PRO VOCALS

VOCAL MAGICK



Mixing professional quality vocals out of a home studio, is one of the most daunting issues faced by new artists. Luckily, this doesn't have to be so hard and I am glad to be in a position to shed a bit of light on the subject. Developing a good understanding of a few simple but key concepts, will have you recording and mixing like the pros in no time.

GO HARD OR GO HOME:

Performance is something that should always be looked at from an objective prospective. It would be wise to have someone other than yourself point out any flaws. Whoever you enlist should be non biased, so, not your parents, siblings or friends. You will be amazed at what random people will pick out . Utilizing the advice of trusted advisors who know about making music is essential.

NOTE: A good way to prepare for a performance is to eat pineapple or gargle lemon juice.

THE MIC:

You will need a phantom powered tube condenser mic and you would be wise to research specs before you make a purchase. There are hundreds of choices but understand if everything is done correctly throughout the recording process, you can get a decent recording from a $99 entry level phantom powered mic. I use the MXL Genesis, which is a great middle of road option for high speed lyrics. To be honest, I dream of the Neuman U87 and I won't rest until I have one....lmao.

SHOCK MOUNT:

We tend to move around a lot when we are recording a performance and any vibrations this may cause can travel up the mic stand into your mix. To remedy this, most mics come with a shock mount to absorb those vibrations by keeping the mic suspended. If for some reason your mic does not come with one just grab a universal shock mount from Guitar Center or order one online.

POP FILTER:

A "pop filter" is designed to block out p and b consonants which cause "clipping" in the recording. Space the pop filter about 4 inches away from the mic and stand (or have the artist stand) about four inches from there. On another note, a pop filter will help guard your mic from spit.

THE INTERFACE:

I am currently working with the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 an I love it! I have heard a lot about the Apollo Twin (interface) used in combination with the Neumann U87 (high end microphone)for crispy clear vocal recordings. I have a friend who uses this combination and the quality of his tracks speaks for itself.

THE MONITORS:

I use two PreSonus Eris 8" studio monitors (the speakers bud not the screen...lol...jk) in my recording studio and let me tell you, I am infatuated with them! Studio monitors range from $150 for a pair to 30,000+ a pop for each monitor. Do your research and find out what will work best for your studio and your budget! Regardless of which monitors you have or will obtain, they should be spaced about 4ft. apart and you should be sitting about 4ft. back (the sweet spot) with the monitors at ear level. One more thing to note is to always use gold cables (my monitors use XLR) because aluminum allow unwanted noise into the audio signal. My XLR cables costed about $100 a piece but it was so worth it.

BLOCKING OUT NOISE:

Before you record you should take into consideration what underlying noise may be going on around you. An artist friend schooled me to this cool device you can use to shroud your mic. You can get it amazon but I would use this as a low budget way to get around having an acoustically treated recording environment. .....in a perfect world right?...lol

THE MAGICK:

There are four main tools in an audio engineers toolbox, which must be utilized properly in order to bring your vocals from that flat drab state, into a fuller more professional sound.
  1. LEVEL:
    2. You should err on the side of too loud for your final output level. Common practice is to use a reference track to compare to your own. To keep things consistent throughout you can use automation to for example, have the faders dip when the vocal its or peak or raise when it's barely audible.
  2. COMPRESSION & LIMITING:
    3. Compression should be added in stages by using multiple compressors to shave off 1-3dbs at a time. You don't want to crush it all at once so tread lightly on the first one, add another to inject tone and then have a final main compressor to control the character of the recording. Add a limiter such as a DeEsser to tame those harsh t's and s's.
  3. EQ:
    4. On dense recordings you can roll off the subs (20Hz-90Hz). The low and low midrange (100Hz-500Hz) can really boost the weight and body. Adjusting the midrange (500Hz-2kHz) can really bring the vocal forward in a mix. You do have to be very careful here, because you can end up causing the vocal to sound to nasal. High mids and highs (2kHz-20kHz). The high-mids can boost the clarity of the audio help it really cut through but too much and the vocal will sound thin and annoying. Finally you can add that sparkle or shimmer by tweaking the highs.
  4. TIME BASED EFFECTS:
    5. Reverb and delay come in at this point to add that ambient effect you here in 90% of modern music. Some sort of short delay is most commonly used even more often than a short reverb.

DYNAMIC RANGE:

Look at the waveform of your recording and notice some parts are big while others are small creating an inconsistent level across your performance. To remedy this (assuming your using waves) you can use the BF76 Peak Limiter to bring up the low input and squash down the high input. This will noticeably bring the low parts out making them more prominent in the mix whereas before they were barely audible. It will also bring the highs down and keep them from coming across too loud and distorted.

CLEANING UP AND EDITING WAVEFORMS:

Instead of relying on the limiter you can cut around each section of the waveform and raise or lower each section to make them all the same size. This will level everything out very nicely and save some processing power for other things. Some like to cut out the breaths while others prefer to leave them in as it lends to a more natural feel.

GAIN STAGING:

Gain staging is something I am most familiar with in Reason. You should not be using the faders to mix your track...I mean for real that's not what they are for. Flip around to the back of the rack and you will notice at the top you are most likely monitoring through your master output! You need to switch that damn thing to control room out! (sorry this has been a huge source of frustration for me...lol). You control your levels with the gain knobs at the top of each mixer channel. You want to raise or lower the levels on each track to about 10 dbs. The fader sliders are for automation and the master fader is your final output which should be set to -18dbs.

FINAL EXPORT (Bounce):

The stems are an important part of the final process of completing a professional song. In Reason, you would select file>bounce all tracks>selected folder. This will make it so last minute changes or mastering can be done anywhere or in any program (D.A.W.). This should be done along with exporting the file as a .wav file. A well kept catalog should be of up most importance to any serious artist, producer or engineer. This will keep you organized and ready for anything. We live in a fast paced world be ready with your music at all times. Be sure to save the program file, the exported song and the stems in one folder specific to that song. You can collect these folders in a folder called catalog.

BONUS TIP:

Ctrl s on a p.c., Command s on a mac...own it! Do not take any chances! Power outages, children, unexpected system failures, pets and God knows what else can potentially jack up your progress. Just keep calm and save! and save... and save again... just make it a habit! Do not over saturate with effects! Just don't do it! You do not need to (unless you suck:). Continue Learning! This article is not exaustive...it takes time to accumulate the knowledge and insight to make solid decisions throughout the recording process. This should be considered more of a point in the right direction. Know your stuff but don't be a know it all, you will be surprised how the most valuable information can come from the most unlikely sources....

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