I have problems with my vocals.They sound not professional...they are fat,big,but they are not like vocals on finished recording...I tried many things,from tube pre-amps to compressors,flanger,chorus...
Any advices?
Thanks,
Best regards
Big,professional vocals?
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hubird
did you try recording your voice with a large-diaphragm condensator mic?
Record as dry as possible if you don't really have controll about the physical room reverb.
Removing the low frequencies can help also, use your ears while listening to the (raw) mix.
If you use stuff like chorus, just add as much effect as you can hear when you mute the fx, if you know what I mean.
A bit warming and widthening can be enough already.
Compression and psycho-acoustic effects can't be missed, invest in quality.
PsyQ can add what the mic misses to some degree, besides it is a perfect tool for human voice because it's explicit dealing with the human voice frequency area.
Only use a quality reverb, take a vocal preset with some pre-delay for the reverb tail, to keep the reverb loose from the voice itself (Astroman glorifies the STW verbs for this reason).
Just some ideas
cheers.
Record as dry as possible if you don't really have controll about the physical room reverb.
Removing the low frequencies can help also, use your ears while listening to the (raw) mix.
If you use stuff like chorus, just add as much effect as you can hear when you mute the fx, if you know what I mean.
A bit warming and widthening can be enough already.
Compression and psycho-acoustic effects can't be missed, invest in quality.
PsyQ can add what the mic misses to some degree, besides it is a perfect tool for human voice because it's explicit dealing with the human voice frequency area.
Only use a quality reverb, take a vocal preset with some pre-delay for the reverb tail, to keep the reverb loose from the voice itself (Astroman glorifies the STW verbs for this reason).
Just some ideas
cheers.
guessing... it's rather likely that you have the vocals on several channels parallel, at least during mixing.
If you don't care about each and every possible (ultra) small 'delay' (latency) of each single process operating on the vocals, you will exactly end with what you observed.
There's nothing wrong with your original source, but for some obscure reasons it comes out flat and a bit washed, does it ?
As an exercise (hands-on is better than read) use a good yet simple vocal/piano track (something like Norah Jones), put it on 2 channels of the mixer, one channel supplied with a module to delay the channel in the sub- to low millisecond range. PhaseFixer for example.
Play both channels simultaneously and then observe the change in the voice while slightly increasing delay.
You'll be stunning what each 10th a millisecond will do...
The reason is phase extinction of certain parts of the signal which are very important for the impression of a human voice.
And right, the STW verbs by Warp69 are incredibly precise in that context
Once you've understood the process on a 'perfect' record, examine your processing chain for possible unintended 'latencies'.
For example the TransientDesigner introduces 0.8 ms.
If in doubt, do the double channel mixer test as above: the 'dry' channel gets the delay, the 'to be measured'-FX channel goes straight into the mixer.
The channels will play without artifacts at zero delay. Else increase the delay until artifacts vanish and you'll know how long the (exact) processing takes.
You could modify the setup by inversing one channel's phase to extinguish the signal as an indicator, but I'd rather suggest the way 'by ear'.
You'll get quite some experience about the sonical representations of phase problems this way.
Don't forget that this process is reversible: what makes your voices sound thin, can also beef them up (to a degree), as signals may as well add up due to phase problems.
At least it's another proof that all those low ms latency discussions are completely pointless...
cheers, Tom
If you don't care about each and every possible (ultra) small 'delay' (latency) of each single process operating on the vocals, you will exactly end with what you observed.
There's nothing wrong with your original source, but for some obscure reasons it comes out flat and a bit washed, does it ?
As an exercise (hands-on is better than read) use a good yet simple vocal/piano track (something like Norah Jones), put it on 2 channels of the mixer, one channel supplied with a module to delay the channel in the sub- to low millisecond range. PhaseFixer for example.
Play both channels simultaneously and then observe the change in the voice while slightly increasing delay.
You'll be stunning what each 10th a millisecond will do...
The reason is phase extinction of certain parts of the signal which are very important for the impression of a human voice.
And right, the STW verbs by Warp69 are incredibly precise in that context
Once you've understood the process on a 'perfect' record, examine your processing chain for possible unintended 'latencies'.
For example the TransientDesigner introduces 0.8 ms.
If in doubt, do the double channel mixer test as above: the 'dry' channel gets the delay, the 'to be measured'-FX channel goes straight into the mixer.
The channels will play without artifacts at zero delay. Else increase the delay until artifacts vanish and you'll know how long the (exact) processing takes.
You could modify the setup by inversing one channel's phase to extinguish the signal as an indicator, but I'd rather suggest the way 'by ear'.
You'll get quite some experience about the sonical representations of phase problems this way.
Don't forget that this process is reversible: what makes your voices sound thin, can also beef them up (to a degree), as signals may as well add up due to phase problems.
At least it's another proof that all those low ms latency discussions are completely pointless...
cheers, Tom
-
hubird
now you lost me Astro...
if you record as intended, as the gear says you should do, you must get nice recordings.
Using insert effects without dry signal components like the Transient Designer don't cause latency effects.
Chorusses, reverbs etc. do, but I never cared about that.
With good gear and reasonable tuning Darkstar must be able to make good recordings like everybody else...of the non devine part of humanity (i.c. the real magicians)
Or am I missing something?
At least he (Darkstar) wasn't talking about multi parallel recordings of his own voice.
And wasn't that the trick Abba made famous anyway?
Enlighten me if you want
if you record as intended, as the gear says you should do, you must get nice recordings.
Using insert effects without dry signal components like the Transient Designer don't cause latency effects.
Chorusses, reverbs etc. do, but I never cared about that.
With good gear and reasonable tuning Darkstar must be able to make good recordings like everybody else...of the non devine part of humanity (i.c. the real magicians)
Or am I missing something?
At least he (Darkstar) wasn't talking about multi parallel recordings of his own voice.
And wasn't that the trick Abba made famous anyway?
Enlighten me if you want
I'm afraid you missed a slight little point, Huub 
look at the original quote
A simple example: for safety purpose you duplicate the original track and continue to work with the new copy.
Accidently you forget to mute the track.
Now the actual processing runs out of phase which is (false-) compensated by eq, chorus doesn't match etc.
If the track is muted before mixdown you'll have different result, same as the reverse process where an 'accidental' dup sneaks into the mix.
It wasn't intended as an instruction HOW TO RECORD, but where to look if everything is set properly.
cheers, Tom
look at the original quote
my (sorry a bit lengthy) post was to explain WHAT COULD easily ruin a perfect original recording because the vocal track existed in several versions, which is not at all unusual.On 2005-01-18 18:44, darkstar wrote:
...they are fat,big,but they are not like vocals on finished recording...I tried many things,from tube pre-amps to compressors,flanger,chorus...
A simple example: for safety purpose you duplicate the original track and continue to work with the new copy.
Accidently you forget to mute the track.
Now the actual processing runs out of phase which is (false-) compensated by eq, chorus doesn't match etc.
If the track is muted before mixdown you'll have different result, same as the reverse process where an 'accidental' dup sneaks into the mix.
It wasn't intended as an instruction HOW TO RECORD, but where to look if everything is set properly.
cheers, Tom
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hubird
Alright, I see what you mean
I know the effect of listening to double parts...specially when I've record the-end-of-the-day-(night )mix as a track in my song...without muting it before saving the song.
next day, hardly awake, I immediately start furiously adjusting volumes of tracks, putting the blame on headphone-working
I know the effect of listening to double parts...specially when I've record the-end-of-the-day-(night
)mix as a track in my song...without muting it before saving the song.next day, hardly awake, I immediately start furiously adjusting volumes of tracks, putting the blame on headphone-working
Though it largely depends on the vocalist, I don't think this combo is what delivers 'contemporary' best vocals.
The Joemeek has a very special sound, which imho is best for a typical rock singer with an SM58 and a fairly 'strong' voice. Anything else might indeed end a bit pale.
Afaik the MQ3 isn't comparable to their $k channel strips.
you'd probably gain most with a large diaphragm mic, as already suggested - it's the voice's fundament.
I'm assuming this from audio examples since I don't have that gear - so don't rely blindly on the hint, it's just an opinion, not a fact
cheers, Tom
The Joemeek has a very special sound, which imho is best for a typical rock singer with an SM58 and a fairly 'strong' voice. Anything else might indeed end a bit pale.
Afaik the MQ3 isn't comparable to their $k channel strips.
you'd probably gain most with a large diaphragm mic, as already suggested - it's the voice's fundament.
I'm assuming this from audio examples since I don't have that gear - so don't rely blindly on the hint, it's just an opinion, not a fact
cheers, Tom
