First of all hi to all, i have been reading posts on this site for almost a week and i must say i am most impressed with the knowledge being spread.
ok so heres my dilema: i want my vocals to sound as they do in my headphones when playing them back, but as soon as i hit that play button its as if the vocal has been stripped of its live sound. I am trying the recording process both in Fl studio and audacity but get the same lame, naked sounding sample and then end up resorting to effects and cloning to try an bring the life back into it. Please help!!
I personaly think the sound i hear when recording in turn changes they way in wich i use my voice in certain parts of the track and it is this effort that i am trying to keep intact. Unfortunatly i can never add effects or minipulate the vocal sample to sound as it does during the recording process.
You record your own voice and want it to sound like you hear it in your headphone.
When do you hear it "in your headphone"? After recording? During recording?
Don't forget that we hear our own voice in a different way because we also sense the vibration of the organs producing the sound. To ourselves our voice has more low end (typically male problem). When I hear my own voice on a recording I always find it thin and hi-passed in a way whereas others think that the recording is quite comparable with the original.
You could try to slightly boost the lower end of your voice and add warmth and a tad of chorus with effects.
__ Check my soundcloud (exclusive tracks on there)
welcome to vocal recording, you have to add a lot of effects to get it back. do you think every recording of vocals comes out as smooth and wonderful as that? NEVER.
it's the most sensitive instrument to sound right, because we hear the human voice so critically. so if you can add enough fx to make ti sound good, then you're lucky.
either that or insert a microphone in side of your head.
__
Latest Songs of filth and taboo depravity SpankMyFilth on SoundCloud
She's got a nasty mouth... FREE DOWNLOADS
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Halph-Price: 02-03-2009 15:19.
Battle Drone, i like to hear my voice while recording and it sounds great to me at this time, its when i play it back that it seems plain and naked. As for adding effects and so on thats where im at but i know that a sample be it vocal or not will only ever be as good as the oringinal so i am trying to perfect this process. before recording i have also been playing around with the built in effects in my beringer 1202fx mixer and again in practice the added effects combined with the live sound when hearing it sounds great but upon playback the warmth and aliveness of the vocal is gone??
Halph price i cannot believe that the process of getting a vocal to sound good is down to luck nor do i belive that the only way to make it sound good is to add effects. For instance if a vocalist has an amazing voice and they were in a pro studio im sure the recording could sound great to start with and therefore might not need an overkill on effects like mine.
Ghost To tell you the truth i dont know the make of the mic its rubbed off over time
i can tell you that it has been used for live house parties, dj sets and my own live practice sessions and does produce a nice, warm, live sound as for the pre amp, it is built into my 1202fx mixer.
I hope this info can help you to help me further and i thank you all of you for your time, keep it coming thx
ooooh, i think i know, what you're hearing is your voice while your singing ni the mic. or talking, or rapping or whatever.
anyways, it sounds good not because of your voice, but because it's layered with your voice. try recording 2 takes and layer them toegether. it's actaully a technique used in R7B music and it's what gives all of thoes recordings such soul. it's called thickness, to thiicken the vocals up with. it sounds great in every genere of music, from pop, to industrial, to r&b and hip-hop. thee's different styles of it, but it's the same thing.
it's probably why it sounds naked on play back, because it's just one voice. when you're recording and listening it's 2 voice, not just 1.
that and i never said it was luck, but it's not easy. and i don't know a single studio that doesn't add effect to pro vocals. reverb compression eq, all of this stuff, it's just how much you add onto it. the real pro studios will then go and automize the fader movment for every single part of the vocals.
to assume that good vocals just come in a can is not true, they take a lot of work. most of the time in a recording it's whats called a composite, of more then one recording. every few artist do one take of vocals then pack it up and go home, unless you're like mary j blige, but even then she either has a vocal double do the layer vocals to thicken it, or she would then have to go over and record them too.
and that's not even including auto-tune, which is used on every but, as far as i know, mary j and nelly furtato.
__
Latest Songs of filth and taboo depravity SpankMyFilth on SoundCloud
She's got a nasty mouth... FREE DOWNLOADS
Good advice, but aren't there VST's that do this job for you. I remember reading about a vst that can make complete choirs out of one single voice. Forgot the name though
.
__ Check my soundcloud (exclusive tracks on there)
ahh ok that does seem to be probable but i do have a question or 2
firstly i have read that doubling vocals can create phase inversion or somthing like that, is there any truth in this? secondly if the sound that i hear when recorded is two voices then how come i cant get the same effect by simply doubling the vocal and positioning it?
could you also briefly explain
automize fader movement ?
auto tune?
battle drone, its not realy a choir effect im looking for or an effect its life in the raw vocal so i have somthing good to work with in the first place. but thanks
cheers
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Midas: 03-03-2009 01:08.
if you want good vocal recordings you need a good mic and to a lesser extent preamp. i say this because a good preamp is easier to fake digitally. battle drone is right about hearing much more bass in your voice when you're actually singing and a junk mic will miss even more warmth than a good one(even a great mic won't make your voice sound like it did to YOU when you sang the piece). Thats where eq and effects come in. Don't forget, the vocal will sound much better when mixed in the song. Are you listening to it solo or in a song?
I dont think doubling it will work, the way recording 2 tracks helps is by hearing slight differences in the two recordings "fattening it up"
-Automating fader movement is adjusting the volume as the track plays to even out the loudness or TO uneven it out creating dynamics and recording the adjustments so that every time the track plays the volume adjusts.
-Auto tune is software or hardware that gets your voice in tune and keeps it on key
Originally posted by Midas
ahh ok that does seem to be probable but i do have a question or 2
firstly i have read that doubling vocals can create phase inversion or somthing like that, is there any truth in this? secondly if the sound that i hear when recorded is two voices then how come i cant get the same effect by simply doubling the vocal and positioning it?
could you also briefly explain
automize fader movement ?
auto tune?
battle drone, its not realy a choir effect im looking for or an effect its life in the raw vocal so i have somthing good to work with in the first place. but thanks
cheers
phase inversions only happen on identical signals. recording the same instrument twice you'll never get an identical signal unless it's digital and even then maybe not.
that's why it sounds so phat, because it's layered exactly the same but it's not phase inverting.
this is the same reason why you can't just double it.
the human voice sounds amazing when layered, this is why we have choirs.
there's no VST that will make this sound, it's only because the human voice has so many variations it can never be the exact same. you don't even have to layer using the same voice.
if you doubled the signal it's basically a flanger/delay/chorus effect, the only difference is how long the delay is and how much variation is in sample length and delay time.
all together it's called a comb filter, where it causes a bunch of resonance points to dip and fall. some crappy phaser you'll see are a bunch of notch filters with different lfo's. that's not a phaser at all, but it's close enough.
these still make good sounds, because it's doubling the sound up, but to get the real "wall of sound" effect, you need to layer.
Enter Sandman by Metallica, the guitar riff in that is a mixture of about 3 different guitars, different amps and mic placements. sounds totally pimp. same thing can be done with vocals.
in hip hop they usually just double up on words that rhyme or other words that want to be emphasized. r&b the vocal actress can do it or a vocal double. in pop music you can have other people sing backing, and then filter the high and low end out, so it's more subtle but it helps give good pitch sound. Industrial music does some nice thins, of whispering or shouting the backing vocals, like NIN or Slipknot. it adds either a sinister or energetic touch, respectively.
so you see, there's a lot that can be done with vocals.
automized fade movements is the faders that control volume, i have known mixers to go through and automize the fader for each syllable of the word. kind of like a manual compression tot eh vocals. i wouldn't want to do that, but it's possible.
auto-tune is like ... umm, well fucking youtube t-pain effect tutorial .... you'll see it in ACTION.
not bad.
__
Latest Songs of filth and taboo depravity SpankMyFilth on SoundCloud
She's got a nasty mouth... FREE DOWNLOADS
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Halph-Price: 03-03-2009 04:31.
ok thank you all for your patience and input, i now have a few new ideas to plays with so i guess its back to the drawing board lol
And halph price you dun know nfx tutorials are on point!!!
ive watched allot of his tutorials and even saved them for future reference, i also advice any1 in the Fruity loops learning process to check out all of his tutorial vids, either youtube warbeats tutorials or visit his site www.warbeats.com.
As stated im not sure what mic as the logo has rubbed off over time but when listening to the mics live performance i wouldnt say i need to worry about mic quality as it does produce a good sound, as for the pre amp its built in to my 1202fx mixing desk and i have been told that it should more than cope with what i want to achieve as my desired outcome isnt perfection, just a decent sound.
As stated im not sure what mic as the logo has rubbed off over time but when listening to the mics live performance i wouldnt say i need to worry about mic quality as it does produce a good sound, as for the pre amp its built in to my 1202fx mixing desk and i have been told that it should more than cope with what i want to achieve as my desired outcome isnt perfection, just a decent sound.
sorry I must have missed where you previously stated. Most mixing desk preamps are fine for live and home recording use. The 1202fx - is that a behringer? They're well know for providing a decent budget home recording solution. I was using the 1002 for live recording and I found that I couldnt push them too hard, with the dynamic mics I was using. I'm guessing your mic is dynamic? I often find that with a generic dynamic mic you can lose some depth to the recording and what you're left with, i mean your dry recording, can be somewhat lifeless. I think processing is the key when it comes to recording vocals and getting them to sound good as opposed to acceptable. EQ is the key to making it clear and full sounding. There's some good information in another thread I recently posted about noise reduction, which was a particular issue for me, but also is a common problem when recording at home with dynamic mics & cheap preamps
i can tell you that it has been used for live house parties, dj sets and my own live practice sessions and does produce a nice, warm, live sound as for the pre amp, it is built into my 1202fx mixer.
sorry I must have missed where you previously stated. Most mixing desk preamps are fine for live and home recording use. The 1202fx - is that a behringer? They're well know for providing a decent budget home recording solution. I was using the 1002 for live recording and I found that I couldnt push them too hard, with the dynamic mics I was using. I'm guessing your mic is dynamic? I often find that with a generic dynamic mic you can lose some depth to the recording and what you're left with, i mean your dry recording, can be somewhat lifeless. I think processing is the key when it comes to recording vocals and getting them to sound good as opposed to acceptable. EQ is the key to making it clear and full sounding. There's some good information in another thread I recently posted about noise reduction, which was a particular issue for me, but also is a common problem when recording at home with dynamic mics & cheap preamps 