Warming up digital recordings

B

Bullet Days

New member
i'm looking for tips on how to warm up digital recordings, especially the vocals. i use cakewalk sonar 3 prod. edition, and my interface is an maudio firewire 410. we use an EV BK1 condenser mic for vocals.

on one of our songs ("rolling down the hill"), i noticed that the vocals are particularly "essy," like the "s's" are too pronounced. sometimes the snare can get really pitchy too (the snare is synthesized, not from a real kit).

i'm hoping that i can find a solution through recording tactics or plugins before i have to buy something pretty expensive like a tube preamp. thanks for listening.
 
How will "warmth" effect a sibilant vocal?

Get a de-esser or a pop screen. Try running a multiband compressor on the vocal where only the 7khz region is affected. EQ out some 7khz band.

Chances are you can't afford to warm up your digital recordings--because that usually translates to expensive converters, like Benchmark or Apogee, and an analog front end with tube preamps.
 
Bullet Days said:
i'm looking for tips on how to warm up digital recordings, especially the vocals.
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If you think you have to "warn up your digital recordings" then you're doing something wrong during tracking.

And Cloneboy is right - you fix sibilance by mic technique, changing mics, or by using a de-esser (if changing mics and/or mic technique doesn't work).

Your presumption that the sibilance somehow has something to do with "digital recording" is completely off track.....
 
blue bear and cloneboy are right on the money imho.
i would advise you to listen to some of the hits from the 60's and 70's or even older. one of my favorite all time songs is the legendary
patsy cline singing walking after midnight done by a genuis of a producer
called owen bradley. the texture of the vocals is amazing imho for the time it was done. owen is a hero of mine. a legendary producer. they didnt have much in terms of gear when this was done in the mid 50's. if you analyse these old songs using todays advanced spectrogram software and frequency analysis software and compare to a lot of todays recordings i think youll find it interesting.
its not digitals fault imho. its in the basic track laying. i may be whack out to lunch, and i'm still learning after eons trying but ive found what we do today we have too much hi end eq content compared to these older recordings.
particularly ive found really zeroing in on the 2k to 4k area is vitally
important,and trying various eq cut methods helps but i bow to blue bears better knowledge of this. correct me if i'm wrong bb.
also look at waveforms of older songs like i mentioned. you can actually see the waveforms whereas today everything is highly compressed up to the max. just my opinion.
 
"Its not digitals fault"

Amen to that! People buy digital gear, record everything off the presets, and the results sound like guess what. Then we have one more convert to the "analog is better than digital" because they think somehow analog hardware will replace the presets in their decision making. They would continue to be clueless and continue to wonder where the "analog warmth" was...unless they got results that were exactly the same except that NOW they could go around and tout its "analog --I am so tired of this word--".
 
hahaha !

How will he warm up the tubes on tracks ? by approaching a lighter into Tracks interface ? :-D
 
I put the computer next to the oven while my wife bakes cookies.

EQ or a tape sat plug in works wonders.

Inexpensive ADDA can also be the culprit. More brittle sounding at the lower end.
 
Bullet Days said:
sometimes the snare can get really pitchy too (the snare is synthesized, not from a real kit).
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Well . . . you could try recording with a real snare, but I'm not going to say that. Wait, I just did. :D
 
fenix, another person told me to use t-racks as well. i happen to have it, so i'll experiment with it and hope that helps.

to everybody else--we did use a pop screen when we recorded, but for some reason that particular track i mentioned has lots of that annoying s's. also, i understand that some people here have lots of experience recording with various gear. experience and expertise, however, are two different things to me. i mention that because i'm sure there were a lot of eyes rolling back when they saw what i was asking. "oh look, another idiot trying to get warmth out of digital equipment." i guess i should've posted on the cakewalk forum and not this one since i'm using sonar. i don't want to get into an argument with a gearhead, and that wasn't my intention. i just asked a simple question about how to get more warmth from a recording that was done with all digital equipment. maybe i should've rephrased the question to "how do i get the perception of warmth from a digital recording?"

anyway, i do appreciate the honest answers like how sibilance and the perception of warmth are not related. but to me, "warmth" has many attributes, and annoying highs aren't one of them. but yes, i now realize it's more of mic technique and eq'ing. also, no matter what recording technique or equipment you use, the ultimate benchmark is still the song. a good all-digital song will still be better than a bad all-analog song any day. and i stand by our songs.
 
Bullet Days said:
maybe i should've rephrased the question to "how do i get the perception of warmth from a digital recording?"
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The problem that some people have with your question is that you use the same techniques to get warmth out of digital recordings, basically, as you would any other recording mediums. Start at the source and work your way back. Your perception of warmth in a recording is most likely the result of tracking things the right way . . . and not doing anything to screw that up in the mixing phase. There really aren't any special devices, plugins, or other doo-dads that are going to get you there after the fact. You just have to do it the right way to begin with.

It's like half-assed baking a shitty cake with stale or spoiled ingredients and then asking how to fix it and make it better. Too late, it's already baked. :D Go back and make another one.
 
like i just said, i asked the wrong question in the wrong forum. my question is really for those who record with digital gear because i was hoping for answers in terms of plugins mainly.

i've heard enough about analog vs digital, tubes vs transistors, tape vs cd...i feel some people hide behind gear instead of standing behind songs. "we only record with analog equipment and that's why we're great" kinda thing.

hey glimmer doll, where can i hear some of your stuff? if i think it's good, i'll throw my gear into the fire.
 
Bullet Days - don't feel bad digital is a very good recording medium - it is very transparent but also revealing. Tape, on the other hand, had a built in EQ/compressor/limiter for every track.

I can't tell you how to warm things up in digital - I'm still thinking, I have the feeling you have to record it that way - meaning warm preamps and rooms. Once you've recorded you can try and warm it up using EQ, compression and saturation. But you're really fixing things that weren't recorded the way you like, aren't you ?

My two-bits is the room and pre-amp make the most difference...I just walked thru Sun Studios in Memphis Tennessee last week - what would they have done to get a warm sound ?
 
Bullet Days said:
like i just said, i asked the wrong question in the wrong forum. my question is really for those who record with digital gear because i was hoping for answers in terms of plugins mainly.
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Uh . . . Bullet Days.

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but most of us here ARE recording digitally.

And I use plugins all the freakin' time on a ton of things, just like most of us do. If there's too much high end, then use a plugin EQ to tame it, or a multiband comp or a de-esser. I don't understand what else there is to "get."

The best way to get warmer recordings, regardless of whether you're a digital guy or an analog guy: If your stuff has any annoying high end to it, then record it so it doesn't. Whatever that means . . . if it means using better cymbals, then use better cymbals. If it means turning the high end down on the guitar amp, then do that. If it means using a dynamic instead of a condenser, then do that. Just examples, but you get the idea.
 
As far as plugins go, I found the best money I have spent was on,,,,,

PsP Vintage Warmer


2.5k is always a problem area for me, but mic choice is key. After that then its off to the Eq....Then the trusty Vintage Warmer.

Peace Eddie
 
There is a market for adding 'analog warmth' or 'tube warmth' but a lot of it is expensive. The Manley Tube Direct box will cost you 500 bucks for a mono input, and 800ish for a stereo input. SPL makes a digital unit that adds 2nd and 3rd order harmonics to a waveform.

There are also many plugs that offer the same 'vintage warmth' deal. Some are okay.

The best bet is to follow the above advice: capture it at the source.

If you want a fat drum sound, start with fat sounding drums... and so on. If you want a warmer sound, dial in warm sounds.

A lot of the analog vs. digital warmth lies in the fact that digital captures higher frequencies truer to the source than analog does (there is a slight rolloff on analog tape machines). Of course, this isn't the full story of the differences, but it certainly is one to consider.
 
I'm definitely not an expert, but...

Hi all,

I just wanted to throw my two cents in. I primarily record myself playng guitar, and my friends singing and playing guitars too. I've noticed a difference in quality by going through my Bellari MP 105. I recorded one pass through it and then one pass without it. There was a slight, noticeable difference. It seemed to add just a slight bit of life somehow.

It's like cloneboy said, you need to get it right at the source. So maybe Bullet Daze could try a tube pre amp and see if that helps. You would think that by having the signal pass through the tube's path will have to add a little bit of what he's looking for.

Again, I'm no expert...I just no what has helped me. It will be hard for me to convert to plug ins. I still like touching an actual piece of gear and turning knobs for some reason.

Anyway.
 
All in all, I think 'warmth' is a bit of a buzzword that doesn't mean much more than 'I want my stuff to sound good'. I've heard "warm" sounds that were crappy, and heard "digital" records (The Used's self-titled album) that sounded amazing without a touch of warmth in sight.
 
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