Recording & Mastering Pop Vocals

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Robles Records

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Hello,


I'm a seasoned keyboardist/vocalist, but have never operated my own studio. I am just about to invest in quite a bit of equipment for my home studio and need some direction. My intent is to use a G4 based Pro Tools LE system for recording and sequencing.

Do any professionals out there have any advice as to how to get that very expensive sounding, highly refined, thick, tight, chorused, , almost overly processed vocal sound you hear on N'Sync, Brittney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and other pop/r&b albums?

I'm not so much interested in the technical aspect as I am in the equipment required. Mics, processors, etc. This particular sound seems to be reserved for huge pop stars using state of the art facilities. Is there some reasonably priced equipment in the sub $5,000 range (much lower would be preferred) that I could purchase for my home studio to get this sound?

..or do I need to drag my butt into a professional facility when recording and mastering vocals tracks?
If the ladder is the case, when searching for a facility, what should I look for? What is the best of the best for vocal recording, processing and mastering?

Please help!

Thanks!

Ryan
 
you wont be going the wrong way by getting a Neuman U87 microphone to start with. and a really nice preamp, maybe an avalon. to be honest with you mate, it's more about the vocal arrangment that anything. make sure you really have a lot of those backing vocals. Ive just finished an RNB session for a girl which is coming out early next year. We did 40 backing vocals on the chorus, and about 14 tracks of dropin harmony onthe verses. now you dont actually hear all these backing vocals, but they're there. and that makes the vocal track sound big. ive been given alot of acapellas of stuff from aguilera and all that, and the vocals aren't actaully recorded exceptionally well, but the arrangement does the trick. heavy compression on backing vocals is something you may want to think about. in pop music, you dont wanna loose many decibels off those backing vocals!
 
Look at some Focusrite stuff...

Red 8 or ISA-430 Producers Pack...


I think your just hearing compression and singing style... We (pop producers) usually don't put chorus on leads... (Unless it's Ozzy):)

And I am quite familiar with the names you mentioned, and there is not any chorus on the leads there either..

Pop Producers use lots of compression on vocals, to give it that smoothness and everything uniform one level (vocal wise)... Where in a Celine Dion Ballad or something we want to have a bit of dynamics....

BG
 
This is an old thread but I was searching for techniques or recording vocals and I notice that Gidge mentioned Antares Autotune but did not elaborate.

Gidge,
Could you elaborate on that?

I noticed on one of my recording sessions that the backup singer was out of tune. I changed the mono recording into stereo by having the same on both right and left channel. His voice was very flat. But when I used Autotune on the right channel then the left channel, each channel sounded different. Like if it was two different recordings. It made the vocal sound great!! I was extremely happy with it.
 
I have a strong feeling that if you start with a good mic, like a Brauner "Phantom C" or a Soundelux "ifet-7", into a good pre, like a Phoenix Audio DRS-1 or Great River ME-1NV, into a serious compressor or two [or three], like a Crane Song LTD. "Trakker", or an Empirical Labs "EL-8", a Geoff Daking "Fet Compressor" or a combination of a couple of them that you'll get closer to where you want to be.

When tracking, cut like a half dozen or so takes and build a 'compilation' track taking the best performance from one of the recorded vocals for each word, line, etc. and 'build a vocal take'.

From there, sadly, you'll probably want to run it through the 'auto tune' crap if for no other reason than to get the artifacts that have become so annoyingly popular within that genre.

All of this can be accomplished on the $5k budget you outlined... best of luck with it.
 
Equipment

Not sure if you've purchased yoru equipment yet but I did years of research before I starting buying my studio equipment and settled ohe AKAI DPS24 track digital workstation. I have nothing but GOOD things to say about this unit. So just a suggestion from my end.

Dave
 
One of the biggest differences between home studio sound and pro sound, in my opinion, is the sound of the rooms the stuff is recorded in. If you do decide to go to a big studio, nice sounding rooms should be a high priority.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
 
pkmusic said:
This is an old thread but I was searching for techniques or recording vocals and I notice that Gidge mentioned Antares Autotune but did not elaborate.

Gidge,
Could you elaborate on that?
Click to expand...

uh....it was sort of a joke.....haha.....nevermind......
 
Robles Records said:
almost overly processed vocal sound you hear on N'Sync, Brittney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and other pop/r&b albums?
Click to expand...

*Almost* over-processed?!?!? Try *WAY* over-processed! :D
 
LongWaveStudio said:
We did 40 backing vocals on the chorus, and about 14 tracks of dropin harmony onthe verses.
Click to expand...

:eek:

Man that's a lot of vocals!
 
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