Middleman
Professional Amateur
I have never made a rap recording but have listened enough to make a few comments.
I think the secret of the rap vocal sound talked about here can be acquired for around $1000. It's basically a harmonizer box. I hear these all the time on the main vocal to double, synthesize or glue a series of vocals together. It's as simple as routing, lets say, the BK Vocals to a common buss with the harmonizer on it.
RE: Secrets of the Pros (actually there is a mixing DVD called this)
If you see a hammer and a nail sitting on a desk along with a picture frame, your mind automatically puts together that the frame goes on the wall and you have the tools to put it there. You however, must know how to hold the hammer so as not to bend the nail. As well, you have to decide where on the wall and how high the nail needs to be placed. Ultimately your decision on placement creates an effect, an emotional experience for others to share.
It's the same with the so called secrets, Engineering is not just have the tools and the song, it's about knowing what to do instinctively with these objects. The final result is an expression of audio which also creates an emotional response in the listener.
The difficult part is that you have to hang a lot of pictures i.e. mix a lot, to understand how your decisions will affect the listener. Another difficult aspect for rap engineers is that not many of the people making money in rap are giving up any of their tracking or mixing secrets. No books, I know of document the approach to building tracks in this genre. While on the other hand, most of the prior rock and pop era has given up the gold in numerous books. There is "Mixing It Like A Record" by Charles Dye, Russ Long's Guide to Nashville Recording, and "Secrets of the Pros" all on DVD. There is "Behind the Glass", the Bobby Owsinski books on Recording, Mixing and Mastering, not to mention numerous other books.
The first guy that writes a book on making hits in rap music is going make a ton of money.
Two things I hear in rap, hip hop etc. They are using multiple layers of sounds to create their tracks, i.e. tagging a bass or other synths to the same drum machine beats. Second, they don't follow ABABCAB format, in fact they are constantly creating their own sound structure.
If you want to understand mixing secrets you have to sit down with a piece of paper, or excel spreadsheet, then document each sound and at what point it enters the track. Make a note of every unknown, like the pressure pulse of the kick, or a vocal sound that you don't know how to get. Then research until you know how every sound is created. After doing a couple of these, you will begin to understand how the components work individually and together.
If you are serious about knowing the secrets you’re going to have to do the math as they say. If someone told you exactly how Missy Elliot or Snoop did a record, you would only have one or two frames of reference and if you copied that, all your tunes would sound similar. However if you understood why Snoop and Missy put that effect or that sound where they did, you begin to understand the thought process which means, sometimes you don't use the frame, sometimes it requires something else so you must act intuitively with the skills you have. Before you get good at the intuitive part you should learn about as many frames as possible; then you have a library of solutions that you can pull from.
Ok, now I'm ranting. This thread just pulled up some random thoughts that I thought I would share.
I think the secret of the rap vocal sound talked about here can be acquired for around $1000. It's basically a harmonizer box. I hear these all the time on the main vocal to double, synthesize or glue a series of vocals together. It's as simple as routing, lets say, the BK Vocals to a common buss with the harmonizer on it.
RE: Secrets of the Pros (actually there is a mixing DVD called this)
If you see a hammer and a nail sitting on a desk along with a picture frame, your mind automatically puts together that the frame goes on the wall and you have the tools to put it there. You however, must know how to hold the hammer so as not to bend the nail. As well, you have to decide where on the wall and how high the nail needs to be placed. Ultimately your decision on placement creates an effect, an emotional experience for others to share.
It's the same with the so called secrets, Engineering is not just have the tools and the song, it's about knowing what to do instinctively with these objects. The final result is an expression of audio which also creates an emotional response in the listener.
The difficult part is that you have to hang a lot of pictures i.e. mix a lot, to understand how your decisions will affect the listener. Another difficult aspect for rap engineers is that not many of the people making money in rap are giving up any of their tracking or mixing secrets. No books, I know of document the approach to building tracks in this genre. While on the other hand, most of the prior rock and pop era has given up the gold in numerous books. There is "Mixing It Like A Record" by Charles Dye, Russ Long's Guide to Nashville Recording, and "Secrets of the Pros" all on DVD. There is "Behind the Glass", the Bobby Owsinski books on Recording, Mixing and Mastering, not to mention numerous other books.
The first guy that writes a book on making hits in rap music is going make a ton of money.
Two things I hear in rap, hip hop etc. They are using multiple layers of sounds to create their tracks, i.e. tagging a bass or other synths to the same drum machine beats. Second, they don't follow ABABCAB format, in fact they are constantly creating their own sound structure.
If you want to understand mixing secrets you have to sit down with a piece of paper, or excel spreadsheet, then document each sound and at what point it enters the track. Make a note of every unknown, like the pressure pulse of the kick, or a vocal sound that you don't know how to get. Then research until you know how every sound is created. After doing a couple of these, you will begin to understand how the components work individually and together.
If you are serious about knowing the secrets you’re going to have to do the math as they say. If someone told you exactly how Missy Elliot or Snoop did a record, you would only have one or two frames of reference and if you copied that, all your tunes would sound similar. However if you understood why Snoop and Missy put that effect or that sound where they did, you begin to understand the thought process which means, sometimes you don't use the frame, sometimes it requires something else so you must act intuitively with the skills you have. Before you get good at the intuitive part you should learn about as many frames as possible; then you have a library of solutions that you can pull from.
Ok, now I'm ranting. This thread just pulled up some random thoughts that I thought I would share.
But for the record: I have a gut feeling that's how my search is going to wrap up. Someone is finally gonna' give me the answer(and you might have already, Mid), and its gonna' wind up dealing with some outrageously priced "do-dad" or piece of equipment, that i will NEVER be able to acquire the monies for, unless i sell dope, get 2 extra jobs aside from the one I already have, or release a hit. (Oh, yeah, and if i hit the lottery. Can we say a rainfall in hell?)
Seriously, there just isn't. You keep talking about a "let's start here" point. I'll tell you what that is, It is an unprocessed/unedited/as recorded track. That's it. That is the "let's start here" point. You said you realize that with all the subtle differences in a recording that there is no standard setting for anything. Well, understand that those subtle differences are enough to completely change the approach when working with a recording. There are probably hundreds of ideas for ways to mix vocals on this very forum. Why not just try them? If your ears are up to snuff you'll be able to decide what is getting you there and what isn't. Knowing how to do this takes experience and that's it. I'll be the first to admit I wouldn't know how to properly mix good hip-hop vocals, but I would try everything I could think of to get it and I bet that eventually I would find a combination that works for me. I may try the same thing on a different project someday and find that it doesn't work at all. That's just how it is. When you build up your knowledge and abilities through trial, error, progress and experience you'll know for yourself what will work for a track and what won't. That is what the "big-time" producers are working with....experience. And there just isn't any shortcut to gaining it. Just start doing it!
