Everyone is doing their own demos these days. I personally think this is one of the greatest things to happen to record making, the one problem I have is that often can barely understand or listen to the vocals recorded on many GarageBand or cheaply done demos. After the jump I will give you ten quick pointers that you may have missed that can help your vocals greatly, making it easier for all of us to listen to your demo.
1. Less Bass, Not More Treble - A general rule that everyone can follow for any voice of any type is that before you add any treble make sure that you have taken away all the bass that you don't need in the mix. When the vocal starts to sound to thin than you have gone too far. Only after you have gotten rid of all of the bass that you do not need should you even consider turning up the treble on your vocal.
2. If You Recorded With A Cheap Condenser, You Probably Don't Need To Add Treble - We have all heard demos with ear biting treble on the vocal. The fact is most cheap condenser mics are designed with a HUGE treble boost. Just like I advised above, get rid of all of the bass first and be extremely cautious adding any treble if you used a Condenser priced under $500, since most of them have a great amount of high end hype.
3. Turn The Reverb Decay Down - One of the biggest annoyances in demos that I get is a reverb that is so long it sounds like you recorded it in a cathedral. Most reverb programs have a decay knob, play with it a bit. Always go with shorter than longer when making a mix decision, we will all thank you for this later.
4. Turn The Reverb Down As Low As You Can Take It - I know in some indie rock circles everyone is falling in love with reverb but unless you are cranking up the verb as an aesthetic, err on the side of having it to loud rather than too loud.
5. Unless You Are Going For The T-Pain Sound Use Auto-Tune In Graphical Mode - I have news for you, it takes about an hour or two of reading or watching YouTubes to learn how to use AutoTune decently. If you want your vocals to not sound like every hip-hop song on the radio today, please switch to graphical mode and take one hour to learn how to use it.
6. Pop Filters Aren't Always Enough - Even when you buy some of the super expensive pop filters out there it does not mean that all your pop will be cured. Vocalists can still pop P's and kill our ears when we listen to your demo. If you turn down the bass on the vocal and have already applied a HPF to the vocal and you are still hearing a huge P, please punch it in.
7. Keep Your Mic Pre Gain Low - Unless you are going for a distorted gritty sound don't aim to get the waveform and level high. Keep it as low as possible and adjust it later with compression and fader volume. This will keep your vocal clear and from picking up lots of noise in your room.
8. Reverb Isn't The Only Effect - Try slapback delays, and quiet delays for giving your vocal some ambiance. As well reverb settings with really short decay times (150-350 ms) can do a great deal for keeping a vocal dry and up front without it sounding dry and cold.
9. If You Can't Hit The Notes Program A MIDI Track To Sing Along To - Keep in mind demos are often practice to get good at singing in the studio. If you are having trouble hitting notes, singing along to a keyboard playing their melody can do worlds of good for your pitch and intonation. It only takes a few minutes to play your melody in and have a great pitch reference.
10. When Tweaking The Mix Keep In Mind That You May Need To Tweak The Other Instruments To Make The Vocal Work - I probably spend most of my time mixing getting the other instruments out of the way of the vocal. Keep in mind the sound of the vocal is very much determined by what is eating it up in the mix. If you are having trouble with your vocal sound try EQing and changing levels on other instruments.
Showing posts with label should. Show all posts
Showing posts with label should. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 January 2017
Saturday, 9 July 2016
Top 5 Unusual Recording Tips & Techniques You Should Try
Sometimes it takes more than a good mic and traditional recording techniques to get that special, elusive sound your song may need. Modern technology has opened a world of possibilities for any recording artist, but these unusual tips & techniques, used by many recording legends in the past, could also serve as inspiration for you!
1) BINAURAL RECORDING (as used by: Lou Reed in Street Hassle, Take No Prisoners and The Bells)
Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3-D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments. The results can surprise you, giving a more naturalistic feel to your sound. Lou Reed used the technique on a trio of albums in the late seventies, including Take No Prisoners, considered by some one of the best-sounding live albums ever, as it really puts you in the middle of the audience.
To achieve a realistic binaural sound is not very straightforward, hence the fact this technique is not too popular. You could try to mimic it with two microphones placed 18 cm (7") apart facing away from each other, but this method will not create a real binaural recording. The distance and placement roughly approximates the position of an average human's ear canals, but that is not all that is needed.
Usually, the best way is to use a Dummy head stereo microphone, such as the Neumann KU100 (pictured above) which replicates as well as possible how the sound travels in the human ear.
A more affordable option is the Roland CS-10EM Binaural Stereo Microphones & Headphones Binaural works particularly well for live recordings and to create more intimate-sounding acoustic guitar recordings... and is certainly a very interesting technique to try out!
2) SINGING IN THE BATHROOM (as used by: legendary producer Joe Meek, The Black Keys)
Singing in the bathroom is not just for X-Factor daydreaming! The legendary British producer and bona fide eccentric Joe Meek was famed for his sonic experimentalism, and would often record artists in his bathroom, to use the distinctive reverb a small, tiled room can create. Sometimes Meek would place the singer in the bathroom, and sometimes he would simply place a speaker there and mic it. The Black Keys also used the reverb of a tiled bathroom on their hit album El Camino.
In this day and age where you can buy an excellent reverb pedal for not much money, and access tons of great reverbs using plug-in software, it may seem unnecessary to experiment with recording in a bathroom. But reverb is not just an "effect" you add to your music, but something naturally ocurring in any space where sound is reflected by a surface, so the more you understand it, the better! Many professional producers and musicians can instantly recognise whether the reverb in a room will be suitable for their music. When Led Zeppelin chose old Bron Yr Aur cottage in Wales, to record some of their most famous albums, one of the reason was that as soon as they got there, they liked the reverb sound produced those walls.
Recording in a bathroom (preferably using a condenser microphone ) could train your ears and help you to develop as a producer, as it's usually the room with the most distinctive reverberation in any normal house. Besides... recording in the bathroom can be FUN! (if it's clean...)
3) DISTORTED VOCALS (as used by: The Black Keys, Jack White, Thee Oh Sees)
Sometimes a crystal clear, perfect-sounding vocal is not what a song needs. If you're into blues, garage rock, psych, you may find having a "dirty" vocal sound will work pretty well, giving it a more vintage, warmer vibe. There are many ways you can chieve this. It's reported that on the first Black Keys album, Dan Auerbach would plug his microphone through a valve guitar amp, to get his distorted vocals. On more recent efforts, such as Brothers, he used a Shure SM58 and a Soundtoys Decapitator plug-in to get his dirty vocals.
A great new option is the TC Helicon Voicelive Play Electric Guitar multi-effects pedal, which features vocal distortion effects.
Jack White and Californian psych-rockers Thee Oh Sees often use a Shure Green Bullet microphone The Green Bullet is a harmonica mic which can distort your vocals and is perfect for a "lo-fi" vibe:
Any old, vintage harmonica vibe can be suitable, too.
4) MAKE YOUR ACOUSTIC GUITAR SOUND "EVIL" (as used by: The Rolling Stones)
If you want to ROCK, you gotta play an electric guitar, right? Well... not if you're Keith Richards, who, in the late sixties, discovered how to make his acoustic guitar sound "evil": basically, on tracks such as 'Jumpin' Jack flash' and 'Street Fighting Man', the distinctive guitar sound is courtesy of an acoustic, not an electric, guitar.
Keef would record his acoustic on a portable tape recorder, then play it back via extension speakers ("for more breadth and depth" according to Richards) which were miked - basically, recording his first recording. By overloading the mixing desk, this second recording would sound more distorted, creating that rich, fat sound which is not like that of an electric guitar, and certainly not like most acoustic guitars you've heard, either!
This technique is not the same as just plugging an electro-acoustic to an amp. The best way to do something similar today would be to record your acoustic guitar using a portable recorder , then playing it back through a monitor or amp, miking it to your multitrack recorder
5) IF EVERYTHING FAILS... TRY BRIAN ENO'S OBLIQUE STRATEGIES CARDS (as used by: David Bowie, Talking Heads, Coldplay, Phoenix)
The Oblique Strategies cards were a deck of cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and first published in 1975. Each card offers an aphorism intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.
Sounds crazy? Well, they have helped many top acts to create successful albums: Davie Bowie used them during the recording sessions of his classic "Berlin" albums (Low, Heroes, Lodger) and Coldplay used them on Viva La Vida. French band Phoenix used the cards during the recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
1) BINAURAL RECORDING (as used by: Lou Reed in Street Hassle, Take No Prisoners and The Bells)
Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3-D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments. The results can surprise you, giving a more naturalistic feel to your sound. Lou Reed used the technique on a trio of albums in the late seventies, including Take No Prisoners, considered by some one of the best-sounding live albums ever, as it really puts you in the middle of the audience.
To achieve a realistic binaural sound is not very straightforward, hence the fact this technique is not too popular. You could try to mimic it with two microphones placed 18 cm (7") apart facing away from each other, but this method will not create a real binaural recording. The distance and placement roughly approximates the position of an average human's ear canals, but that is not all that is needed.
Usually, the best way is to use a Dummy head stereo microphone, such as the Neumann KU100 (pictured above) which replicates as well as possible how the sound travels in the human ear.
A more affordable option is the Roland CS-10EM Binaural Stereo Microphones & Headphones Binaural works particularly well for live recordings and to create more intimate-sounding acoustic guitar recordings... and is certainly a very interesting technique to try out!
2) SINGING IN THE BATHROOM (as used by: legendary producer Joe Meek, The Black Keys)
Singing in the bathroom is not just for X-Factor daydreaming! The legendary British producer and bona fide eccentric Joe Meek was famed for his sonic experimentalism, and would often record artists in his bathroom, to use the distinctive reverb a small, tiled room can create. Sometimes Meek would place the singer in the bathroom, and sometimes he would simply place a speaker there and mic it. The Black Keys also used the reverb of a tiled bathroom on their hit album El Camino.
In this day and age where you can buy an excellent reverb pedal for not much money, and access tons of great reverbs using plug-in software, it may seem unnecessary to experiment with recording in a bathroom. But reverb is not just an "effect" you add to your music, but something naturally ocurring in any space where sound is reflected by a surface, so the more you understand it, the better! Many professional producers and musicians can instantly recognise whether the reverb in a room will be suitable for their music. When Led Zeppelin chose old Bron Yr Aur cottage in Wales, to record some of their most famous albums, one of the reason was that as soon as they got there, they liked the reverb sound produced those walls.
Recording in a bathroom (preferably using a condenser microphone ) could train your ears and help you to develop as a producer, as it's usually the room with the most distinctive reverberation in any normal house. Besides... recording in the bathroom can be FUN! (if it's clean...)
3) DISTORTED VOCALS (as used by: The Black Keys, Jack White, Thee Oh Sees)
Sometimes a crystal clear, perfect-sounding vocal is not what a song needs. If you're into blues, garage rock, psych, you may find having a "dirty" vocal sound will work pretty well, giving it a more vintage, warmer vibe. There are many ways you can chieve this. It's reported that on the first Black Keys album, Dan Auerbach would plug his microphone through a valve guitar amp, to get his distorted vocals. On more recent efforts, such as Brothers, he used a Shure SM58 and a Soundtoys Decapitator plug-in to get his dirty vocals.
A great new option is the TC Helicon Voicelive Play Electric Guitar multi-effects pedal, which features vocal distortion effects.
Jack White and Californian psych-rockers Thee Oh Sees often use a Shure Green Bullet microphone The Green Bullet is a harmonica mic which can distort your vocals and is perfect for a "lo-fi" vibe:
Any old, vintage harmonica vibe can be suitable, too.
4) MAKE YOUR ACOUSTIC GUITAR SOUND "EVIL" (as used by: The Rolling Stones)
If you want to ROCK, you gotta play an electric guitar, right? Well... not if you're Keith Richards, who, in the late sixties, discovered how to make his acoustic guitar sound "evil": basically, on tracks such as 'Jumpin' Jack flash' and 'Street Fighting Man', the distinctive guitar sound is courtesy of an acoustic, not an electric, guitar.
Keef would record his acoustic on a portable tape recorder, then play it back via extension speakers ("for more breadth and depth" according to Richards) which were miked - basically, recording his first recording. By overloading the mixing desk, this second recording would sound more distorted, creating that rich, fat sound which is not like that of an electric guitar, and certainly not like most acoustic guitars you've heard, either!
This technique is not the same as just plugging an electro-acoustic to an amp. The best way to do something similar today would be to record your acoustic guitar using a portable recorder , then playing it back through a monitor or amp, miking it to your multitrack recorder
5) IF EVERYTHING FAILS... TRY BRIAN ENO'S OBLIQUE STRATEGIES CARDS (as used by: David Bowie, Talking Heads, Coldplay, Phoenix)
The Oblique Strategies cards were a deck of cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and first published in 1975. Each card offers an aphorism intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.
Sounds crazy? Well, they have helped many top acts to create successful albums: Davie Bowie used them during the recording sessions of his classic "Berlin" albums (Low, Heroes, Lodger) and Coldplay used them on Viva La Vida. French band Phoenix used the cards during the recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
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