Recording Vocals

[goodfoot]

My band is presently recording an album using the Fostex VF-O8. Everything is going great except for the vocals. No matter what we do, they sound disjointed - seperate from the music. I would really like to know how other bands get such a good vocal sound, like The Jayhawks or Wilco. We are using decent mics and trying many effects but nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?

 

[tntkemp]

Two things seem to help alot. One is a simple thing I've used here. I copy the vocal to a 2nd track, and shift it in time forward or backward a vary minute amount...but you'll have to experiment with this one. The amount of time will vary for each song, based on style and speed.

Another, which I've tried with somebody elses unit, is the BBE Sonic Maximizer. As incredible as it may seem, this unit does indeed make a world of difference in vocals. It somehow seems to liven them up.

Tom Kemp

 

[LongWaveStudio]

you shuldn't need to rely on sonic maximisers to get a good vocal sound. try a better mic, or a better mic position. what are you recording with?


regarding the disjointed vocal sound, run a compressor on the vocals cus it sounds like some words are coming out of the level range they should be at, which could be causing the disjoint sound. blend in a small amount of reverb, to blend it in with the track if nessacery.

 

[LoveSinger]

disjointed vocals re anticipated vf-16 buy.

Guys, I'm a few hours from buying a vf-16 (I think) from American Musical at a $799 price-match. My key criterion for digital is "smooth sounding vocals" and to my ears per the sample MP3s I found for each standalone I was considering, the VF-16 has that over the Akais and Korgs (both pretty smooth) and certainly over the Rolands (I had, liked and sold my VS-880 last December - still in withdrawals from its ease of use and abilities).

Still, like goodfoot I'd wondered about the slightly 'disjointed' vocals sound on some of the great MP3s IMO - nicely round-and-analog-ish but kind of thin or squeezed for lack of knowing what else to call it (kind of like over-compression, but different). Another thing that makes me feel it's not compression artifacts is that some words or syllables seem to drop out of volume at times, which wouldn't happen with compression, right?

So I'm asking: could it be an EQ thing? like maybe the Q of a certain range (hi, mids, los, all?) being too narrow? and could widening that Q make the vocal spectrum mix in with the instruments and BG by overlapping 'into' them some?

This is all off the top of my head - I'm certainly no EQ expert - but from stuff I've absorbed in other places it came to mind.

Thanks for the help.