What's wrong with my vocals?

[tyrantdadon]

hotnessacapella1stverse
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/tytstudioz2003music.htm

I record all my vocals on a Behringer B-1. The vocal is a rap mono and has a main vocal, double, and ad-lib. When i mix the vocals with the beats, they don't have the same sound as the pros. Possible problems:

No reverb
Vocals aren't very centered (pan)
No de-esser
No EQ
No compression

this vocal (hotness) is basically one verse of dry vocals (no effects). how can i get my vocals to sound like the pros and sit better in the mix. i use acid to record and have wavelab diamond, but dont know how to use it. please let me know of any suggestions/advice

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/8/tytstudioz2003music.htm

 

[Teacher]

where's blue bear with the mixing 101 article?

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

I found your problem:

i use acid to record and have wavelab diamond, but dont know how to use it

How can you expect to sound pro if you don't know what you're doing?

Education.... experiment....

 

[bubbleboy]

yeah, depending on how many times you record each week, you might want to get into a treatment program for all that acid you're using

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

Found another problem:

No reverb
Vocals aren't very centered (pan)
No de-esser
No EQ
No compression

Other than the panning and de-essing (don't de-ess if you can avoid it), 100% of what you hear professionally will be compressed, eq'd and reverb'd.

 

[tyrantdadon]

i've been experimenting for 3 years and the best mix i did was a reverb. it put the vocals in the background and the vocals were still not in the center. how do you center vocals and make them sound like acapellas instead of a live voice.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

how do you center vocals and make them sound like acapellas instead of a live voice.

Hrm... this isn't hard at all. Put the vocals CENTER in the pan and the best way to sound acapella is to mute all the instrument and percussion tracks. Pretty easy, eh?

If you're talking about having harmony vocals you need to get a good vocalist that's charted out what they are singing, or has great intuition for harmony--or look into some of the software/hardware made by TC Helicon.

Waves doubler plugin might help as well.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

This is painful........... I can't take it anymore!

Mixing Article --> Mixing 101

 

[gordone]

Stop the madness!!!!! I love this quote -

how do you center vocals and make them sound like acapellas instead of a live voice.

This is painful........... I can't take it anymore!

Mixing Article --> Mixing 101

 

[tyrantdadon]

i pretty much read all the threads in this forum for the last couple months about EQ & Compression and none of them addressed my specific problem. I actually saw that mixing 101 before, but didn't know how to boost or limit frequencies. when i meant "center" i meant like narrow it from wide to sounding more upfront. with the frequencies on the link, how would i boost and limit on wavelab diamond or cool edit 2. thanks 4 the help

 

[chessrock]

Yo, F*ck that mixing 101, G. You need to ask your n*ggaz.

Cuz' they got HOT-NESSSSS.

It's HOT-nessssss.

 

[chessrock]

Did I mention . . . "It's HOT-nesssssssssssssssssssssss ! ! ! !" ?

 

[tyrantdadon]

Yo, F*ck that mixing 101, G. You need to ask your n*ggaz.

Cuz' they got HOT-NESSSSS.

It's HOT-nessssss.

i know the vocals are good, but they just need to sound professional as possible. to me they sound clearer than industry vocals and i'm trying to sound as close as the real thing as possible

 

[chessrock]

Yo, G. Your vocals have H-O-T-N-E-S-ssssssssssssssss

 

[glimmer_doll]

chessrock may have lost it....if there was anything there to begin with..

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

i pretty much read all the threads in this forum for the last couple months about EQ & Compression and none of them addressed my specific problem. I actually saw that mixing 101 before, but didn't know how to boost or limit frequencies.

Alright someone's gotta ask and it may as well be me.

Praytell... if you didn't know how to boost or limit frequencies (i.e. even operate an eq or compressor... not even use them properly) WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING RECORDING ANYONE?????

Just curious man.

I swear, people think this recording stuff is easy. Not just anyone can do it and make it sound good. This stuff ain't easy--it takes years to learn, and you can never truly say you've mastered it.

 

[tyrantdadon]

why the fuck are you gonna reply with some shit like that if your not going to help... i asked for help and i want help... not some posts about how hard the shit is... MAYBE THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING OTHERS DIPSHIT

so for those who wanna help... i compared the spectral view of my vocals to a professional one and noticed that frequencies above 16000hz are pretty much gone in the professional, but not in mine. i tried cutting the highs from my vocals, but saw no change... how can i reduce frequencies above 16000hz and boost frequencies from 0-4000hz. thanks

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

why the fuck are you gonna reply with some shit like that if your not going to help... i asked for help and i want help... not some posts about how hard the shit is... MAYBE THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING OTHERS DIPSHIT

Hrm, insulting people on a message board will make your mixes sound better. I'm sure I read that once.

Try asking more specific questions and having audio samples and maybe we can be more useful. Give us something to *WORK* with and maybe our answers will be a bit better.

I mean c'mon: "how can I make my vocals sound better?" is about as huge a subject as you could ask for! Heck man, I dunno--try upgrading your mics, your preamps, your compressors, get some tube eq's in there, use a more acoustically sound room, use better vocalists, drop 900hz by 5db, use better miking techniques, use a pop filter, bump the 8khz by 2.249392 db's, DON'T use a pop filter, get that nasty ass Digitech reverb off there, buy a TC Helicon Voiceprism, get some UA plugins, buy a LA2A, do this, do that...

btw... me and my group are almost done with our first album, we just need to master them to sound better. if someone can just tell me the plugins i need to use to make vocals narrower in the stereo field and to make it sound less REAL i can do the rest. thanks to those trying to help

Here you go with that precise technical jargon: "vocals narrower in the stereo field" again. Hello???? Haven't you been given the more precise term, and can't you start using that?

I'm sorry but if panning the vocal lines to center doesn't work I don't know what to tell you. Maybe try moving other instruments away from the center so there *is* a center to your stereo field.

Plus I'm not remotely convinced that you know what MASTERING is and what it hopes to accomplish. If your MIXING doesn't sound good, then mastering a crap mix isn't going to help--you're going to get finely mastered crap. Your mixes have no chance of being good if your tracking is crap.

Maybe you just need to erase those mixes and retrack the whole thing, because mastering cannot turn water into wine.

 

[tyrantdadon]

i compared spectral views and my vocals had too much frequencies above 16khz. from 0 to 4khz it could use a little boost. how can i limit 16khz+ and boost 0-4khz. or does the spectral view not correctly show the frequencies. i used a graphic eq to limit & boost, but the spectral showed little change

 

[gordone]

You want to use a Parametric EQ! This will allow you to select the specific frequency to boost/cut, how wide a band to affect (the "Q"), and how much to boost/cut (-+db). Graphic EQs don't have much (if any) use in a recording studio.