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sparky123
Member
I always slice and dice in my daw ( studio one ) doing simple manual edits on a word, phrase or whatever to not only level out parts of the vocal but to maintain the feel of the song.
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sparky123
Member
yep.. that's learning to work the mic
SteveAlton
Member
All these answers and not one mention of good mic technique. Learning the distance from the microphone to sing certain phrases in a song will not only put your mix ahead of the game, but for “live” gigs will make your performance professional. Best starting point IMO
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zepfan59
New member
You need to use a compressor. Or in your case, learn how to use one.
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JeffF
New member
Although I am speaking with merely a budding technical knowledge base, I would point out that off-axis movement with mics commonly used for vocals can also impact sound-level consistency. Increased loss of sound level occurs with greater movement left/right or up/ down away from on axis, practically speaking the center of a mic. While some singers use a mic off axis intermittently for desired effects (as well as intentionally varying distance), it may be an unintentional occurrence that becomes noticeable in listening to a vocal track as opposed to awareness of this occurring on stage.
It occurred to me that a pop-filter screen (if not part of a shock-mount with your mic) with a flexible gooseneck and clip may give the singer a good reference point of where to be (in distance as well as centeredness).
It may be, however, that the singer’s vocal production is a variable that needs to be considered. After addressing technical consideration to no avail, if you know a trained singer who could discretely observe the singer to determine such an issue, it might be practical before suggesting a voice coach. If a coach is needed, a singing instructor at a community college might give private instruction. This would be preferably an instructor who has experience in using a mic to lend of insight as well as instruction in vocal production.
By the way, I did not see the mic itself discussed. If the sound level variation is occurring consistently within a defined frequency area or areas, I would suggest a test swap to a better vocal mic--borrowed if need be--with a flatter response to isolate whether the current mic is producing the sound level variations. Although perhaps not the only issue, lower priced mics commonly have noticeable response deviations due to their lack of engineered flatness. (As a technical term, flatness is used to refer to frequency response—not tonal quality—of mics’ or speakers’ relative accuracy, top to bottom in frequencies either captured or reproduced of sound, respectively. Generally speaking, greater flatness is desirable.)
Welcome to your Home Recording forum—JeffF.
It occurred to me that a pop-filter screen (if not part of a shock-mount with your mic) with a flexible gooseneck and clip may give the singer a good reference point of where to be (in distance as well as centeredness).
It may be, however, that the singer’s vocal production is a variable that needs to be considered. After addressing technical consideration to no avail, if you know a trained singer who could discretely observe the singer to determine such an issue, it might be practical before suggesting a voice coach. If a coach is needed, a singing instructor at a community college might give private instruction. This would be preferably an instructor who has experience in using a mic to lend of insight as well as instruction in vocal production.
By the way, I did not see the mic itself discussed. If the sound level variation is occurring consistently within a defined frequency area or areas, I would suggest a test swap to a better vocal mic--borrowed if need be--with a flatter response to isolate whether the current mic is producing the sound level variations. Although perhaps not the only issue, lower priced mics commonly have noticeable response deviations due to their lack of engineered flatness. (As a technical term, flatness is used to refer to frequency response—not tonal quality—of mics’ or speakers’ relative accuracy, top to bottom in frequencies either captured or reproduced of sound, respectively. Generally speaking, greater flatness is desirable.)
Welcome to your Home Recording forum—JeffF.
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Dirk Diggler
New member
Several people mentioned this, didn't they?
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I agree. Any recommendations for a good tutorial?
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Dirk Diggler
New member
Thanks JeffF, these are useful tips.
Steenamaroo
...
Looks like it's all been covered but just for another +1 learning to work the mic is key here.
People think it's optional; I'm not very good at that - I'll just use automation.....
Honestly, I see having to automate a shoddy take, in that respect, as being no different to having to tune the crap out of a take because the singer was almost in tune.
It's one of those where a little bit of work at the start pays off over and over during the mix.
Sure, manual automation, vocal rider, compression...They're all great tools and I use them all, but if you can get that take as close as possible at the microphone it will help so much.
People think it's optional; I'm not very good at that - I'll just use automation.....
Honestly, I see having to automate a shoddy take, in that respect, as being no different to having to tune the crap out of a take because the singer was almost in tune.
It's one of those where a little bit of work at the start pays off over and over during the mix.
Sure, manual automation, vocal rider, compression...They're all great tools and I use them all, but if you can get that take as close as possible at the microphone it will help so much.
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jkuehlin
New member
Yup. Pretty much. The only other one I don't see is side chain ducking. Not side chain compression, not side chain filtering. Volume ducking. Different than automation. It can give the vocal the appearance of being more even than it actually is.
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Dirk Diggler
New member
What exactly is "side chain ducking"?
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Probably what he means is using one signal (like the vocal) fed into the detector circuit of a compressor on another signal (like a guitar) to make the second one drop in volume when the first one is present. It's a classic radio DJ thing where the music automatically drops when the DJ talks.
jkuehlin
New member
Yup.
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JeffF
New member
As you asked about tutorials, Recording Revolution has a free guide on compression: Mix Like A Pro... - Recording Revolution. I haven't read it yet, but I have find Graham's insights helpful on the topics I have thus far read on his site.
Graham, creator of Recording Revolution, also has YouTube videos.
--JeffF.
Graham, creator of Recording Revolution, also has YouTube videos.
--JeffF.
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Toastedgoat
New member
clip gain or region gain, is widely being used today. you can break the track down into different regions. Phrases, words, breaths, noises etc. You can edit out sibilance, control volume changes. Learning how to edit tracks with clip/region gain is well worth the trouble. It's even used for gain staging each track if you want to, much like the trim control on an analog console.
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Mickster
Well-known member
I’ve heard of region gain but have not learned much about it. I think it would help me tremendously. I’m using Reaper. I did a quick search but didn’t come up with any web details on how to do this. Maybe I’m searching with the wrong terms. Can anyone point me to a link? Thanks.......
Mickster
Well-known member
After searching around......I realized I was actually looking for details on SPECTRAL EDITING in Reaper........not region gain. I've gone through the video once but will need some practice. I'm looking to use it to make corrections for a number of reasons.......but am going to start by learning how to edit out some sibilance in my vocals. Here's a link if you want to use it.
YouTube
YouTube
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mixsit
Well-known member
don't know Reaper very well at all but a search for that term came up with something that didn't apply to what I know of as 'clip gain (Sonar's name for it) -I.e. level (gain) to just that specific piece of audio in a track (or the whole track of course if it's all one piece).
It's precedes everything else on the track (track volume, the insert point, eq's etc, FX sends..
I find clip gain -and more importantly clip gain automation lines- indispensable and do almost all my track prep, general leveling and clean up there. Basically a first and separate layer to later track automation once the mix is settled in.
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agiledood
New member
Vocal Rider by Waves is fantastic. I use that and sometimes the stock adaptive limiter in Logic, or through automation in Logic (put automation in 'touch' mode and 'ride' the wave as the vocal part is playing). I also discovered the automation selector tool to make it easy to mess around with levels when I did some automation before I should have.