What effect is this?

[cyt]

Hi,

Newbies here, I have a very basic question on the vocal processing.
From professional CDs, some voices are more transparent, but some others have some kind of color added, like metal type of sound added on the voice, often with a little delay, sounds like 'ssss' behind. What is that? I'm really curious to know how where this effect comes from: from the mic, from other HW or from other vovcal processing techniques.
Here's a sample of the a song that has this effect (I just pick up randomly):

(OK, I'm not allowed to post url since I haven't made 5 posts yet.)

Is this somethnig called color of the mic? and what is the color of the mic if it's not?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Freudian Slip]

Hi,

Newbies here, I have a very basic question on the vocal processing.
From professional CDs, some voices are more transparent, but some others have some kind of color added, like metal type of sound added on the voice, often with a little delay, sounds like 'ssss' behind. What is that? I'm really curious to know how where this effect comes from: from the mic, from other HW or from other vovcal processing techniques.
Here's a sample of the a song that has this effect (I just pick up randomly):

(OK, I'm not allowed to post url since I haven't made 5 posts yet.)

Is this somethnig called color of the mic? and what is the color of the mic if it's not?

Thanks a lot!

With out hearing it I can't really say. Chances are that it is vocal processing of some sort. Most likely a combination of things.
Microphones don't impart the type of thing your are describing. Good mics strive to impart as little change to the sound source as possible.
On the other hand you can sing into a bull horn and record that Maybe if you named the song and the part in the song someone could tell you.

Good Luck

F.S.

 

[cyt]

Thanks F. S. for your response.

It's too bad that I can't include a sample here.
I found some demos of Radka Toneff's songs on web site, such as "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" and "Lost in the Stars" have this the effect I was talking about.

To me, I feel like this kind of effect is in a lot of professional CDs, pretty popular. It sounds to me more "professional" post-processing of the vocal.

 

[Freudian Slip]

I'm only listening on my laptop, but it pretty much sounds like a long reverb to me. Pretty common. you can get it by recording someone in a very large space with the correct microphone set up or most commonly, artificialy through processing with any number of reverb or effects units.
The carrying Ssssssss sound would be most promenent when she ends a word on an "s". different reverbs can be made to highlight certain frequency ranges though as well.

If there is anything else going on in there it's very mild.


Hope that helps.

F.S.

 

[cyt]

I thoght it was something to do with reverb, but I played a lot with reverb setting and still can't get this effect on my vocal. I'll continue to try for sure.

I listened to the demo (about 30 sec) on www_dot_last_dot_fm (some web site may loss the details with high compression). The effect is more pronoucing in the song "Lost in the Stars".

 

[Freudian Slip]

I listened to lost in the stars (the full version). All I here is reverb. She's using a very good microphone that really catch's voice detail. She has a bit of a wispy voice at times too.

From listening to it, I think there is a pretty good chance that the reverb we are hearing is real. There is a natural resonance that comes into play in places too.

If you have an adjustment for predelay on your reverb I'd try turning it way down or off. Also if you can eq the reverb and only the reverb that would get you a bit closer as well.

It's going to take a pretty nice reverb program or unit to duplicate this.


Later

F.S.

 

[warlock110]

that's just reverb i think, I heard it, didn't hear any backing or anything like that, must be just reverb, but to get something like that, I think some EQ was used to boost some of the breathing noises up to have the "up close" sound.

 

[mjbphotos]

EQ the bottom right out of it, singer is close to mic to pick up the sibilance, and a heavy reverb, can't quite define rooms size/repeat, but experimentation should find something similar with a good reverb unit

 

[Freudian Slip]

Rather than a bunch of eq on the vocals for the breathy feel. I would say she is somewhat breathy naturally and that some compression might have been used to make it more prevelant. That along with the typical presence boost on a ldc could put her right in the pocket.

F.S.

 

[cyt]

All my thanks to FS, warlock110 and mjbphotos for your responses (especially FS for your patience).

Once I have enough posts, I'll post some more links of the samples with and without the effect that I was referring to, just make sure we are in the same page.

I appologize for my limited English for not being able to describe the effect with more specifics (English is my ESL).

 

[NL5]

Plate reverb