Nigel Goodrich---Implementing Vocal Effects Before Tracking

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laj35

laj35

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I recently read an interview with Nigel Goodrich who, in my book is one of the best commercial engineers out there today and he's really doing some cool stuff. He's worked with Beck, REM, Pavement and is often called Radiohead's 6th member. In the interview he talks about how on Radiohead's newer albums' vocal tracks, which if you haven't heard the albums are choc full of weird vocal effects/processors, instead of tracking Thom's lyrics normally and then going back in and EQing and adding all the effects, compression and what have you, it's all implemented beforehand, thus allowing Thom to "play" the effects almost as a whole new instument. There is a ton of innovative processing that's done on both albums: Thom sings a vocal track in a way that it's phrases sound like gibberish(normally), until it's reversed and then it reveals a smoothly flowing melody.

In any event I really liked alot of what he had to say and was just wondering mostly if some of you "Pros" out there had, first of all heard and/or liked/disliked Goodrich's work on any of those artists stuff and more importantly, if you guys ever implemented any tricks on vocal lines that involved a ton of processing BEFORE you track?


Laj
 
Makes perfect sense for a vocalist to "play" his effects. Guitarists do it all the time.

barefoot
 
If it works for the song go for it. But why not record a dry track at the same time just to be safe? I have a feeling thats probably what they did. If you save the effects settings you can always recall the same effect later for the same "performance".
 
There's a great book by Howard Massey called "Behind The Glass" where he interviews
many of the worlds top engineers and producers both one on one and in panels.
This subject comes up frequently in the interviews and it really helped me to improve
my home recordings.
 
Some of the vocal stuff on the last 2 radiohead albums is so out there that I can't imagine doing it without the effect. Applying the effects after the fact wouldn't have given the same results. Thats just my opinion on their freak out noise tracks.

As far as regular vocal effects go...I'm smart enough to know that I'm not good enough to get the effects right in one shot. So I save them for later.
 
Ok....wait. I have always put the effects on before tracking. I know this isn't the place to go off on artistic rants or anything like that, but.... do you guys not find having the effects gives you a feel for what the vocals should be? If it was dry or if the effects were different I'd have to sing differently.


I LOVE GODRICH
 
That's what a headphone mix is for...let's the singer hear their voice partially clothed to help the performance a bit, but the effects aren't printed to tape/disk/whatever.
 
Cool discussion!!

I think it depends on what you are doing and what you want out of it.

See, if you are working with someone ELSE'S band, I think it's best to at least keep a clean track because of the way musicians sometimes are in the studio. That can be anightmare:rolleyes:
Most stuff intended to be mostly mainstream and pop should be treated the same way.

Exceptions to this would be:
A) If you were working with an experienced and experementally open minded band (like radiohead, etc.)

B) If you are recording your own stuff and know what you want or at least can understand where it's all going. I like to record effects just because it's fun to experiment and there are many times that you just could not get the same thing if the effect were not printed. You could distort a vocal afterwards but the track recorded with distortion and the track with added distortion will ALWAYS differ in attitude and delivery.

There is also something cool about the fact that what you got is what you got....sometimes too many choices and variables can be a burden, where as printing certain things solidifies a direction. Technology has gotten us away from this idea because now everything can be added later. Tony Visconti (David Bowie/T-Rex fame) said some cool things about this in the forward of the TapeOp book.

A couple of qoutes...

"In the 4 and 8 track days the entire kit was recorded onto one or two tracks. An engineer had no option but to EQ, compress, and sometimes even reberb or slapback, which were impossible to remove after printing to tape. This created a vibe, a sonic referance that would guide the overdubs that followed. Musicians loved what they heard and were inspired by it"

"I see lots of this generation using analog tape and vintage gear all the time but I don't hear many new records sound like or as good as the reat recordings of Led Zep, the Beach Boys, The Who...(etc). The difference is that we committed sonic ideas to tape and this generation hardly ever does."

Cool stuff....the whole book rules....check it out if you get a chance.:cool:



heylow
Rock Jedi/Indie Snob
www.heylowsoundsystem.net
 
I've read a few interviews with Daniel Lanois where he says he likes to commit to sounds early on just to simplify things later. But he's Daniel Lanois. He's actually good. I'm not.:D
 
Completely (I'm a moron, yes it's true) forgot about this thread and I come back and everybody's chimed in, thanks guys. Yeah I hear what a couple of you guys were saying about recording a dry track as well to be safe and route the treated vocal throught 'phones to the singer, really good points. I'm glad that some of my home rec'er friends like Nigel's work too, I hope he takes home the Grammy for best non-classical production, he deserves it in my book, and just think how many more years he's got left in those ears.


Laj
 
Yeah, Visconti talks about this in his experience producing Bowie in the 60s and 70s. Apparently, it was pretty much an ordinary thing on the British side of the Big Drink at that time to print effects as you went along. When Bowie started Young Americans, recording here in the States for the first time, Visconti got a panicky call from Bowie about everything "not sounding right." (To be fair, Bowie was probably fairly cranked on coca as well.) Visconti came out and found they were recording everything dry, American style.

It ain't new with Nigel, folks.

Of course, as we know, back then one had to keep a close count of one's tracks. The concept was hardly new with Visconti either. The Motown 3-track days are an astonishing example of living with what you tracked earlier.

Me? I guess I like to record wet sometimes, but really it's silly to do that, with all the processing power we have these days. Why not keep a clean copy as an option? Today it's more of a threat to be overburdened with OPTIONS. The kinda stuff they used to dream about....

Cheers.
 
.
Musicians loved what they heard and were inspired by it"
Click to expand...

It's a well documented fact that Lennon refused to sing when recording unless he could hear his voice with fx (reverb +) through his "cans". I can understand any singer "playing" his/her effects as he/she sang, it increases the audio connection and feel for the performer. And in the "old days", this was not always an option due to technology contraints. And recording a dry vocal from a vocalist who is trying to play the fx in real time through monitor cans won't always work trying to patch in the fx on the dry track later on. It depends on how weird the fx are.

The feeling I have is that in the past, engineers had to get things right first time and this caused creative tension amongst the artists and the engineer. Time was money, technology wasn't what it is today. Too many times today the feeling is "don't worry we'll sort it in the master mix". The tension is lost, sloppiness can (and frequently does creep in.)

The same way good software engineering practise was at its best when memory was severely constrained and programmers had to make every line of code count.

Led Zep II is a fantastic album, just listen to those fx applied mainly as they played.

And The Who also recorded everthing in real-time too, so they knew they would be able to play it live as well. Maybe it was a Brit thing. But it lead to some phenomenal recordings, the like of which we don't seem to come accross these days. Imho

:cool:
 
Empty Planet your absolutely right that Nigel wasn't the first to do this, however, if you've listened to some of the vocal tracks on the KID A/Amnesiac sessions it's quite evident that a TON of effects have been laid on and it seems that it would be impossible for them to sound that way unless they were tweaked preciesely before hand, I guess I'm rather wet back behind the ears, haven't read too terribly much words of top-flight engineers like Nigel, thanks for sharing, it makes sense that those old Motown guys did similar stuff, you can hear it, almost.

Paul881, you might be right that it's a Brit thing, and IMHO I think the newer RH albms are comparable in quality to some of the Who's stuff.


Laj
 
Hey;

Yeah I'm afraid I haven't heard any of the Kid A/Amnesiac stuff yet, though after your words I'm a bit more interested in the idea. I'm an old Bowie man myself, so freaky fx on vox and guitars are lovely stuff to me.

Speaking of the hell they had to go through at Motown though, here's the first link I found that described the process...

http://www.ritchie-hardin.com/soul/mostudio.html

Just dig this sentence, talking about what was on the final three track master.... "Track one had the basic rhythm - the drums, bass, guitars, piano and organ."

!!!!

Can you believe that? Can you imagine trying to get all your levels on ALL those instruments perfect on the final bounce-down, not to mention the sound!!!?!

Anyway, that's a bit off the topic. I think the main issue with recording vox so wet is that you have to have monster experience to be able to know that such a thing is going to sound good the next morning. That's the key, I think. NOT the kind of thing you want to mess with if you're new to that sort of thing and it's a one shot type deal. Just as a minor example, think of all the hideous first-time demos you've heard with WAY too much reverb on the vox.

Still, in spirit I'm with you. I love getting paint up to my elbows as I'm sloshing around on a song. Why not -- as long as it's my relatively cost-free home studio??

Cheers.
 
Agree with all you say laj35, and empty planet. Nothing like getting all your fx toys out to play with and then having the pressure to make em all work! Live!

As a brit, I am thoroughly depressed at the stuff coming out now, we have lost our way. All girl and boy bands and pop idol stuff. Hendrix and Joplin would be turning in their graves.

The yanks have taken over the rock stuff for sure, apart from a few like Travis and Cold Play. The market here in the UK is all commercial or dance/trance.

I really appreciate RH, REM and the like, reminds me of the old days:) But RH goes a bit too o.t.t. for me at times. Its knowing just how much fx to use before it becomes an abuse.

Motowns engineers were superb too, your quote is testimony to that. BTW, thank you for the link site, really interesting stuff.

The serious point I am making is that I feel that we should try to use the fx in live recordings, they do inspire muso's. I only have to fiddle about with fx to get the germ of an idea for a new song. Of course, a dry recording and a box of tricks together is fun too, but nothing like pressing that red record button and going live!
 
laj35 said:
<snip>

In any event I really liked alot of what he had to say and was just wondering mostly if some of you "Pros" out there had, first of all heard and/or liked/disliked Goodrich's work on any of those artists stuff and more importantly, if you guys ever implemented any tricks on vocal lines that involved a ton of processing BEFORE you track?


Laj
Click to expand...


Yes/Liked alot, and Yes.
 
Empty Planet, thanks for the link and man you gotta check that stuff out, especially if you like fucked up vocal effects/guitars, I've heard some Bowie and IMHO think there are MORE fx on RH's newer stuff, seriously.

Paul881, yeah the whole scene is in shambles, I guess I can see how you might feel that RH is using a ton of fx, I just think they're trying to convey to the masses that technology is here, like it or not.


Laj
 
Yes, thanks Laj.

Just to prove I am not in a time warp, a couple of weekends ago I was listening to VH1 Classic rock on tv and they had some tracks on from the late 60's early 70's which were truly appalling in terms of mix. And when I listen to some of my old albums (black plastic disks with holes in the middle), some of the sounds/mixes are bloody awful.

Travis's Invisible man album stands out to me as a great example of where music meets cool fx which enhance the feel without becoming an abuse.
 
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