Vocal Advice

[DDev]

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.....

 

[hokypokynose]

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...

 

[mikeh]

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.

 

[Guardian]

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