Making a great vocal track thats so good, its ready for airplay from a home studio

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anppilot1

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Making a great song/album from a home studio thats ready for air play

Whats going on guys? I've got a question for you. Im recording hiphop, RnB, gospel, jazz, house, and anything else except a full band due to space constraints. Heres my setup:

COMPUTER:
500 MHZ PIII
256 MEG Ram
4 GIG HD for software
32 GIG HD for vocal tracks
Midiman Omni 4 in 4 out soundcard
Dual 21" monitors on Win 98
4X4 Cd burner


SOFTWARE:
Cubase VST 3.7
Wavelab 3.0
Tons of plug-ins
Soundiver
Acid
Soundforge
MixMan

SOUND REINFORCMENT:
Oktava MK-319 Mic (vocals)
Sony Stereo Mic (Guitars/Acoustic)
Bellari MP-105 Tube mic pre
Tascam TM-D1000 16 Channel Digital Mixer
Mackie 1202 (For Modules and Keyboards)
Event 20/20 Nearfield Monitors
Alesis Midiverb4
Haffler 75W/Channel Amp
Unitor8 MIDI patch bay
DBX 166XL stereo compressor/limitor/gate
Fisher Dual Cassete Deck
Numark turntable

SOUNDS:
AKAI Sample Disks
Alesis QSR
Roland JW-50 as a Master Controller
Roland JV-1080 (W/Dance card & Techno EXP, & 2100 Patches)
Roland JD-990 (700 Patches via the Internet)
Roland MC-303
Korg Triton Rack
Yamaha TG-77 (400 Patches via the Internet)
Yamaha FB-01 (Awesome bass module)
Yamaha S-80 Keyboard

I want to get perfect sounding vocals as good as you hear on the radio, or cd's. My vocals come out ok, but not great. I layer them, add a little reverb, chorus, and widen the stereo image a little. Maybe cause Im so used to analog recording, and letting the needle "hit the red" so to speak? How do you recomend to get LOUD vocals, without normalizing every one of them and keep the hiss out? Is is the mic? The Oktova is a decent mic but is this the problem? Does every studio need a $2000 mic? Come on already. I've heard of some rappers, hip-hop, and RnB guys making air-play albums in their homes. Whats the secret?

thanks in advance
Mike
 
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JuSumPilgrim and Trak its obvious you dont know tha answer to this post so why wast your time and give arrogant answer to some one whos asking for some help and advice?


for the guy who said "skill" yeah that is what hes trying to build on fool.


and the guy who said "And a good engineer" look above^ .



hey anppilot1, sorry i cant help you but im sure some1 with sound REAL advice will show up.


just remeber guys every one had to start at level one and no 1 was born with the skill.
 
BK, spend some time on the board before you go around criticizing.

The reason annpilot got no responses is bec the question is moronic. You get radio results when you have enough experience recording that you dont post stupid questions on homerec boards. Radio results arent going to happen right now even if you had cranesong, manley, great river and every BLUE and neumann mic in production. Its about reading, learning, experimenting, retooling, etc. Theres no magic piece of gear and it doesnt happen overnight. The question shows such an overwhelming lack of awareness of what home recording is about and what it will do for you that it is pointless to seriously answer.

Stay awhile, you both might learn something.
 
thats good to hear JuSumPilgrim, but that could have been explained to him rather than just say the obvious.


I dont spend to much time here because I spend most of my time (granted that I have any) at cubase.net. I do extensive reading on what ever I need to learn on. yes I agree that it takes years of experience to achieve that pro sound and Im sure you had your share of moronic question aswell . Also if you felt it was pointless to answer you should have not even bothered in the first place. good people skills need alot of experience aswell..

I learn every where I go, we all learn something everyday. But whats the point of the board if you cant even give some1 a decent answer regardless of how trivial or moronic his/her questions are? Then I guess this is no place for newbies who wana be pro. I dont need 1000 post's or so to be recognized or to be seen as some 1 who dont spend enough time here just to learn a thing or two. :)

I tell you one thing, If I knew what kind of tips to give him, I would and I would not feel like I was wasting my time. Im shure some 1 took the time to answer some of your questions from time to time. even if I was at a higher caliber in this feild I would not descriminate him/her for his/her lack of awareness .


This is not a pissing contest, this is a place to learn from one another.

:) peace and keep reading
 
BK Manny.

I feel I directly answered his question.

He asked "what's the secret?" and my answer was a good engineer, which is what he will need to achieve the results he's after, unless he is a good engineer himself.
 
Re: Making a great song/album from a home studio thats ready for air play

anppilot1 said:
I want to get perfect sounding vocals as good as you hear on the radio, or cd's. My vocals come out ok, but not great. I layer them, add a little reverb, chorus, and widen the stereo image a little. Maybe cause Im so used to analog recording, and letting the needle "hit the red" so to speak? How do you recomend to get LOUD vocals, without normalizing every one of them and keep the hiss out?
Click to expand...

To get louder vocals at the recording stage... I suggest a little, note little, compression, as this evens out the vocal level and gives it a little more *volume*.
 
Re: Re: Making a great song/album from a home studio thats ready for air play

Ok, BK. Heres an honest answer. The converters on the delta 44 are good but theyre not going to get you radio quality sound. The pres on the omni are good, the legendary dmp2s, but theyre not going to get you radio quality sound. Neither will the bellari. The oktava is ok, warm but not very detailed. Nonetheless, despite these disadvantages you have a decent setup for some homerecording which can go far if youre writing is phenominal and if you have magic in your voice or whoever youre recording. Dont worry about getting a radio ready mix, worry about recording your songs well enough that the basic sounds of the instruments and vibe and dynamic of the songs is articulated to the average listener. Do the best you can with the tools you have. Theres alot to be learned when working with constraints. Theres also nobility in it.

Maybe you are skilled and maybe your stuff is brilliant. If that be the case then you need to get your stuff out ASAP. :D In that case, the key thing to keep in mind when youre talking about radio music is--- lots of compression. If theres more than 3dB dynamic range then you havent compressed enough. The chorus should not move more than -1dB. Compress vocals, compress guitars, compress the snot out of the bass and everything under 200Hz. Synths are not very dynamic in the first place so they generally dont need much compression. For these important tasks I would lose the dbx and get an RNC, waves RCL, waves L1, steinberg's loudness maximizer, waves C4, waves C1, PSP vintagewarmer, Ultrafunk's comp and some others that arent coming to mind right now. All those goodies will run you under $1k and do fantastic work in different contexts. EQ everything to be really discrete so theres little overlap of frequencies for vocals, guitars, keys, etc. I think analog EQ is better than digital but you can get away with digital EQ if you use good ones like waves EQs or steinberg's Qmetric or TL audio EQ. Maybe get a soundcraft board as a dedicated EQ. I dont think they all have the same EQ, but the M series which I have is the same design as the ghost and the EQ is beautiful. You can get a small one for under $500. (Good analog EQ will run a couple of grand although the speck EQ is supposed to be legendary for $500 as well. I havent used one so I cant say.) All the midrange instruments need their own space in terms of panning and EQ. If synths peak at 3.5k then guitars should peak around 1k and so on. If bass peaks at 180Hz, the bass drum should be around 80Hz, etc. Whatever sounds good.

Youre all set. Good luck.
 
JuSumPilgrim :) you even tought me a couple of things.

I like to see people who share their tips and advice to others.
It makes thoes who are lost find a direction to move on to.

good advice. I tip my hat to you :)


sorry about calling you guys fools :) its just I sence so much arrogance on boards today thats all.


Trak hehe , I know what you mean with how you felt you answerd his question but it still was a "below the belt answer" hehe. some times when thoes who are looking for help the receive thoes kinds of answers they stay down for the count.
get it. but sorry for calling you a fool to. :)

I guess you can say I an angry person when it comes to questions and answers :) but hey lets make some music.


no hard feelings.

their is always more than one way to skin a cat.

peace
 
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