For my first cd, i used a $60 Radioshack mic & Cool Edit....now I bought a TLM 103 Neumann mic and an MBOX which came with Pro Tools LE 7.0
i don't need help mixing my beats..i need help with mixing vocals in Pro Tools, i have a MBOX Mini which means I have minimal Plug-Ins, your basic set-up i guess..i use the mic mainly for hip hop acts and some r&b, people come over and record but i suck at mixing vocals in Pro Tools, i don't know what to add to the vocals to make it mix well, which specific plug-in do i use or what compression or how to eq good? can someone guide me through a tutorial on what you usually do for rap vocals and maybe that'll allow me to get an idea of how things work, thanks...
okay the simple philosophy is they compress the F@#K outta rap. Compress it while tracking going in (alesis 3630 here set at 2:1 fastest attack and release SOFT -10 to -12 threshold no more then a few db's of reduction if hella crunk change ratio to 4:1) then separate the vocals to two major busses the hook buss and the verse buss... send all verse takes to the verse buss and so on.... on the verse buss
1. EQ - mainly just roll off the lows with a low shelf how much and where to start is all you
2.Compression- if u did compress goin in keep in mind try small here maybe 2:1 or 3:1 since most rap is spoken fairly fast close to spoken word set the comp to peak mode and fastest attack and fastest release again watch the meters anything over 3-5 of reduction and its too much you will hear it
repeat this for hook as an added bonus add a tempo delay at barely audible levels when soloed should be the only time u hear this delay
NOW -- run the verse and hook buss to new buss call it "Vox main" now 1 fader controls all vocals put "Waves Rcomp" on this set it all the way down to 50:1 fastest attack and release and set the electro switch to optical now with mix playin watch the transition of the hook to the verse and make sure the rcomp is clamping both a least a few db's (this is limiting don't do too much but a lil on both 4 sure for smoothness) or so adjust each accordingly now it should sound very smooth the transition add another eq set to high shelf and brighten it some just a few db's dont go crazy here again its all you
Now you got 1 fader for the vocals and 1 for the beat use your ears and set em right
Reverb- okay now I personally like reverb and add it on about all BUT i have noticed MOST rap and hip hop is dry as a bone just compressed highly like Nas or Guru most of that NYC stuff is dry like try verses dry and add it on hooks or if its on verses like in my case keep it VERY low i find its like 10 percent wet most times now if peeps in a hurry throw an l2 or l3 on the master and send it out otherwise take ya time mastering and its beyond the scope of this thread for me to go farther...
Exactly MIro, get it right going in. Fixing in the mix still is only a poor excuse, and the result is vastly inferior to getting the right sound going in.
Not sure if that MBox is up to the task for good vocals as far as preamps go...?
I'd say, emphatically, that the MBox pre is inferior to even a Mackie VLZ-Pro. Probably on par with the Behringer Onyx mixer pres.
You mean the Xenyx aka Behringer rippoff of yet another design and name not theirs pres. The VLZ pro pres are quite decent for the price, and IMHO the newer m-box pres are about the same, a decent low budget pre. Certainly not the equal to the original M-box's focusrite pres, but definitely clean enough to get the job done with a decent mic. IMHO w/o spending several hundred dollars you'd not see anything but a very marginal improvement with an outboard pre. IMHO the cheapest "better" solution would be an FMR RNP.
I wouldn't exactly call the RNP a "budget" upgrade for this particular user, it cost more than his M-box for 2 mic pres. However they would IMHO be the least amount of money you could invest in pres and hear any noticable difference.
