Some pre-production stuff to consider here...

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sonusman

sonusman

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I more or less made a deal with a band I have mixed for in the past to co-produce a CD for them this Spring. No time better than the present to work with the vocalist on pre-production. Brought here into the studio last night do go through the mic's and preamp's to see what is going to work best for her voice.

Mic's we tried:

AKG 414 B/ULS
AT 4033
AT 4050
ADK TC-51
Nuemann U87

Preamp's we tried:

Focusrite Red 8
Oram MWS
Drawmer 1960

So I made my decision. Here is a quicky take we did just to hear how it might sound. Just faders up with a tad of reverb from the O2R.

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2270&alid=349 Click on "InTheMirror edit"

I can say that we used the compressor section for sure on the Drawmer while tracking, but you guess the mic/pre combo.

Comments on the lead vocal? I realize it is not the greatest performance, but it was just a quick take. No coaching or nothing.

Ed
 
it's amazing just how far good performers, choices of equipments and mic'in techniques will get you without even mixing/mastering!!! I will have to set a whole new standard for tracking before I begin mixing...

Great job, ED

sorry, can't comment anything at this level...

AL
 
4050 and the Red{cheap headphones}..Nice stuff! Love her voice!This is your preproduction .Sounds like a good project that you are gonna have fun doing..I enjoyed listening..



Don
 
Bah.. you're tricking us.. It's a Rode NT-1 through a Mackie.. :o
 
Meshuggah said:
Bah.. you're tricking us.. It's a Rode NT-1 through a Mackie.. :o
Click to expand...

I wish Mesh!!! We could have saved a few bucks in purchasing!

Henri, yes, this will be a most enjoyable project!!! The musicians are the guys from a band called Porterhouse who I mixed/mastered a couple of CD's for. Great guys to work with.

A1A2, thank you for the nice comments.

Ed
 
i don't have the first clue what i'm talking about but i'll play anyway for the prizes. if i guess right, do i get the u87?

AT 4050/Drawmer
 
well...I'll stick my neck out (and get it chopped off!) and take a guess or two... what the hell... no gain, no pain..or sumpin'

I gotta rule out the u87, 4033 right off the bat.

sounds kinda thin to me, a tad, and very crispy, high-endy...almost verging on too much, and I am supprised the Drawmer allowed that to happen!! The akg, I am not that familiar with actually, but will take a stab as that being the mic.

the preamp, maybe the focusright. I think the red series is very fine stuff, but maybe a pinch pricy.

so...now that I've proved I can't hear shit, I'll tell ya, this kind of music aint my style either.. But sounds like quality. Have a ball!

oh yeah... vocal comments. (let me get my ears/brain away from da wah wah!!). Sounds good, but I think needs some more proximity effect happening, but the crispyness....hhhmmm

thanks for the post... and the answer is....?
 
No idea what mic but sh!t man this is a TEST VOCAL!?! If I could get a vocal sound like that as a final vocal I'd be more than happy. I hate it when people post stuff that reminds me that I have crappy gear and know nothing :p

Not my kinda stuff but great sound mate.
 
btw the vocal at 122 ish sounds like it has some sort of "warbling" effect on it. woss that? just the mp3ness?
 
Yeah, the 128kbs encoding wasn't very flattering to this song. I hear the effect now that you mention it. I listened to the original .wav file and it definately isn't there, so.....

I forgot to mention that to save time while mixing, the mix went through an extra conversion that I normally wouldn't do. The tracks on the HD24 were recorded at 48KHz. The O2R has a digital connection to the Masterlink, but I didn't want to wait around for the Masterlink to do a Sample Rate Conversion, so I went analog out of the digital console to the analog in's on the Masterlink at 44.1/16 bit so I could just burn a disk right after that. Certainly, with the clocking issues on the Yamaha gear, and the extra conversion, some stuff got a little harder sounding.

mixmkr, you are the ONLY person that has complained about this vocal being too "harsh". I actually got a comment from somebody here via chat that he thought the vocal was a little "up front" in the lower mids, proximity.

Just to take the guess work out. The was the Nuemann U87>Focusrite Red 8>Drawmer 1960 compressor on this vocal.

The AKG sounded very flat and too "hard" in the 1-4KHz region.

The AT 4033 was shattering my ears!!! WAYYYYYYY too harsh!!!

The AT 4050 was a little more "warm" compared to the 4033, but still had a little "hash" in the upper mids.

The ADK TC-51 had a great sounding "sizzle", but was generally too harsh on the upper notes. It did sound a little better on the lower notes though. We narrowed down between the U87 and the ADK, but the U87 just handled the dynamics MUCH better and had the most smooth high's out of all the mics on her voice. Most of the time, the U87 isn't my first choice. That day, and on her voice, it was just the right thing!

The Oram pre was a little too vanilla. Sounded very accurate, but didn't quite have the same detail the Focusrite did, and for this stuff, I want detail.

The Drawmer pre wasn't exciting at all. A little too "mushy" for this song. It may make it on some of the more upbeat stuff this band is doing, but not for the ballads like this.

The Focusrite without the Drawmer compressor behind it is not a pretty sound! LOL. The Drawmer tames it just enough for me. I like the detail of the Focusrite, but hate the hyped upper mids it usually provides going to digital recordings.

The singer is actually much better than this. She had worked all day and was tired when she tracked this. We had already done several test takes to narrow down the mic/pre combo, and this take was just to hear how it worked out over a whole song. So, I expect the real "takes" to sound much better than this.

An interesting aside about the singer. This is her second band ever. She started singing in her first band 8 months ago! She has never had any formal vocal training, nor sang in any choirs and what not. I suppose she is sort of a freak of nature! :) I am looking forward to the improvements I KNOW will happen from being produced. At 23 years old, I think she has a future, and she has a supportive family which always helps!

Ed
 
sonusman said:
mixmkr, you are the ONLY person that has complained about this vocal being too "harsh". I actually got a comment from somebody here via chat that he thought the vocal was a little "up front" in the lower mids, proximity.
Click to expand...

well...what do I know?? That's why the u87 got shot down first, but walla!!

No other comments about being crispy?? I didn't mean harsh...like 2-4khz harsh..but 10k+ crispy.. maybe its the LSD...I dunno..

I know...it's the digital!!!! ha!...
 
Well mixmkr, not one single engineer I know guessed it being the U87!!! Had three different guys at the studio since then listening to the track solo'ed and they all didn't get it right either. :) I couldn't believe it worked out best out of the choices I had either frankly!!! I was guessing before we started that the 4050 or the TC 51 would be what won. But "walla"!

Upon close listening on headphones here, there is indeed some sort of weird thing going on in the really high stuff on the mp3 compared to the .wav file. I usually don't post 128kbs mp3's, but wasn't wanting to wait around the extra time for 192kbs to upload on this slow motion dialup I use. :)

It may indeed BE the "digital" here too! A Yamaha O2R isn't exactly state of the art, nor is the summing as good as just about any software mixer is these days. The extra D/A/D conversion I used to get this mix done quickly (to SRC) probably didn't help things in the top end at all! I took a listen again last night at the studio, and just don't hear the vocal being that harsh up above 10KHz. Too many conversions here!!! Oh well...

Ed
 
I think this just goes to show you (well, I am talking about me, I suppose) how subtle mic difference can really be, and that other things potentially are really MUCH more important..such as placement, and more importantly, what goes into the mic. However, fine tuning in the test you did DOES pay off for sure. I am not really a mic afficianado...I have some decent ones for sure, as I DO enjoy good equipment and seeing and using it...and learning about it too. However, my ears sometimes just can't make out significant enough differences to seem to really matter that much as far as what equipment I use. I mean, after a distortion/chorus box is in place in my gtr rig, it doesn't mean jack which one I really use....really.....I just use the one that I like to play. Admittedly, I don't use a lot of mics nowadays, and I think my hearing is really getting skewed to sampled sounds VS something actually "real". But, that's ok with me. I was never really a fan of "capturing" something authentic....more so, something that had a sound in which I liked.
I was being more on the sarcastic end of things too, btw on the digital comment. I think you knew that though, but you had some good points about it in your response actually that makes sense.

well...sorry to talk so much about myself in YOUR thread...but you take your chances here in the clinic!

oh...and your post DID succeed in making me NOT feel like such a stupid shit, so I thank you for that. At this point in my recording endevours, I have no fears about being wrong ...what the hell. My ego aint that fragile!!:p But you know me, I do speak what I feel....sometimes with repercussions!.
 
It's funny that the top end red focusrite does the same thing as the lo end version voicemaster. I have to come out the pre section and run it into an RNC and I get these really great vocals. However if I use the built in compressor its kinda flat. Their preamps have this detailed but excessive high end sound.
 
I liked the vocals right up until she started singing louder, at which point I found that it sounded.....annoying (like around 1:35 somewhere). Maybe it's just her voice, but all the nice qualities about the vocal sound kind of fell away. When she was singing softer it sounded really smooth and gritty (gritty to me = good).

Slackmaster 2000
 
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