vocal breathy sound?

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Nathan1984

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I'm not sure what the problem is, I have been working on some vocal tracking using a MXL 990. I have a pop filter up and the singer is about 6 inches from the mic, but for some reason there is this real heavy breath sound to the vocals. Is this something that I should eq out, or is there something I am doing wrong when recording vocals. I did cut at 200 hz and that seems to help, but I want the best vocal track going in I can. I have a feeling there is something that I am not doing or something. I don't know why it is so airy, breathy. It isn't like the sound of someone breathing into, when I say breathy, I mean it sounds like the singer is out of breath or something, kinda weezy sounding or something, maybe the mxl 990 just sucks lol. They are death metal vocals by the way. I know that alot of people say that a dynamic is the best way to get metal vocals, but I don't have the scratch to get a SM7 yet so...What do you guys think, eq'ing or change the way I am doing it?
 
I find it odd that cutting at 200 hz helped with what you describe as a breathy sound. If you said "boomy" or "muddy", I could see a 200 hz cut helping. Anyway - that's not the nicest mic in the world, but it doesn't inherently impart a "breathy" sound. You can try angling it so it's slightly off axis from the vocalist's mouth - pointing at his forehead, sometimes that helps with weird resonance problems (some people say angling towards the forehead is "correct" anyway... but you know how that goes). Also - IIRC, there is a front and a back to the 990, and they don't sound the same, nor is it obvious which is which.

If all else fails - put it in front of a speaker or a TV or something and see if it makes that source sound "breathy". In that case - you've either got something funky going on between mic and DAW playback, or a busted mic.
 
Nathan1984 said:
I mean it sounds like the singer is out of breath or something, kinda weezy sounding or something. . .
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Maybe you're hearing a singer who is out of breath and wheezy ?. . . You're describing the singer, really. . . Is there something I'm missing?. . .
 
AtoDeficient said:
Maybe you're hearing a singer who is out of breath and wheezy ?. . . You're describing the singer, really. . . Is there something I'm missing?. . .
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That's the first thing that came to my mind. Maybe you're recording a singer who sings like that. Or am I stating the obvious?

Also, like Typhoid mentioned above, it's really weird that cutting 200hz did anything for a "breathy" sound. That breathiness is probably up in the 4k-and-up range, nowhere near 200hz.
 
I don't think it's the singer. It is hard to describe of course, it may be that it is just a muddy vocal track. I may up the vocal track I am describing to give you all a better idea of what I am talking about.
 
Yeah, my chain is like this, I have a gate to cut out some of the ambient room noise, I eq to cut some stuff I don't like, compress, then eq to boost alittle, then alittle delay and reverb.
 
It's a combination of things. It's;

1. Mic technique (by the singer) knowing how to control the plosives and breath sounds.

2. The set up of the mic and mic wind screen, you should angle the wind screen (up to 45 degrees) to avoid singing directly through the screen and in to the mic.

3. The pre-amp. It can be configured for de-essing, etc... And you can help tame some of this on the way in.

4. You can do comping. Do multiple takes, singing it in as "phrases" and take the best phrases.

5. Then you can edit your clips and take out "much" of the noise outside the actual vocal phrasing.

6. You can use SW like Izotope RX to really fine tune things.

It's a multi-faceted issue. No simple fix. It's many things. But if you look at all of them? :-)
 
Nathan1984 said:
Yeah, my chain is like this, I have a gate to cut out some of the ambient room noise, I eq to cut some stuff I don't like, compress, then eq to boost alittle, then alittle delay and reverb.
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Holy Hell! I am surprised that you have any vocals left at all, after all of that processing.
 
RockinRobby said:
2. The set up of the mic and mic wind screen, you should angle the wind screen (up to 45 degrees) to avoid singing directly through the screen and in to the mic.
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Robby, can you elaborate on this ? I find it intriguing.
 
RawDepth said:
Holy Hell! I am surprised that you have any vocals left at all, after all of that processing.
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See I gate it because I have a shitty room, when I use a condensor it picks things up, a subtle little gate helps. I eq what I don't wanna hear next, I don't eq drastically, as you probably know, eq'ing isn't really to fix a problem just help with the solution. I compress afterwards, so it brings things together better, then I eq to boost other frequencies that I feel add to the vocal track a bit, normally in the higher range, like 7-12 khz. The delay and reverb, they are barely noticable. I actually got this technique for doing metal vocals from a guy in this big studio in New York. When I say that is my chain, it doesn't mean I am scooping the hell out of everything, and destroying the dynamics lol.
 
Nathan1984 said:
See I gate it because I have a shitty room, when I use a condensor it picks things up, a subtle little gate helps. I eq what I don't wanna hear next, I don't eq drastically, as you probably know, eq'ing isn't really to fix a problem just help with the solution. I compress afterwards, so it brings things together better, then I eq to boost other frequencies that I feel add to the vocal track a bit, normally in the higher range, like 7-12 khz. The delay and reverb, they are barely noticable. I actually got this technique for doing metal vocals from a guy in this big studio in New York. When I say that is my chain, it doesn't mean I am scooping the hell out of everything, and destroying the dynamics lol.
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Well, the breath noise or "air" as they call it is in the upper range of EQing. It often sounds like a subtle background hiss as the singer holds a note. Depending on the voice, it can be anywhere from say 10,000Hz to 18,000Hz. Is that what you were referring to? This is actually desirable in female vocals.

Cheap mics like the 990 can sound slightly harsh in this range because they tend to be overly sensitive at certain frequencies. To make matters even worse, compression brings out that harshness even more so. If you don't want that sound in your vocal track at all, you may have to start with a mic that is smoother (or less hyped) in the upper range. Either that or EQ it back out of there.

But remember...the more you EQ and process it, the more unnatural and mechanical it becomes.
 
Nathan1984 said:
See I gate it because I have a shitty room, when I use a condensor it picks things up, a subtle little gate helps. I eq what I don't wanna hear next, I don't eq drastically, as you probably know, eq'ing isn't really to fix a problem just help with the solution. I compress afterwards, so it brings things together better, then I eq to boost other frequencies that I feel add to the vocal track a bit, normally in the higher range, like 7-12 khz. The delay and reverb, they are barely noticable. I actually got this technique for doing metal vocals from a guy in this big studio in New York. When I say that is my chain, it doesn't mean I am scooping the hell out of everything, and destroying the dynamics lol.
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Do you mix via a DAW on your computer? Cause if so all of that can be done in the box without compromising the original vocal.
 
Yeah, I use sonar. I actually removed the gate from my chain of effects. I am kinda interested in what others use to mix there vocals, cause I would test them all till I find the one that works for me.
 
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