What's with the distortion in rap recordings?

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FattMusiek

FattMusiek

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In most rap recordings I hear it sounds like it's purposly made to sound "lo-fi". Why is this? I'm recording a friend who raps and I want to get the low down on how to make authentic rap recordings.

Thanks in advance.
 
Well, there's a lot of different ways to do this. You can use a tube mic preamp and overload it. Or use a tube plug-in. It depends on the mic too. If ya use a tube or ribbon mic, that can give you a nice raw sound. Also, use the Antares Mic Modeler Plug-in: http://www.antarestech.com/products/amm.shtml

It has a tube function and you can make your vocals sound like it was recorded on different mics.

In Pro Tools there is the Lo-Fi plug-in. You can use it to make it sound like old recordings with noise and disortion.
http://www.soundthinking.com/plug-ins/d_fi.htm
 
Oh ya, hard compression is also a big part of that rap vocal sound.
 
FattMusiek said:
In most rap recordings I hear it sounds like it's purposly made to sound "lo-fi". Why is this? I'm recording a friend who raps and I want to get the low down on how to make authentic rap recordings.

Thanks in advance.
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man, you must be talking about that grimey underground stuff, for example DJ Premiere, Kool Keith, MF Doom.... bit crunching helps, just dither the vocal tracks down from 24 or 16 to 8kbs. rolling out some lows and mids with an eq or multiband compressor can help give you a lo fi sound. Mic Modeler is basically an EQ with a bunch of presets to mimic different mics as far as frequency not really color, which will not get you even close to the real mic.
 
Ya, if your talkin about the Kool Keith vocal thats different. I don't know exactly what he used on those albums. I recorded a song with him for a an album, I just used the tube and compression and it was close. I probably should have asked. But, the bit rate change could work like jugalo180 said. Good lookin...

I wonder if they used just a lower quality mic?
 
My suggestion is to get as clean of signal you can with the vocals man.... Them songs that had them grungee sounding vocals wasn't done by design, it was because of equipment and recording environment (or lack of)....
Yeah maybe on one or two songs you may give it a disorted/effect sound but this should not be your goal on all vocs..... I used the Anateras Mic Modeler with the Neuman u87 patch to warm up my diggie signal to give it that analog sound (this may be what the MCee is talking about) but again I wouldn't recommend recording vocals grungee/distorted as your defacto standard...

But for the tracks/beats... Gents above brought up excellent ways to achieve that sound..

The lower the bit rate the less the sound quality( this will give it that grungee dirty sound)... If ya at 24 bit try 16 bit or 12 bit, I think 8 bit is just not acceptable any more sonically..

Dither down also is a good way, but dithering is an art that you need to master.... I still have not mastered that skill...

My other suggestion is sampling.... Just sampling from records or even tapes adds an that ambience that you can't achieve from synths... You can even sample the synths into a 16 bit sampler and you will here a major difference in quality giving you that distorted grungee sound.....

Raticus
 
How Bout Start A Thread To "teach" Dudes How Certain Plug Ins Should Be Used?
 
for instance - we can . . . maybe even do it on a dif. site - but we can have it so we take a posted audio clip and post it n re post it sev. times - each time posting it with various plug in effects placed on it - and then placing "info" in each post about the settings and why these settings were used . . .
 
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