vocal production techniques

djshowdown

anyone know any good techniques to make vocals sound better?i know the age old trick of boosting the gain on 10khz frequency.anyone know any others.i have used a bit of chorus in my time but anyone got any other suggestions?

DJ Fat Zed

Now this is a big topic if I ever saw one!!!!!!!!

You've got to look at vocals from the ground up, they are the most complex thing to get right, with sooooooo many options.

Firstly the key to understanding using vocals in music is this and it's a little bit scientific................

Over our many millions of years of evolution our ears has developed. The key thing is that our own hearing system has evolved to be more sensitive to those frequencies present in human speech/noise than any others. Our evolution has told us that the most important thing for our ears to do is to recognise common signals of human communication such as speech, laughter, the cry of a baby etc. In fact the crying baby is a perfect example. Our brain has evolved to find the sound of a baby crying one of the most piercing and unplleasant noises there is, therefore resulting in the fact that we rush to see a crying baby and perpetrate the survival of thge species.

That said, the voice is a powerful tool in music making, it can create expression like no other sound.

However, in that the frequency range of human speach is the most recognisable to the human ear ( hence a-weighting compression techniques such as MP3) mistakes are more noticable.

The moral of the story is this. Tread carefully, when recording vocals, they hold the most noticeable part of your track.

A few tips.

Use the best mic you can.

The preamp is as important as the mic itself

Experiment with distances etc.

Try not to be afraid of steeping up to a mic and talking $$$$; it might just be the sort of $$$$ people like.

Reflections (reverb ) and ambient noise (fans, shouting, general household movement)within your recording space will hugely affect what it is possible for you to do after the vocal is recorded.

It is better to be too far away from a mic than it is to be too close.

Vocals have a massively diverse dynamic structure, try using very low ratio compression (1.5:1 to 3:1) initially, then using heaver compersssion later.

You can always EQ out the lower frequencies of vocals without damaging the clarity of the signal, leaving you more low end dynamic range for your b-lines etc to have impact.

The best way to get a good vocal performance is by setting good foldback levels in the headphones so as to allow the singer to relate to the pitch in which he/she is singing without being drowned by anthing in particualr.

Treat singing performers easily, the can be a bit temperamental. Give them their own space and NEVER make a singer feel intimidated.

If you are EQing vocals, don't ever go overboard. In general Frequencis from 500Hz to 1kHz will give a voice body, while frequencies of 2.5 kHz to 5kHz will give a voice definition. However always do your best to accompany a boost with a cut. E.G. If you wanted more definition on a vocal, rather than just bossting 2.5 kHz by 8 dB, bosst it by 4 dB then reducce the lower end with a low shelf by a further 4dB

A nice little trick for productiions is available with reverb. If you know the tempo of your music, work out the time in milliseconds for a crotchet (single note length).
,
EG. If we were working at 135 bpm then we can simply calcualte the time period of a crotchet (single beat) by taking 60 seconds ( one minute) and dividing it my 135 which = 0.444444444........seconds (444.444milliseconds) ad infinitum.

Take this figure and use it a your reverb delay ( the time it takes after a sound plays before the reverb kicks in) and you can get some nice effects.

Another good tip is that no one compression unit/plug in etc, works for all voices, try them all and see which you find nicest.

The last step, which is, admitetdly, a little difficult for most, is to go for Neumann all the way. Once you own a Neumann mic, you will never go back. They are the among the most beautiful items of studio kit available. Having chatted with the enginneers at Air Studios, every single on said their first choice if the Neumann M-149 Valve and second the old classic the U-87


Lastly, always be awa e of the polar pattern in which you are working, and stick to it, or your recording will sound very $$$$e and give a huge air of morning TV audio un profession`lism about it

Hope this is useful, please don't hesitate more


Dan

tiger

ok dan, heres a query - i'm short on cash (like 37 cents in my checking account short) so how do i salvage decent vocals from a crap mic?

DJ Fat Zed

Make sure you are doing these things:

Get the highest input level you can without distorting.

Reduce all background noise as much as possible.

Use a pair of old tights stretched round a coat hanger to reduce sibilance.

Get the foldback mix into your vocalists headphones right, they wont sing well unless they have a good mix in their cans.

tiger

foldback mix?

eh?

DJ Fat Zed

Foldback:

The signal that you give to your vocalist/performer into their headphones in order that they can hear the music that they're singing to. On certain mixing desks/computer systems, you can give a specially created mix of the sounds in your session in order to give your vocalists the exact backing that they need in order to give the best perfomance.

The usual things to be aware of are the ratio of the singers own voice to the rest of the mix. This balance is the key to getting the singer in tune and rhythmically correct. Also you can do things like increasing the volume of drums if the singer isn't following the rhythm correctly or increase the strings if they're out of tune. You can sometime even add completely new parts that wont be heard in the final mix just to help them get it right, such as a metronome click or a midi sound playing their part.

tiger

ok zed, now let's get spesific. i've got a pc with cool edit pro and fruity on it. let's say that i've got an instrumental done and ready to roll in fruity, but my vocalist is getting confused with some of the beats (thats what i get for not using a vocalist with much garage experience), should i make a beat free mix for him to sing over or just make him deal with it. and also for the foldback mix, should i be boosting certain parts of the mix and decreasing others, as for him to hear the tune better?

thanx
michael

DJ Fat Zed

Slim down the beats to the basic core and mix that with the most tonal parts from the rest of the mix. Give them a bit of reverb on their foldback and see what happens, just try adding other things if that doesn't work.

Sen

70% of singing/mcing is timing...the rest is pitching.

Once someone has the timing down, it'll flow more naturally and lead to more confidence and usually better pitching.

This said, strip out anything that is not pitch or timing related.

If a part starts after the SFX, better leave that in.

If the bline lends to the rhythm of the vocals, leave that in.

If there's some notes here and there that don't lend themselves to helping the singer with timing or pitch, leave them out.

A beatless mix would likely not be the answer, as with faster mixes, timing is even more critical - a vocal that pushes or pulls is even more noticable at higher speeds.

Another thing you can do is add a lead sound with the exact pitching and phrasing that you want from the vocalist - a kind of "follow the bouncing ball" thang...just leave it out of the final mix

DJ Fat Zed

Speaking of which, sen, I'm working ona guide guide track to see if I can get Miss G to do a better take on "Stop playin' around"

Big up 55 Hype!!!!

Sen

Good idea...did you get my PM about that?

I'm thinking a little deeper soundwise and the MC might actually be a good idea over the dub mix...need to change up some stuff for a true dub mix...