recording vocals....and getting accapellas to stay on beat

i was reading an articlae about the new producer 9th wonder...and he says he uses only a computer to do all of his stuff even the vocal recording..and it sound like it has studio quality..what do yall think he uses?

I have alot of beats and i decided to throw a few away on making remixes but i cant get the acappella to stay on beat with my track...the rappers bars always seem to go pass the snare where the line is suppoesed to stop at....i happened to get it on track a few times by luck....i make the remixes with cool edit pro 2...i listen to other remix albums and they all seem to get the snare right...on every track....


somebody plz help...these are 2 big iussues that i have at the moment....

thx in advance

1

i have the same damn problem and it is really frustrating.
to try to get the bpm's as exact as possible i sample the instrumental the acapella is from and loop a bar to find the bpm's. i find this gets it pretty close, but on some records i have not had the best of luck.
to get it to match i have to sit there and control the pitch shift on the record player to try and match the beat. it seems like the acapella would be the same bpm through out.

Usually a hip hop record has the bpm on it. If not, don't use the mpc or a computer to figure it out. Play the record and use a metronome. The metronome on the mpc is fine. You should be able to find out exactly what it is this way. Sample the acapella into the computer and all you should have to do is fiddle around with the start point until it lines up for the whole song. If it starts getting off in the middle, just chop the vocal somewhere and readjust. Easy.

yeah man, the tempo of your beat has to match up with the vocals. Ive got a few remixes on my soundclick site. I just used my ears, and adjusted the speed of the lyrics until i got it right. They are still not perfect but theyre old, so I dont wanna go back in time to fix em. they are pretty damn close though

i have quite a few hip hop records, and i can only think of one with the bpm on it. and that does not even have an acapella.
i don't know why it is tough for me to match up the acapella and my beats.
just is i guess.

Yea I usually don't have too much trouble with this myself, but I just experienced this the other day when I was flippin Common's "I got a right ta"... His flow is all weird and sh*t... I got this tight funky beat that is perfect and is like dead on with the original beat, but for some reason when it comes to the hook Common just flows way off of my beat... I been thinkin I'll just chop up the vocals and place them in the correct spot every few bars or so... It's my last resort and I told my boy I'd have this done a while ago cause he wants to lay a verse over it too...

I personally blame the Neptunes (for all those that don't know the Neptunes produced this track)... LOL...

This will be a litlle confusing but here goes: The beginning of the last word in a phrase should be even with the snare (2).

Oh, and make sure they are at the same tempo

Chop up the verses per every couple bars or do it manually and ride the beat - controlling the vinyl like how you would mix.

timestretch is your best friend, once you get the timestretch/starting the vocals at the EXACT right time, it becomes second nature

what about the vocal recording question?

Remixs are easy. Just find the original bpms of the accepella. Just use the beat that it is from to get the bpm. Use this to find BPMs real fast.
http://www.ruggedbeats.com/djsoftware.html
Drop the vocals on the one and that should help. You need to cut parts and event them out.

About the PC recording. You need a good soundcard and a good mic with a good pre-amp (i dont use a PC to record but if I did) and recording software. A protools M-Box might do you right.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--DGDMBOX

Sonic Foundry's ACID 4.0 is an excellent remix tool. You can use the beatmapper wizrd to lock in vocals and beats

Hey Toom,a good way to do it is to figure if you have more flexibility wit your track or your acc. If you have more flex with your acc./record use your turntable to make the inst. match your track(bpm wise). And to match the bars and hooks your gon hav2 count the bars on your hand,paper wherever.Map it out. It will take a while but it will be exact. I feel you wit the up and down vocal bpms. Mary J is really hard to do. Dont be afraid to go oldschool.

You don't need shit except a little 10 dollar metronome. Play the record and mess with the metronome till you figure out what the tempo of the song is. DJ singles usually have the bpm's, I guess the albums don't usually list them. Look, you'll know you have the right tempo when the metronome click hits at the same point in the beat for the whole song.