Vocal Advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter DDev
  • Start date Start date
DDev

DDev

New member
I did a demo recording for my brother while he was in town during Christmas, and have come up with a challenge I don't know how to fix. He is a classically trained baritone, but wanted to record a couple of pop tunes just for grins.

Anyway, my problem is that frequently his voice tends to have an extremely sharp attack (think of a hammer hitting an anvil) that I want to smooth out. How do I do this? I am just learning how to record vocals, since I've mostly been doing instrumental stuff to date, and maybe this is a no-brainer, but I have determined that I don't yet know how to properly use reverb on vocals, and I need to get this figured out.

Thanks,

DDev.....
 
I'm just starting out as well, but I'd suggest a little bit of compression. Maybe 2 or 3 to one. More if that doesn't straighten out your problem. I'm new too though...
 
Compression is almost always needed on vocals - because the voice tends to present a large range in dynamics. Compression can control the "spikes" and as you suggest "smooth out the performance". But, like any processing use it as little as possible.
 
try

If he's classically trained, he's probably used to performing to people in an audience, and not a microphone less than a foot away..so he's probably overdoing the T's and P's and whatnot at the ends of words/phrases, and really nailing the beginnings of words so people can understand them and help diction...try telling him to sing as if someone was like a few feet away sitting down and listening, and not an audience of 100+. <if only classical concerts had that many nowadays>

--Sal
 
Back
Top