my immortal cover - need some advice.

  • Thread starter Thread starter alecmcmahon
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alecmcmahon

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recorded a girl singing my immortal

i think some of the problems are the breathing noises.... and some SssSsS's and stuff..... i dunno, juust take a listen.

i was using a studio projects b1 mic, and a pop filter, b1 about 6 inches from her mouth, pop filter about 2


is my problem just mic placement ? or can i get away with some eq ?

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/9/alecmcmahonmusic.htm ( my immortal rough copy )

thanks
 
EQ can help. in a non-expert (me!) way, i occasionally put a De-esser plug-in on the vocal track to calm it down (not too heavy tho) or another way i have some success with is to sing slightly away from the microphone - i.e, not straight. knock some of that reverb off too. and bring the level of the music/piano, etc up slightly so that the vocal sits in nicely with the music.

BTW, im no expert, just someone learning the hard way so i could be totally wrong with some/all of above, but ive found these things to work very well - im not a singer really, so sibilance, etc can be a big problem. i like leaving my breathing on the record a bit cos it just sounds a bit more natural, just as long as it dont sound over the top like ive ran a marathon smoking a box of cigarettes.
 
Man, I like her voice. I do hear the sibilance in some spots and a little pitchy part near the climax to the instrumental break. Did you play around with mic placement while recording? What are you recording on (PC, standalone DAW, etc). If you're using software, I know there are some sibilance plugins - although it's usually best to knock out the problem at the source. I use Cubase SX and there is such a plugin that works fairly well at cutting it.

The B1 is a decent mic, although I did notice some sibilance problems on my voice with it. Tried different placements, pop-filters, etc. and decided to just not use it on my voice.
 
daw recording


digi 002 rack

b1 mic


yeh... theres a lot of those ssss, i kinda like the reverb though.


is that plug in u talk of avalible in pro tools ?
 
hey guys, i tryed taking some of your advice, lowering reverb a touch, and adding a desser, what do you guys think ?

( on a side note, what type of mic would go good with this type of voice, the b1 is the only condenser i have at the moment, but i really want to invest in a decent mic )
 
If you don't have a fortune to spend, I think you should buy a tlm103 from neumann. It's a real goed mic for that sort of things and not too expensive. It has a U87 - based diaphragm I believe. Or Blue has some nice mics too if you want to spend a bit more.

By the way, nice cover, well done.
 
rode nt1 has been my weapon of choice. i can get different tones just by playing with the placement and it seems to get a nice tone from my acoustic guitar too, as well as my voice. quite cheap(ish) too
 
Atari said:
If you don't have a fortune to spend, I think you should buy a tlm103 from neumann. It's a real goed mic for that sort of things and not too expensive. It has a U87 - based diaphragm I believe. Or Blue has some nice mics too if you want to spend a bit more.

By the way, nice cover, well done.
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i appretiate the reply, but i think 700 dollars for the tlm103 is out of my range, ( college student with car payments )... maybe something between the 200-400 dollar range i'd be able to pull off.

do you have any samples done with the rode nt1 , and / or... could my weak spot be the pres in the digi002 ?

(and looking for more advice how to make the vocals much more fuller and stand out like the real version.... i tryed vocal layering... but to no avail. i doubled the main vocals, so there were two of the main vocals one panned hard left the other panned hard right, i eq'd each left a right a touch diffrently.... then there was some reverbed vocals in the back panned half right on some lyrics...cant really hear it though, and some echo effects on the " me " and " real " about half way through...

im no pro... just trying to make them sound much fuller, stronger and in your face
 
have pm'd you a couple of links. they're only scratchy demo's so nothing really that shows off the NT1, but on the two i sent, neither have a de-esser used and only have a very mild amount of compression. neither use any EQ either. but ive managed to get a quiet voice and a loud voice on there without sounding painful on the ears. (im not a singer BTW....).

my rode nt1 was only about £140 (not sure the currency conversion on that..) and i got it on the recommendation of a chap in a studio i visited.
 
alecmcmahon said:
im no pro...
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is also quite reassuring for me to hear other non-pro's churning out some great sounding stuff on here....
keep it up mate
 
thanks i'll take a listen.



edit - moving on --- good song, sounds good... was it an anolog recording or done on the computer?
 
alecmcmahon said:
i appretiate the reply, but i think 700 dollars for the tlm103 is out of my range, ( college student with car payments )... maybe something between the 200-400 dollar range i'd be able to pull off.
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I've had luck with a CAD M177 (should run anywhere between $130-160). I have an M179 also (which is multi-pattern as opposed to single on the M177). Probably not the first choice for many around here, but on a budget, I was VERY pleased. I prefer it's performance over the B1 on my voice - but that's my voice. Using the same technique as with the B1, my sibilance problem was taken care of with the CAD. I don't have any solid samples using the mic I can put up - I'm working on that for next year (new EP).

I like to new version - it's coming along nicely! I think I prefer the reverb kicked back a notch and sibilance doens't seem so bad.

I agree with the comment that it's nice to hear some non-pro's creating some nice sounding tracks.
 
Could be wrong, but am I hearing a not-so-perfectly sound absorbant room? I hear reverb from the room, apart from the added reverb (which could a little bigger if you ask me).

I think you can do a better job with the same gear if you add just a little bit more de-esser and get some room treatment.
 
Halion said:
Could be wrong, but am I hearing a not-so-perfectly sound absorbant room? I hear reverb from the room, apart from the added reverb (which could a little bigger if you ask me).

I think you can do a better job with the same gear if you add just a little bit more de-esser and get some room treatment.
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im amazed you actually could pick that up!!

the " vocal booth " isnt treated much at all " its actually still in the works...

its a about 6 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 7 feet high ( roughly ) ... the walls DOUBLE insullated with r13 fiberglass insulation , couldnt find 703 so i just packed as much insullation in between each beam as i could, then after the its 2 layers of half inch dry wall, and then theres my buddys sisters old carpet lol.... we're still saving up for acoustic foam....

i was looking at foambymail.com they have pretty good prices on foam, i was looking at the " eggcrate foam " its pretty cheap, i thought i'd get that... ( anything wrong with it ? )

and could somebody elaborate more on what exactly a desser does... ( or am i just stupid and it is what its saying...a DE - SSSSer ) getting rid of ss's... hehe


thanks for the feedback guys.
 
foambymail.com hahaha. There's a website for everything these days :)

That really is just what a de-esser does. If you think of how the waveform a male/female voice would look, it's pretty easy to image what the adition of a loud SSS sound would add to the picture. A de-esser just filters that out (a bit).
 
If a de esser is used too much then the singer sounds like they have a lisp! pretty funny actually, worth a shot.
 
Halion said:
foambymail.com hahaha. There's a website for everything these days :)

That really is just what a de-esser does. If you think of how the waveform a male/female voice would look, it's pretty easy to image what the adition of a loud SSS sound would add to the picture. A de-esser just filters that out (a bit).
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awsome thanks.

imma go back and see what i can do to make the vocals stand out more , hard to describe but with more presence like the real version.... but i guess its like that in the " real version " cause they probably use million dollar hardware.... oh well
 
alecmcmahon said:
thanks i'll take a listen.



edit - moving on --- good song, sounds good... was it an anolog recording or done on the computer?
Click to expand...


all done on computer. apple g4 powerbook running logic pro 6, rode nt1 going straight into a Novation SpeedIO USB interface. no special treatment done to vocals at all, just a small amount of delay and compression
 
I think your biggest problem is the (none-existant) room treatment though. You could try other things like EQ, compressing, mic placement, but reflections remain in there, you can't take them out unless you retrack.

On a side note, reflections come from walls and bounce back into the mic. If you put the mic very near to a wall, hardly any reflections from that wall will be able to get into the mic, and reflections from the other walls will have to travel further to hit the mic (and thus be less prominent). This is a work-round though, and it's not perfect, but it might help. Try it.
 
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