Got Any Favorite Vocal Tips?

[Anderton]

I thought it might be fun to pool our collective wisdom, so I'll start things off with evening out levels in a vocal with DSP instead of compression or limiting. Like this:

 

 

The various parts of the phrase have been split into individual sections, and the level of each section has been edited to create a consistent overall level. This means no pumping or breathing from dynamics processors, and if you decide to add limiting or compression, you don't need to add as much. Also, the internal dynamics within a phrase remain intact.

 

The sound and impact of my vocals have improved tremendously since I started doing this. It's also really good for narration.

[Notes_Norton]

My favorite vocal tip is: Learn to breathe properly.

 

When you inhale, your belly, not your rib cage should expand. Then tighten your muscles as if you were expecting someone to punch you in the gut, and as you slowly exhale through your hopefully relaxed throat your belly goes slowly back in.

 

Doing this gives you breath support. It's the same thing wind instrument players should learn. It also keeps you from damaging your voice by getting nodules on your vocal cords. The nodules will give you a gravelly sound like what happened to Stevie Nicks. You can get an operation to remove them, but you will have a 50/50 chance of never being able to sing again. That happened to Julie Andrews.

 

Tony Bennett learned to breathe properly when he learned the Bel Canto method, and in his 90s he can still sing well.

 

Proper breath support also gives you more control of your vocal instrument, makes it easier to stay on pitch, and enables you to have a wider range of both dynamics and expression.

 

So that's my tip. It's the most important thing you can do for your voice.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[KuruPrionz]

Craig, we are working on a similar thing in a different way. (yes, I am mostly kinda back - last weekend was not pretty and I am very lucky to have so many great friends!).

 

After a recent mic test on a vocalist, we both chose (again) the Shure KSM8 as the best sounding vocal mic that I currently own. One of the test mics was a brand new Aston Element, I've barely had a chance to hear it until this test. Krista asked if we could use it too, it came close to being the new favorite.

 

I set it up directly above the KSM8, diaphragms more or less aligned. I put a Stedman pop filter in front of both mics and we ran some tracks.I had both mics set for peaks of -6db, more or less. Each mic went from a mic pre - KSM8 into a Cloudlifter then a Focusrite ISA One, Element straight into a Blue Robbie. Both preamps were connected directly to Line inputs on a Presonus Quantum Thunderbolt interface. No other processing is used, no analog or digital anything.

 

When I play back both tracks simultaneously, besides sounding really good the output level now peaks above the red. Everything is louder, considerably. Neither track alone goes much over -6db but the sum does. Next step will be to automate a volume track to turn the peaks back down to -6db but leave the quieter parts completely alone.

 

This will dramatically reduce the volume difference while leaving all the transient information completely untouched. More or less a modern way to "ride the fader" but post take so any mistakes in setting output can be easily corrected.

 

I plan on spending some time on these tracks this weekend to see what I get. I think I'm on to something!

[Chip McDonald]

I haven't recorded vocals in ... years now, but the last time I did I tried setting up a figure-8 LD mic with a polarity flipped monitor in the null a few feet away, and....

 

...it blew my mind. No headphones, basically no bleed. I thought there would be a little bit but it was shocking. The monitor wasn't very loud, probably around 78-82db, but still it was amazed at how low level the bleed was. For non-metal/loud music vocals, the benefit of the singer not having to do headphone mix, get the "right" level, blah blah... It makes it so much more casual, much better takes. I'd never paid attention to just drastic the null was on a figure-8 before, it seems like magic. The way it makes the process easier supercedes the mic IMO; I can't imagine now telling a singer to go through the headphones/levels battle just to use a particular mic, no headphones > anything else I think.

 

I also tried the Tony Visconti "loud/distant" mic trick, but only about a meter away, that works great as well. For any vocal with a drastic swing in volume presentation that almost seems like a must now as well.

 

...but I think within a few years a.i. enhancement will make all of that moot. As well as EmVoice like plugins taking over, leaving the similarly unique voices to rise to the top. Hopefully.

[Anderton]

I haven't recorded vocals in ... years now, but the last time I did I tried setting up a figure-8 LD mic with a polarity flipped monitor in the null a few feet away, and....

 

...it blew my mind. No headphones, basically no bleed. I thought there would be a little bit but it was shocking.

 

Great tip, I'll have to give that a try! I've heard stories about people doing that, but it always seemed unlikely it would work. But recording vocals without headphones sounds pretty awesome, and well worth the effort to check it out.

 

Thanks!

[The Real MC]

Learn to sing with less air pressure. I used to sing really loud, with no dynamics. When I learned to sing softer, I could sing longer without stopping to breathe. I like the sound of my singing voice when it is softer. But singing softer while controlling your tone and pitch takes practice.

[Anderton]

My favorite vocal tip is: Learn to breathe properly.

 

When you inhale, your belly, not your rib cage should expand. Then tighten your muscles as if you were expecting someone to punch you in the gut, and as you slowly exhale through your hopefully relaxed throat your belly goes slowly back in.

 

So true, and something that people ignore at their own peril.

[David Emm]

Here's a tip: don't sing death metal. Swedish death metal is especially Godzilloid in its Rageâ¢. IIRC and I doubt I do, even if its true, it was the lead "singer" for Opeth, The Summoning or fill-in-the-blank-here-if-you-can who screamed so intensely that he ruined his voice on the very first album. He nuked his glottis and ended up just engineering/producing. Now that's commitment.

 

I'm fairly sure that most members of our group know not to make things 'splode with that kind of overload. You can do that with vacuum tubes and get some potent Barronesque sounds without destroying them. Human voice boxes and ICs, much less so.

 

I mildly envy a lot of you. My mic experience is limited to the tank of a Shure I used for everything, SM78, I believe. I also once possessed a Sony solar-powered mic, with a panel and a pinky-sized flip-up mic on the side. For a business-meeting or weirdo item, it sounded much better than you'd expect as a near-novelty.

[Chip McDonald]

Great tip, I'll have to give that a try! I've heard stories about people doing that, but it always seemed unlikely it would work. But recording vocals without headphones sounds pretty awesome, and well worth the effort to check it out.

 

Thanks!

 

Seriously - if it's a vocal where you can maybe have it at no more than ... 72-74 db-ish at the singer's head, maybe they sing over the top of the level on loud parts - it's amazing. There may be an additional factor; IIRC I put it close to the null/center of the room, my thought being the room bleed opposite the singer might null. I may have gotten lucky, but I remember playing it back and cranking the track and both the singer and I looking at each other like "What? Is it really that low?" As in, headphone-bleed level low, seemingly much more than the ~25 db one might expect.

 

 

Hmmm... well, another thing: I think I rolled off the high end 1k up, and ran the bass guitar a little louder in the monitor, so she could get her pitch off of that - since the sub-250hz wouldn't be accentuated on the vocal track, and the transients above 1k where her voice mainly was would be an extra few db down. So IIRC she was singing to a slightly dull mix with a bit more bass guitar? A primadonna may not like that, I suppose. So maybe it's figure 8 null plus a 3db advantage from that.

 

 

It won't work for a metal/loud rock singer, but for everything else, if the singer doesn't require trans-82db levels to project, etc...

[BMD]

If you can't sing in tune* and can't be bothered with pitch-correction software, double-track your vocal.

 

Even if both vocal takes aren't in tune, double-tracking seems to miraculously iron out all imperfections, thus making you sound in tune.

 

It's weird, but it works.

 

 

*Guilty

[David Emm]

If you can't sing in tune* and can't be bothered with pitch-correction software, double-track your vocal.

Even if both vocal takes aren't in tune, double-tracking seems to miraculously iron out all imperfections, thus making you sound in tune.

It's weird, but it works.

*Guilty

 

HA! Hey look, everyone, an honest man! GET HIM! There is a clear and honorable line between sincere synthesis and lightly faking it. I bought the new Chaos Tapes bank for M-Tron in a similar spirit. Frank Zappa called his super-split Synclavier patches "pintos" because they changed color on every key or small sub-group. Old stuff, now! The Chaos volume puts sometimes very unrelated string sources on each key, but layered with more consistent patches, a similar form of weird works towards a mega-lush sound. I heart high-tech trickery.