Vocals Distorting - NEED HELP! Please!

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The Engineer

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On the meter my vocals will be around -6 to -3 db MAX. Never at 0 db. They won't distort/clip acapella, but when I play the vocals with the beat certain parts of my verse tend to distort, usually where a drum kick lands. Is they any way to fix this? EQ it better? Different Compression Technique?

I'm lost, any help is appreciated!
Thanks.
 
It may be the combination of the accented part of the vocal and the kick drum. I'd back off on that a bit and see what happens. I had the same thing happen to me when I was playing around with some sound effects that I was going to put on a track. I had a door slamming followed by glass shattering a milisecond later. Alone, they were in the yellow (about -6dB), but combined and eq'd, they hit the red. I backed off on the lower freq's on the eq and applied softer compression and it cleared up.
 
Ah I See. Well I Have An AT4040 Which I Hear Is a Fairly Bright Mic, Plus My Voice Isn't All That Deep .. I'd Say Mid to Mid High .. So a Bright Voice Mic Mixed With a Bright Mic .. Could That Cause Harsh Hi's Creating Distortion?

Cause when some of my friends record w/ deep voices, it never happens on their tracks ...

If this is the case, what is a good warm mic for around $300?

I was thinking about getting the Rode NT1000
 
turn EVERYTHING down, my guess is that you're distorting the stereo buss
(or whatever the heck in a comp)
 
I definitely turned down the master volume by 6 db's. Still clips in certain areas. Could it be that mic/brightness problem? or no?
 
I'm compressing fine. It's not clipping on the meter acappella, but when I play it with the beat, it clips/distorts. Am I compressing too much or not compressing enough?
 
if you turned the master down once and it resulted in less clipping, then that is the answer.

if so turn it down more and turn your speakers up.

you can level the holey heck out of it later if you want to
 
No, my whole verse isn't clipping, just certain parts. I turned down the master volume and it's still clipping, acapella the vocals are only hitting around -3 db.

Anybody taken my thought into condsideration? lol

Matterfact I'll leave a sample in a min.
 
The Engineer said:
No, my whole verse isn't clipping, just certain parts. I turned down the master volume and it's still clipping, acapella the vocals are only hitting around -3 db.

Anybody taken my thought into condsideration? lol

Matterfact I'll leave a sample in a min.
Click to expand...


Your vocals are to loud they should be hovering around -9db with peaks no higher than -6db.

Your drums should peak at about -6b & the rest of your instruments should be around -12db.

-12db in digital is about the same as 0db in analog which is why you are running into this problem.

Like I said before you can compress more and try to keep your levels OR you can turn it down.

It has to do with the way your software does its summing.
 
try turning the volume of the individual tracks down, NOT the master fader. The clipping is likely happening BEFORE the fader.
 
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