Unprocessed Vocal Tracks

[schismatic]

Yeah, I did. It's just obvious to me that the OP is in the process of trying to develop his ear by doing some comparisons.

Spot on. Never stop learning in recording.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

Spot on. Never stop learning in recording.

I dont know, I guess for some reason its obvious to me what something should sound like My recordings are not perfect, how do I know that? For some odd reason I guess

 

[stefolof]

The dry take sounds so much more upfront than mine and has more warmth. Maybe I need to improve my room and mic placement.

It sounds like what you need to do is reduce room ambience.

I got one of these portable vocal booths:
http://www.realtraps.com/products.htm#PVB

It's not as effective as a real vocal booth but it reduced a lot of ambience.

 

[hiphop24360]

You guys don't even listen to your vocals dry before you start mixing, compressing, eq'ing etc??

Isn't the dry vocal what you listen to for a yardstick on what changes you need to make in the mix?!?

I actually keep all my vocals dry on anything "important" because I will want a mix engineer to do his/her thing instead of me....and they ALWAYS insist on complete dryness, no effects, comps etc etc. (For very good reason too!)....

In fact if they don't ask for everything tracked out with no effects, panning, eq etc on the tracks (including vocal)...its probably a good red flag they are not worth paying.....if its free your call, two track it all day if you don't mind the cluster sound and overcompression necessary.

....Wait ok maybe I get it, do you mean unprocessed like not through a compressor or anything like that in tracking? Because I suppose alot of people track with comps now days, people even start with a reverb commonly....but still you should use your dry vocal to decide your ratio's and whatnot

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Do I need to explain what I mean by pleasantly surprised? gosh!
I think you are being cynical. The whole idea is simple, following the "this sounds good and this is crap" theory. Its not that hard to know what crap is when you hear it. Same goes with smelling it, obviously.

I think it's actually a pretty valid question, actually.

If you're pretty new to recording and mixing, and you hear a finished track with a great vocal sound, sometimes it's tough to tell how much of that sound is in the way the vocal was mixed, and how much of it is in the way the vocal was recorded.

Yes, it's not hard to listen to a playback and think, "man, what a lush vocal sound." But, that doesn't automatically make it a well-recorded vocal, which is a kind of unintuitive thing to say but bear with me.

I'm a guitarist and write and record instrumental guitar music, so for me that's the easiest way to explain myself. I could, if I want, get an absolutely huge, lush, and massive rhythm guitar sound on my recordings - four to six takes, a couple mics a take to capture both a lot of presence and impact but also a lot of depth, maybe, a couple hard L-R and a couple more a little towards the center, with a mix of tones and gain structures so that they sum together and become this huge wall of guitar that instills fear of god into heathens or of the devil into devout believers, depending on the song and your religious persuasion.

Instead, I generally track rhythm guitars with a single SM57 up against the grill, occasionally do four takes but more often than not just leave it at two, and while I'll tweak my amp a bit between takes I'm not mixing wildly different sounds.

Why? Because that huge behemoth of a guitar sound sounds fucking awesome in isolation, but as soon as you bring in bass, drums, and lead guitar, it's shitting all over every other element in the mix. If I just capture a smaller, tighter rhythm sound, and then further high-pass out a bit more of the low end, instead I can get something that fits in with the bass guitar and compliments it rather than fights it.

Point of all this rambling being, sometimes the biggest, lushest, most expansive recording of an instrument or voice isn't the one that's going to sound "right" when you play it back surrounded by other instruments, and while you can cut out a lot of the stuff that isn't working to make it fit into a mix, the better approach is simply to capture what you want in the first place so you don't have to EQ it to within an inch of its life.

The point where all of this breaks down of course is by hearing the raw recorded vocal, it's hard to tell how much it does or doesn't sound like the guy singing in the room, and furthermore you don't really get to hear the final EQ'd/compressed/reverbed/whatever vocal in isolation as well so it's tough to really tell how much it was changed during mixing. But, it's still a pretty good place to start.

 

[bozmillar]

I dont know, I guess for some reason its obvious to me what something should sound like My recordings are not perfect, how do I know that? For some odd reason I guess

Nothing is obvious in recording. Almost nothing is intuitive in recording unless you've done it a million times. If it were, people wouldn't spend years to figure how to get a decent sound. People give themselves a lot of credit when it comes to what they can hear and what sounds good.

If it really was obvious to you what something should sound like, then your recordings would be perfect.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

If it really was obvious to you what something should sound like, then your recordings would be perfect.

Thats true if you have the right equipment and know how. And define perfect.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Ok, the example I'm about to give may not technically fall under the definition of "unprocessed", because there were black boxes thrown on the recording signal paths, but I think it does qualify to making some relevant points.

Did anyone here listen to any of the Haiti Relief telecast on television Friday night? Yes there were reverbs and compressors used, in some cases quite liberally, so the stuff was not "unprocessed" per se. But you knew what you were listening to were (mostly) people who *knew how to sing*; there weren't a bunch of mad scientist audio engineers taking their time in post deciding to make Wycleff Jean sound like Mario Lanza, and that 95% of why they sounded so good. was because theirvoices sounded that way to begin with. The processing, as Rami so rightly said a few posts ago, was to embellish already quality voices, not to make bad voices sound good. And I seriously doubt that any one here couldn't recognize the compression and reverbs for what they were and couldn't tell where the voice ended and where they started- hell, if you couldn't, then you're in the wrong BBS.

No amount of processing can make a bad voice sound good to anybody but the most casual of background listener or the tinniest of ear. Autotune and heavy chorusing and all that crapola are used to make bad voices technically palatable, sometimes under the guise of "a k3wl sound", sometimes not even under a guise of any kind, but they certainly don't make a bad singer sound like a good singer.

Does anybody really think that processing makes Britney Spears sound like Aretha Franklin? No, it makes her sound like an in-tune computer. OTOH, we have also learned that people like Justin Timberlake can actually sound *better* when they are not over-processed than when they are, because they can actually carry a tune of their own volition.

I personally see no point in hearing an unprocessed vocal versus a processed one. What does that actually tell anyone that they don't already know? If one can't tell where the singer ends and the processing begins as it is, they're not going to be able to analyze the difference between the two either.

G.

 

[grimtraveller]

No amount of processing can make a bad voice sound good...




Does anybody really think that processing makes Britney Spears sound like Aretha Franklin? No, it makes her sound like an in-tune computer. OTOH, we have also learned that people like Justin Timberlake can actually sound *better* when they are not over-processed than when they are, because they can actually carry a tune of their own volition.

I personally see no point in hearing an unprocessed vocal versus a processed one. What does that actually tell anyone that they don't already know? If one can't tell where the singer ends and the processing begins as it is, they're not going to be able to analyze the difference between the two either.

G.

Ah, but Glen, you say that as something of an expert to whom much of this is nuts and bolts. That's why your opinions are worth listening to. There is, however, another side to this. I've never heard Britney thingummyjig sing without processing so hearing her without the bells and whistles would enable many of us amateurs to see if she really did sound like an out of tune computer ! The vice is also versa about Justin Timberlake. I agree that ultimately, it's a moot point because we are all going to do with vocals what we will. But for me it would sometimes be interesting, just to hear how much certain vocals were embellished. For me it's the bottom line that the vocal has to be good, no matter what. But then, it does beg the question, why does no recorded song ever seem to have a totally dry vocal ? Why is it that processing seems to take place almost as a fixed response ? Can anyone contemplate not doing the done thing ?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

But for me it would sometimes be interesting, just to hear how much certain vocals were embellished.

And that's certainly an understandable position to have.

I came out soudning harsher than I meant to in the way I worded that last post (a common ailment for me ). Let me try to put it a different and kinder way. Unless it's an obviously fake or artificial-sounding voice that you know you just would not hear in real life (like much of today's over-autotuned pop and post-R&B stuff, or like Alvin and the Chipmunks ), the voice you're hearing is most likely pretty much naturally he voice of the person singing it. Beyonce pretty much sings like Beyonce, it's not like in real life Beyonce sings like Randy Newman and the computers make her sound like Etta James; she CAN actually sing like Etta James .

For those performers who can actually sing, any actual audible difference between the "dry" vocal and what you wind up hearing is going to be (if they used them) in the form of almost inaudible compression used simply to tame any unruly peaks and other dynamics in the voice - i.e. just leveling out the volume - and in the form of some reverb to lush-en up the ambience.

There are exceptions depending upon the genre, of course.

For me it's the bottom line that the vocal has to be good, no matter what. But then, it does beg the question, why does no recorded song ever seem to have a totally dry vocal ?

Well, a couple of answers to that. The first being that we rarely ever actually hear completely dry vocals in real life; (how often do you listen to a singer in real life as they are standing in a dead vocal booth or out in the middle of an open field with no reflections or room ambience? And to hear them on a record just doesn't sound "right" to us unless we at least try to replicate "real" wetness.

Second, because often more-than-real "wetness" masks minor imperfections. It's the old story of everyone thinks they can sing better when they're taking a shower. Not because of the wetness of the water, but because the extreme reverberation tends to wash out imperfections in both pitch and volume consistancy.

Personally I still sound like shit in the shower, but it's somehow better smelling shit than when I try to sing elsewhere .

It's no different with anyone else, though the better the voice and the less the imperfections, the less you want to mask the voice and the more you simply want to put a more natural "gloss" on it. I'll bet that Beyonce sounds better in the bathroom outside the shower than she does in the shower, because her voice is too good to mess that much with. (In fact, I'll volunteer right now to take a shower with her just to find out for sure .)

But either way, the core voice is still there, no matter what; whether it's my shitty one-eighth-of-an-octave range honking or her golden pipes.

G.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

I personally see no point in hearing an unprocessed vocal versus a processed one. What does that actually tell anyone that they don't already know? If one can't tell where the singer ends and the processing begins as it is, they're not going to be able to analyze the difference between the two either.

G.

Me neither

 

[grimtraveller]

And that's certainly an understandable position to have.

I came out soudning harsher than I meant to in the way I worded that last post (a common ailment for me ). Let me try to put it a different and kinder way. Unless it's an obviously fake or artificial-sounding voice that you know you just would not hear in real life (like much of today's over-autotuned pop and post-R&B stuff, or like Alvin and the Chipmunks ), the voice you're hearing is most likely pretty much naturally he voice of the person singing it. Beyonce pretty much sings like Beyonce, it's not like in real life Beyonce sings like Randy Newman and the computers make her sound like Etta James; she CAN actually sing like Etta James .

For those performers who can actually sing, any actual audible difference between the "dry" vocal and what you wind up hearing is going to be (if they used them) in the form of almost inaudible compression used simply to tame any unruly peaks and other dynamics in the voice - i.e. just leveling out the volume - and in the form of some reverb to lush-en up the ambience.

There are exceptions depending upon the genre, of course.Well, a couple of answers to that. The first being that we rarely ever actually hear completely dry vocals in real life; (how often do you listen to a singer in real life as they are standing in a dead vocal booth or out in the middle of an open field with no reflections or room ambience? And to hear them on a record just doesn't sound "right" to us unless we at least try to replicate "real" wetness.

Second, because often more-than-real "wetness" masks minor imperfections. It's the old story of everyone thinks they can sing better when they're taking a shower. Not because of the wetness of the water, but because the extreme reverberation tends to wash out imperfections in both pitch and volume consistancy.

Personally I still sound like shit in the shower, but it's somehow better smelling shit than when I try to sing elsewhere .

It's no different with anyone else, though the better the voice and the less the imperfections, the less you want to mask the voice and the more you simply want to put a more natural "gloss" on it. I'll bet that Beyonce sounds better in the bathroom outside the shower than she does in the shower, because her voice is too good to mess that much with. (In fact, I'll volunteer right now to take a shower with her just to find out for sure .)

But either way, the core voice is still there, no matter what; whether it's my shitty one-eighth-of-an-octave range honking or her golden pipes.

G.

Beautifully put and explained succinctly.
My kids love'em but I can't stand Alvin and the ^%$")&!! chipmunks !!