1KHz........so cutting anything outside that range should help.

:cool:
 
I read this in another post here a while ago and just tried it. I have an old red phone and took the ear speaker out and wired it to the headphone out of the desk. Then miked it. A little compression helped to. This is the sound your after. Funny enough it sounded just like a telephone.
Another good idea to add to this effect is to mix in a little scratchy vinyl record sound with it. Not rap scratching, more like the sound of a needle travelling along a scratchy groove were there's no music on it. Adds a lot of character to the effect. You can hear this exact combination on the start of the Foo Fighters song M.I.A. Seems to add even more distance to the sound. Just an idea?

Scott.
 
hi jason

Although maybe not too conventional, I used a Sans Amp plugin on the vocals of one song to get that kind of sound. Turned up the gain and drive a bit and it flattened out the vocal and gave it a telephone sound.

Bryan
 
i just turn high end up all the way, so it distorts a bit. and that is that. great sound to me -- i mean, for the telephone sound, you dont have to be perfect, its supposed to sound somewhat bad, and additionally all phones sound a bit different!
 
Thanks!

Thanks, everyone...you've given me far more tips than I'd hoped for. I look forward to trying them out!

Jason
 
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