Treatment of Vocals

Hey all, it has been awhile since I posted ...

Wanted to pick everyone's brain a bit about what there process is with recorded vocals.

Mainly, I'm interested in reading about how people process the volume levels and compression of their "good takes." Making sure they finish with having strong, consistent vocals. Especially in English, some syllables are so dominating it can really throw off your compressions process and leave you with some really over worked material. I wanted to know how you work around that pre-compression.

What do you do when you first get them?
What do you do to treat volume fade? (when vocals start strong and lose DB but are still strong)
What do you do to even out the feel between takes when piecing takes?
What are some tricks you picked up along the way?

Thanks, I am excited to read the responses.

DHGonzalez
www.dhgonzalez.com

I'll say this and I'm out...whatever you do, make sure your vocalist is on point.

Everything afterward is easier to deal with.

http://copyscape.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fmpc-forums.com%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D5%26t%3D133315%26p%3D1232777%23p1232777


BG 10 Step Guide To Recording Better Hip Hop Vocals In Your Own Home Studio


Let me start by saying if you can afford to go and record your songs at a commercial studio because you will have the advantage of top notch gear and pro engineers to handle the technical stuff allowing you to focus on the vocal performance alone. Stay home a couple weekends and put the bar money into your recording fund as an investment in your career if at all possible and still follow step 1 below when going to a commercial studio. If you insist on doing it all yourself, follow the 10 steps below and you will definitely end up with a better Hip Hop home studio song recording.
Step # 1. Memorize your song lyrics to the point where they come just as natural as when your singing along with your favorite song. Do not record if you have to read your verses off of notebook paper.

Step #2. Try to keep your mouth approximately 3 to 6 inches from the mic when recording, placing your pop screen three inches in front of the mic will help you maintain the right distance. Do a test vocal run recording at the level that you will actually be rapping at. A simple mic check 1, 2 is not enough for a recording level check. Adjust the interface/preamp gain input so that your vocal recording averages in the middle of the meter without hitting red even on the loudest parts. It is a good idea to record with a compressor on your vocal tracks this will help keep your vocals at a steady level. Most recording programs like pro tools le has presets for vocal compression that are good starting points. When you find the right settings write them down, save as custom settings, take a picture of the knob, mark with tape etc so you can recall easily. Do this for each different rapper you record. Be sure to use a pop filter or windscreen in front of/on the mic to keep the plosive pops ( like from p sounds & t sounds) out of the vocal recording. Place heavy blankets or carpet on the walls behind & around where the mic stand is to keep the room sound/echo zing out of your recording. Buy an SE Reflexion filter if you can afford one.

Step # 3. Record 1 verse at a time & get a perfect take of each verse with every word pronounced right. Treat it as if you were not even going to have adlibs as if the 1 main vocal track was going to have to carry the song. Keep your main vocal track panned dead center. Avoid having to punch in because if you can't record your verse without messing up how would you ever perform it.

Step # 4. Use adlibs/ over dubs to accentuate key words phrases on your main vocal don't use adlibs to fix badly pronounce words your main vocal track should be perfect remember that. Duplicate your adlib tracks & pan 1 to the left & 1 to the right 10 to 50 % lower their volume so the blend well with the main vocal & accentuate the words without overpowering them. Do not layer performances of your entire vocal over & over unless you want to have the chant/crowd or the sound of ten of you . Most songs will be better without that effect. Additional adlibs/ sound effects, other person voice reactions to lyrics follow the same but pan slightly different & eq a little different so may stand out from the other vocals at low volume without clashing. **Avoid editing out all of the breathing/breaths on the vocal tracks, you may reduce the volume but leave the natural breaths removing only those occurring in un-natural places and in doubled vocals.

Step # 5. When mixing the vocal tracks at first mute the beat/instrumental & get a good balance between all the vocal tracks recorded that sounds on it's own, compare with an accapella from a major hip hop artist many can be found online. When you get a great accapella mix render it/bounce out to a two-track stereo file & save it by itself. Import that two track mix of your accapella into your recording program. Mute the separate vocal tracks now & unmute your beat. Adjust the volume level of your vocals track so that you can hear each part of the vocal as well as each element of the beat. Do this at a very low volume on your speakers. Make sure you can hear EVERY part then turn the speaker volume up to a comfortable listening level.. *** make you're your master fader output is not hitting the red & try to keep ii peaked at the -3db level. The overall song volume will be maxed out to industry level during mastering don't worry about overall loudness in the mix concentrate on blending all the parts to sound good together.

Step # 6. When you have the mix sounding good to your ears put in one of your favorite hip-hop songs that may be similar to yours turn the volume on it down so the volume level matches your mix listen to both & take notes to how your mix sounds in comparison. Burn a cd of it & do the same test in your car preferably on a factory system with no eq setting set. Go back & make the adjustments that you noted during the test. It is a good idea to wait several hours or even a day to let your ears rest & get fresh again. When you get a mix you like that passes the a//b tests save it & render/bounce it out to two track stereo mix. Bounce out another one with your vocal s raised about 1 to 2 db as well & label it as such. These are the two mixes that you will want to send to be mastered or master yourself though not recommended to do it yourself. The mastering engineer can listen to both & master the one that his/her unbiased ears think is best. They will pick the one that will have the better overall sound after mastering so trust them.

Step # 7. If mastering yourself know that you will need to rest your ears about a day first then use an eq to fix any overall frequency issues then use a compressor to smooth out the mix, then a limiter to raise the overall volume of the mix to be as loud as any commercially released track. Go ahead & do new a/b tests with your favorite industry track this time with the goal of making your song as loud as the industry track even while both volume faders are set the same. Listen to the overall sound & try to get as close the overall quality as you can. Software such as Propeller head Reason as well as others has Mastering suites included that have mastering presets that can be good starting points for your song mastering though adjustments must be made to fit your song.

Step # 8. Use your ears & judge the sound closing your eyes is a good idea to get a different perspective too. Rest your ears for a day then come back to the song for a different perspective. Try to listen to it from the point of view of an average music fan, ask yourself if it sounds like a song you would want to listen to if it was not yours or if you were not even involved in music. Try your best to be objective.

Step # 9. Listen to your master on many different types of systems such as your studio monitors, your car system, your iPod ear buds, very cheap headphones, high quality headphones A loud club system if you can, Laptop built in speakers, a clock radio, an aftermarket car system if you can. Also check your song on mono sound sources to make sure you can still hear everything ok. A great master will sound good /translate well on all kinds of playback systems. That is actually the point of mastering, to make your song loud and make it translate well everywhere.

Step # 10. Get opinions of your songs from people associated in the music business as well as just non music business people like just regular fans. You need to know if your song is something an everyday person would want to listen to on a daily basis. Take constructive critic for what it is "constructive" Use the information to improve and make better songs in the future because really as an unsigned hip-hop artist, you should want to be able to give your music to the world with pride and not have to make excuses for the sound quality/mix etc. All the techniques and tools to capture great song recordings are out there for anybody to obtain. You just have to write great songs then take the time, however long that is, to record the perfect vocal takes, make the mix down, & get the master right.


By following the above 10 steps you will definitely record better Hip Hop songs in your home studio that will be able to compete with songs recorded by the pros. It is up to you however to either make or purchase catchy beats and write great songs that are worthy of your recording efforts and investment in time.[/i]

What BG said.

Always remember your lyrics at hand, it'll just sound like a speech in class if you read them, plus most times the stuff I write ends up being flipped to some different because you've been practicing your words so long, you start to play around with the flow and projection.

At mic check, speak into the mic with words that begin with B, P, and T. Those letters tend to make a pop noise sounding like a gust of air Into the mic. So regulate that first then emphesize on vowels and S sounding words.

Just to throw in 2 more cents (or non cents).

If you're paying for studio time... be prepared. The studio engineer doesn't care if you're getting your tracks down or just taking forever to setup. He gets paid whether he's sitting, talking to you about the weather or actually at the mixing desk. Make sure you get setup and get him at that desk ASAP if you want to maximize your time.

This kind of leads to, do your homework. If you can get a tour of the studio ahead of time do it. If you can get 5-10 minutes of the engineer's time to go over what gear you're bringing or what format your audio data should be do it! And while you're at it, take notes. Nothing worse than getting back to your pad and not being able to remember if the engineer said they multi-track or if the engineer said bring eight-track. Find out what *they* prefer, what is cheapest/easiest to get running and what common pitfalls you can avoid.

Don't rush it. While it's possible to go in and lay down 10 tracks in an hour, really don't count on it. You're much better off working on the tracks you want to get down first, so if you want to do more takes or play around with the verses/chorus or whatever that you give yourself the time.

Don't be afraid to move on. If you're just not feeling it today, and three or four takes just don't have the magic maybe it's time to move on, find somebody else to take the stage or whatever. When you start struggling and you start feeling that bill adding up find a way to lower your stress, not increase it.

If possible, check out a few studios and try and establish a relationship with the people that work there. First, it'll let you get an idea of what you like and dislike. Second it will help you be able to communicate with the people there what you want as they will know you better.

Thank you all for your post.

I've read that article somewhere about a year ago. And though flawed, it is a great beginning step into the process of home recording.

Dab and others, you're so true when you say a great vocalist is key. I wish more people would come into the studio prepared.

Please, let me explain my issue more clearly ...

I've got about 10 years of post-grad pro-work. In that time, I've transition from the "extra-closet vocal engineer" to now having a full-time gig at the chicago opera house. I love it, but what I'm noticing, to put this at short a possible, is that based a the different languages, compression and consonant levels differ throughout the perfect take and require a bit of prep-work.

Now before I go into max/mc and write code based on the tricks and tips I know. I would like to know some of the homegrown tips you all might have to handle issues such at vocal coning, freq-thresh, and syllable transition.

Instead of turning my attention to a one sided technical solution, I wanted to know how people might handling this manually ... then go into programming

And there is my question again, what is some of the prep you guys do when something like this happens to you?

God I hope all I wrote makes sense!

Thanks in Advance.

DHGonzalez
www.DHGonzalez.com