Songwriter Forum > Recording

Keeping interest in vocals

(1/1)

cowparsleyman:
I don't know about you, but I always like to keep the listener stimulated, and there are various tools that one can use to acheive this, a natty bunch of melody hooks, or moving bass lines, brilliant lyrics, but Vocals are prime territory for adding interest, sometimes overt methods work well, but also sneaky less obvious ways also have impact.

Doubling a vocal is well documented here, but if possible always track a second and even a third vocal of the same line, the nuances of the difference in timings and delivery can be very useful, keeping it a few dB lower in the mix, panned slightly off centre L or R adds a "What's going on here" type of interest...

Rather than doubling manually, Antares make a plugin called Duo which does a pretty good job of add ing a seconds vocal, but it's boringly the same line at the same delivery, but it has it's place as does plugins like Eventides Quadravox, and Waves Harmoniser, but a live harmony line is so much more effective if there's not much going on in the background with the instrumentalists. It might be worth using automation to bypass the effect.

Tracking a line an octave lower can be great, and keep it very low in the mix, will again cause a few raised eyebrows, Soundtoys little alterboy can do this formant shift for you, but can sound a bit manky if it's too high in the mix (btw it can also make a female vocal sound like male one if you need to).

Shouted vocals from across a room and distorted (choose whichever way you want to distort, from bunging an inline fuzz box into a dynamic mike, to some posh saturation plugin like The Oven, or pushing your mic pre, or getting to close to the mic) can also be very effective...just watch the levels, I'd go with a plugin myself, as this can be reversed, an in line fuzz can't)

A slow flange on BV's, or my favourite BV thickener Soundtoys microshift works wonders...

Oh yes and chop any noise out of a vocal, home recording and a large diaphragm sensitive condensor mic will always pick up background noise...this is best done manually, but removing the noisey bits of waveform, it takes a bit of patience but it's worth while, gates are too insenstive, no matter which one you buy.

Danger it up....

Hope this helps...

rightly:
I'm usually wary of gear geeks 🤓

But reading through this
I have to admit, you have some serious insight here.
I've not got most of the tools you have but
Reading through the post I realised, I should be less tense,
more focused and willing to try things out.

My mic is an smb7
A big step up from the rode 1a I had

Before recording voice
I try to find what are the notes I want on the piano
It's sometimes a struggle with precision and passion.
Being preoccupied with precision can (sometimes) easily detract from passion, or the sentiment that wants to be expressed.
There are a lot of smart guys producing lifeless music about.

I've been to dull photography exhibitions
When the artist or technician (I dunno)
explained how he got a certain effect, I could appreciate the work more
... hmm but it's like a joke, if it needs explaining, is it funny?

Oh I'm ramblin
I did enjoy reading your post
Thank you for sharing your insights

cowparsleyman:
@rightly - Thanks Paul, hope you are well, I read with interest you reply, I found the bit about losing passion when spending too much time on precision worthy of a dedicated post, it sounds like passion is something that is a temporary state, that time can erase.

I can relate this back to your music. But I tend to have a very precise framework on which to do the passionate stuff, otherwise the listener is distracted by the lack of precision  to notice the passion of, say, the lead vocal...it might sound like a bunch of passionate things, which can end up sounding a bit confusing.

That being said precision and passion essential for any musician, a piece is performance ready when both these are ticked, it's rather like learning a piece of Bach and not bothering with the dynamics.

What is passion anyway? a purposefully placed wrong note, a beat out of time, a bend where there shouldn't be one? You tell me...

rightly:
What's passion ?
It's hard to say, I can say it on a good day.
Not today.

Tracy Chapman has it in her voice.
Hannah Montana, the grown version, has got some pipes
But she always seems distracted (probably is, with all those aerobics.
 I don't dislike her.

Having both boxes ticked
Is a lot.
I've met many a super talented obsessed shredder with a strong aversion to singing.
Probably with good reason.

Yes passion can be short-lived,
 all the more reason to get it while it's hot.
I wonder what little Richard would sound like without passion.

I think generally I like the music of bands
Guns & roses were cool.
Axel couldn't have been half the banshee he was without
Slash n' Co.
Queen is another good example.

Navigation

[0] Message Index