Vocals

  • Thread starter Thread starter Songstar
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"As you probably know, "Dobro" is short for "DOpera BROthers"

That's what it means to the guitar company, yes. But he was asking me what my nick meant. My nick has never had, nor will it ever have, anything to do with the guitar manufacturer or their instruments.

Unless they offer to give me a free instrument out of respect for the striking congruence between our names, of course. :) My guess is all they will ever offer me is a lawsuit. Companies are like that. No imagination. No tolerance. Maybe I ought to work harder at staying underground...
 
Ah, too bad, I was going to send you my Dobro as a keepsake. Guess I'll have to hang onto it now.
 
Dobro, which is better to use for manual compression, the amplification effect in wave view and then decrease the volume of a selected piece of the wave to bring it within the desired range or to create an envelope in multi track view? I find the effects of multi track view volume enveloping is hard to hear and often I am put to drastic enveloping in order to hear whats happening. when I use the amplification technique I mentioned earlier I get good clean vocal sounds and there is no unnecessary increase in other quiter parts of the track like when I use the dynamic effects.
 
"which is better to use for manual compression, the amplification effect in wave view and then decrease the volume of a selected piece of the wave to bring it within the desired range"

I don't use this effect, but if I understand its use, I think all you're doing is 'turning down the volume' on the whole wave, leaving the basic structure of the wave untouched. If that's the case, why bother? Why not just turn it down in Multitrack?

"...or to create an envelope in multi track view? I find the effects of multi track view volume enveloping is hard to hear and often I am put to drastic enveloping in order to hear whats happening."

Try soloing the track first, while you're applying the volume envelope. Way easier to hear what's going on.

"...when I use the amplification technique I mentioned earlier I get good clean vocal sounds and there is no unnecessary increase in other quiter parts of the track like when I use the dynamic effects."

Again, why not just turn down the track volume in Multitrack if that's what you want? But it's interesting that you *don't* want the quieter parts of the track to be heard more clearly, cuz that's the very reason why people apply compression to a vocal track usually - it squashes the dynamic range so the overall track level can be turned up without clipping *so that the quiet parts can be heard better*. But if, like you say, you're getting good clean vocal sounds, and if you can hear all parts of the vocal, then my advice is DON'T TOUCH THE FUCKER! LOL That's the definition of a good vocal track.
 
Or maybe I'm just feeling bitter cuz lpdeluxe ain't gonna send me a shiny texas guitar now.
 
Thanks Dobro, the lights just came on. i finally understand the compression process. must kill you pros to see so many of us unqualified engineers mucking around without knowing what is really happening to the sound wave. I appreciate your help and from here i can't even see your eyes rolling or hear your sighs of frustration. thank god.

I hope there isnt a forum for the home surgeon......ok I have the chest opened up. now what is all this red stuff?
 
You are more pro than I, and I worked in a "pro" studio for two years. ;)
 
Stay good, "dobro"

dobro said:
gasal - I don't know about the Zoom pedal. But my guess is that pedals generally are not as quiet and don't process signals as precisely as a lot of hardware and software that's dedicated to audio processing. Dunno.

I’m missing something here.
Does it mean I should not use pedal for noise reduction?
Hm. Without pedal noise is bigger. The pedal kills it all, almost.
I use one pretty old Yamaha EMX300 mix board which is a little bit noisy at its line out.
This one is not studio mix board. I used it for gigs long time ago.
There is a built in amplifier in it 2x 300 W but I don’t think there is 300 W at its line out.
Only at speaker’s output.
I think so. But I’m never sure!
(By the way I am Mechanic Engineer and work professionally with design of hydraulic control units.)

Back to the pedal. I thought if it kills noise on its way to sound card why shouldn’t I use it.

If there is some better way to do recording with this I am all hears (eyes)?

By the way I am very satisfied with recording results. Especially after I’ve got new PC.
PC has over 1 giga RAM, 160 GB hard disc. It’s Pentium 4 with 3,06 GHz processor.

I suck at mixing proses! Editing: I sack little less. Mastering: What is that?


Anyway:
Thanks to everyone who spends hes/her time to help us. We appreciate it.
 
"Back to the pedal. I thought if it kills noise on its way to sound card why shouldn’t I use it."

Dunno really. I don't use pedals. What's your pedal designed for?
 
dobro said:
What's your pedal designed for?

It’s guitar pedal. There are plenty of effects in it.
Several distortions, Compressor, Fuzz. Digital delay, Noise reduction, Chorus, Flanger, Room, Reverb, Double, Step, Pitch, Equalizer etc
The pedal is programmable and I can use so many affects I want at ones and decide level factor for each of them.
Pedals are usually noisy!
You are absolutely right.
Noise Reduction is being used in almost each of my programs to minimize (or kill)
But we’ll not talk about guitar effects.

I made the program on this pedal which contains only NR. I think it works similarly as NR in CEP. I can’t see the profile on the chart, of course but I do program while listening to output.

This program will not work for any other amplifier which means that I have to reprogram it for my Roland amp. Noise profile is not the same.

Anyway, my projects sound much better since I began to use pedal in this way.

Something just tells me that it could be very wrong as well! I’m afraid that this NR-pedal spoils vocals.

P.S. I don't actualy make the programs, I just adjust settings.
 
Alot of people here are putting down this poor guys Karaoke Microphone, I find this rather sad as I believe all microphones serve a unique purpose. Which leads me to wonder when all this guy originally asked was how he could make his vocals sound better, Or how he could spice them up people pointed at the mic. I wonder what kinda music are you wanting to make? When I record my vocals I use an SM58, I do metal music, And I achive the results that I like. As much as I hate rap music my mates use my equipment, When they do I give them a $5 (AUD) Mic that I bought at a cheap shop. Why? My friends use it by choice as they like the Dead End Vocals they get from the Microphone, lol they even accuse my SM58 of "colouring" their voices. This guy maybe only asking how he could add that special "sparkle" to the vocal tracks. I mean the beastie boys used $5 Mics in most of their albums by choice, Maybe a shitty mic is what some people need...

Cheers Simon
 
I know I've said it before, but here's my answer: the job of the person recording is to accurately reproduce the music is being performed. You must have decent microphones in order to do this. A cheap mic may work for a particular song or a special vibe, but you can't base a recording career on one momentarily hip (if it's even that) sound, even if you as a creative artist use it over and over. There are lots of conventional and unconventional ways to create excitement in recorded music. But by using a cheap mic, you are recording that microphone, not that performance. Listening to your recordings will be like going to an art gallery where all the paintings are framed behind dirty glass.

And my guess is that the person who began this thread was asking how to get a vocal sound comparable to what he hears on commercial CDs....
 
"Alot of people here are putting down this poor guys Karaoke Microphone, I find this rather sad as I believe all microphones serve a unique purpose. Which leads me to wonder when all this guy originally asked was how he could make his vocals sound better, Or how he could spice them up people pointed at the mic."

People pointed at the mic because in terms of getting good sound, the mic's the main problem. But I take your point. Let's say a person has a cheap mic and no options. Well okay, how do you get the best possible sound out of that mic, right?

But Songstar came across as not knowing what a huge problem the karaoke mic was. I mean he/she was asking how to make his/her vocals sound more pro. More pro? With a karaoke mic? That's why people thought he/she needed to know the basic fault in that approach - it's trying to get pro sound out of crap equipment. It's not a putdown. It's a fact.
 
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