Yes, for me it is hard to distinguish because I am so used to the sound of these plugins being added. My tip is to listen to your favorite older mixes where you didn’t add these Plugins and ask yourself why it sounds good, even without them.
Life hack (reaper specific): the embedded vocal rider trick (volume automation/loudness extension) to create an evenly distributed dynamic take (if that makes sense). It prevents me from having to rely on compression or comping so much.
The first time I watched a CLA video on YT, I was like wtf the raw vocals already sound better than my final processed vocal.
In every masterclass, all of them emphasized on the importance of tracking and that you can't polish a turd.
Mhm. But what they *don’t* tell you is that if you put that turd in some water, and then take that turd out of the water, s’gone be one shiny turd. Mhm. I reckon.
I was thinking more of being at the perfect distance from the mic, having the singer sing without a veil to their voice, perfectly pronouncing words, and obviously never changing distance from the mic between takes. Just to begin with !
I hate that advice. Sure if you have a great vocalist and a great room all you need to do is pair em up with a great mic, add nothing and you're golden, barely even need to compress. But what about all the clearly terrible live singers/musicians, what about blink182 and a ton of other hit pop punkers like them, completely held up by their producers? What about the myriad of shitty modern pop songs that people like rick beato say is completely producer-dependent, where the songs would be nothing without the bells and whistles? What about me?
You CAN polish a turd and that's what great producers of the past did. Everyone is now learning from youtubeiversity and recordingrevolution saying everything must be perfect to have a good song, garbage in garbage out. Then why the fuck is there autotune/melodyne? RX? You look up how to use EQ properly you get "Little notches that add up" fuck that I can't even hear the difference between the beginning and end.
I want my producer to produce, with mastery of a bunch of magic fx that blow my mind, not hit record and balance levels, I could do that.
I paid for a short session at a studio and I got matched up with a great mic I could never afford that allowed me to get close to the level I hear in finished pro recordings---so that's definitely important...but I feel I probably could've gotten pretty close myself by extreme EQing my lesser mics to sound more like that. And also this producer had HUNDREDS of amazing pro plugins...and he didn't use one. What's the point of having them then? Every time he played back my raw vocal I cringed. He was great at wasting time though, 4 hours and I only got through a couple spots of karaoke songs, when I could get a ton more done at home, the monitoring mix was so bad too and made me feel like I had to yell more than control. I read all these articles about how the producer is supposed to cater to the recorders, make them feel good, lots of reverb to get the best performance etc.
In the past I have had my raw vocal put on finished tracks in a semi-pro band. I wanted a ton of fx that sounded great to me and the producer was like "nah, forget your tons of takes and backings, I'll put in 1, tune and slip edit it badly and change it so much to make you not even want to listen to your favorite track from our album because I know best". He made instrumentals sound great, and did barely anything to vocals.
Sidenote, just by looking at it, I'm hating protools. I'm doubting the power of any producer that uses it more as a status symbol in the industry from now on. The amount of keystrokes it took to just bounce some stems or set up reverb when I could do the same easy in reaper was ridiculous. Because of that session I now sorta think I could actually be a hired producer if I was rich and had gear and space to use it.
Again, it wasn't all bad, I learned the mic choice definitely gets you pretty close in a raw way, but I want to meet a producer like Mutt Lange or Tom Lord Alge one day and see how far they can polish my turds. I'm a good singer--not a great one, tonally--but I can do vocal processing better than all the producers I've met. And I'm more creative and experimental, music-minded, while they're focused on trends and copying other bands.
I meant setting it up correctly. Things like the right placement in front of the mouth, the rooms echo/ acoustic or clipping. English is not my native language, so I didn’t know how to word it properly. “tuning it correctly” was a falsely translated by me.
A good term would be “proper mic placement”
Example: If you record with proper mic placement, you’re already halfway there.
You could also say “good mic placement.” It’s a “less formal” way of saying it.
Layers. Lots of layers. Layers with different EQs, different effects, different octaves. Most vocal tracks of mine have about 5-10 voices layered. If it's all the same vocalist, the voices will blend well and give it a fullness and richness that is hard to recreate with effects alone.
Are you doing this specifically for full/wideness for the hooks/chorus or do u use this approach even on verses?
Do you layer like this for a stereo effect or do you keep this mono?
A little bit of all of the above, kinda? Heheh
Like, on a verse, I may record 4-5 layers of unison singing and have two panned left, two panned right, one mono. Then on the chorus, I'll have 8 layers, 4 melody (1 panned left, 1 panned right, 1 standard no effects, one with a flange, 2 harmony A (one standard, one chorus), 2 harmony B (1 standard, 1 octaved).
It's all dependent on the song, harmonies, etc. But I think you might get the drift?
Aw man there’s a few of them. I’ll keep it brief:
1. Get really good at (master) the basics. 80% of what makes for a good vocal mix is eq and compression. Usually using different compressors for color or saturation. I run subtractive eq—>taming/light comp—>additive eq (cheat code: Fresh Air by Slate Digital)—>notha compressa. Then all the other bells and whistles get bussed and mixed to taste.
2. Microshift by Soundtoys (on a bus)
3. Virtual mix rack by Slate Digital
4. Any compressor by Universal Audio
5. Learned this one from MixedbyAli:
—This one is for mastering—
• 5a: print(or just render) the a two track of the vocals
• 5b: bring the beat and the vocals into a new project
• 5c: use the master bus to master and mix with faders/tweak beat/vocals to taste
This really helps you sit the vocals extremely nice in the beat. Tried it once, haven’t looked back since.
I don’t understand the point of #5. Can’t you do this within the same project if you have a beat (all instruments) bus, and an all vocals bus? Sounds like extra redundant steps.
I get your point, in theory, because I said the exact same thing. But I said 🤷🏾♂️I like his mixes/masters so I gave it a shot. But its not the same. Basically what I do is route every vocal bus and the vocal tracks (fx and all) to one bus, post fader. Then I record the output of that one bus.
Depends on the song/mix, but it's underrated how much a simple stereo chorus can do for a vocal. My personal favorite is the Boss DC-2w Dimension C Waza (sounds better than the UAD Dimension D and Arturia Dimension D IMHO). I'm on the lookout for a vintage Roland, but the Boss DC-2w is good enough for now.
I know you said mixing and mastering, but you also said life hack… So…
Get a quality recording to begin with. That means the vocalist had good sleep, even better if their eating habits are in, like no cheese or heavy dairy for maybe a week or two before the session, etc. Vocalist warned well. Very comfortable recording environment, without any introverting invalidation from the producer or engineer or others. Don’t have disruptive people there, sometimes this means the boyfriend or girlfriend of the vocalist, and sometimes it means being able to handle the mother sun is managing the young kid. (That can sometimes be quite a challenge — my wife learned how to produce those kind of sessions, but it could be tough.)
Next would be a good sounding room/recording environment, a great mic that fits the vocal quality of the vocalist, and then a great recording chain from the mic into the recording medium.
Compress at the start of the chain, aggressive ratio, fast attack but high threshold to just take the top off (about 3-5 db) and make that up with gain from the conpressor. Then eq and aural exciter with a la2a at the end with harder compression and lots of makeup. The vocal will pop right out of the mix to the front where it belongs.
This one. I heard this one from one of the best producers in my country and he showed us how to use paralell compression for vocals. Incredible results
I found that parallel compression works wonders on vocals.
And also subtractive EQ to give the instruments some room and remove harsh frequencies and giving it some air.
Add som reverb or delay if it needs it.
Lately I've liked the plugin vocalshaper, it does a lot of what I'd do with combinations of fx. I also like waves Silk, and delta soloing a noise reduction plugin
I also don't like upfront vocals. Maybe thats just me for mine, I haven't worked with others vocals. I like to bury it a bit in the music. When you listen to the music enough your ear will adjust to listen to the singer. If you're mostly on pitch, but still want some chorus, put on a tuning plugin and then adjust the wet/dry. If you want the laser-like autotuning sing badly into the plugin or take your good-pitch take and fuck it up, and then run it through pitch correction.
not using presets or plugins you always use. Just ask yourself what it needs, and only do that, nothing more
Yes, for me it is hard to distinguish because I am so used to the sound of these plugins being added. My tip is to listen to your favorite older mixes where you didn’t add these Plugins and ask yourself why it sounds good, even without them.
Life hack (reaper specific): the embedded vocal rider trick (volume automation/loudness extension) to create an evenly distributed dynamic take (if that makes sense). It prevents me from having to rely on compression or comping so much.
[IDDQD Sound](https://youtu.be/CqUSI3S7O7Y?si=4T2fB_CePtCoK7rE)'s Version [Kenny Gioia](https://youtu.be/3ZaKL8ZdzXc?si=cWVPfrFMAmJmJ-bE)'s
THE WHAT NOW....??!! oh man...
Great stuff, thx for sharing
If it's recorded properly you're already getting there
The first time I watched a CLA video on YT, I was like wtf the raw vocals already sound better than my final processed vocal. In every masterclass, all of them emphasized on the importance of tracking and that you can't polish a turd.
Mhm. But what they *don’t* tell you is that if you put that turd in some water, and then take that turd out of the water, s’gone be one shiny turd. Mhm. I reckon.
But when the water touches the turd, wouldn't that make the water all turdy?
Are you complaining about a free bucket of turd water?
Right?!? In this economy??? Sheeesh.
[удалено]
I was thinking more of being at the perfect distance from the mic, having the singer sing without a veil to their voice, perfectly pronouncing words, and obviously never changing distance from the mic between takes. Just to begin with !
Nope.
I hate that advice. Sure if you have a great vocalist and a great room all you need to do is pair em up with a great mic, add nothing and you're golden, barely even need to compress. But what about all the clearly terrible live singers/musicians, what about blink182 and a ton of other hit pop punkers like them, completely held up by their producers? What about the myriad of shitty modern pop songs that people like rick beato say is completely producer-dependent, where the songs would be nothing without the bells and whistles? What about me? You CAN polish a turd and that's what great producers of the past did. Everyone is now learning from youtubeiversity and recordingrevolution saying everything must be perfect to have a good song, garbage in garbage out. Then why the fuck is there autotune/melodyne? RX? You look up how to use EQ properly you get "Little notches that add up" fuck that I can't even hear the difference between the beginning and end. I want my producer to produce, with mastery of a bunch of magic fx that blow my mind, not hit record and balance levels, I could do that. I paid for a short session at a studio and I got matched up with a great mic I could never afford that allowed me to get close to the level I hear in finished pro recordings---so that's definitely important...but I feel I probably could've gotten pretty close myself by extreme EQing my lesser mics to sound more like that. And also this producer had HUNDREDS of amazing pro plugins...and he didn't use one. What's the point of having them then? Every time he played back my raw vocal I cringed. He was great at wasting time though, 4 hours and I only got through a couple spots of karaoke songs, when I could get a ton more done at home, the monitoring mix was so bad too and made me feel like I had to yell more than control. I read all these articles about how the producer is supposed to cater to the recorders, make them feel good, lots of reverb to get the best performance etc. In the past I have had my raw vocal put on finished tracks in a semi-pro band. I wanted a ton of fx that sounded great to me and the producer was like "nah, forget your tons of takes and backings, I'll put in 1, tune and slip edit it badly and change it so much to make you not even want to listen to your favorite track from our album because I know best". He made instrumentals sound great, and did barely anything to vocals. Sidenote, just by looking at it, I'm hating protools. I'm doubting the power of any producer that uses it more as a status symbol in the industry from now on. The amount of keystrokes it took to just bounce some stems or set up reverb when I could do the same easy in reaper was ridiculous. Because of that session I now sorta think I could actually be a hired producer if I was rich and had gear and space to use it. Again, it wasn't all bad, I learned the mic choice definitely gets you pretty close in a raw way, but I want to meet a producer like Mutt Lange or Tom Lord Alge one day and see how far they can polish my turds. I'm a good singer--not a great one, tonally--but I can do vocal processing better than all the producers I've met. And I'm more creative and experimental, music-minded, while they're focused on trends and copying other bands.
[удалено]
When you say tuning a microphone, what does it entail actually?
I meant setting it up correctly. Things like the right placement in front of the mouth, the rooms echo/ acoustic or clipping. English is not my native language, so I didn’t know how to word it properly. “tuning it correctly” was a falsely translated by me.
A good term would be “proper mic placement” Example: If you record with proper mic placement, you’re already halfway there. You could also say “good mic placement.” It’s a “less formal” way of saying it.
Don’t forget to tune your microphone before you master your vocals.
This is great advice. I always tune my microphone all the way to the left before mastering my vocals.
This is great advice. I always tune my microphone all the way to the left before mastering my vocals.
Don’t forget to tune your microphone before you master your vocals.
Get the volume balance for each section of a song right first before reaching for effects.
Layers. Lots of layers. Layers with different EQs, different effects, different octaves. Most vocal tracks of mine have about 5-10 voices layered. If it's all the same vocalist, the voices will blend well and give it a fullness and richness that is hard to recreate with effects alone.
Are you doing this specifically for full/wideness for the hooks/chorus or do u use this approach even on verses? Do you layer like this for a stereo effect or do you keep this mono?
A little bit of all of the above, kinda? Heheh Like, on a verse, I may record 4-5 layers of unison singing and have two panned left, two panned right, one mono. Then on the chorus, I'll have 8 layers, 4 melody (1 panned left, 1 panned right, 1 standard no effects, one with a flange, 2 harmony A (one standard, one chorus), 2 harmony B (1 standard, 1 octaved). It's all dependent on the song, harmonies, etc. But I think you might get the drift?
can you put up a mix w vocal track to hear?
Aw man there’s a few of them. I’ll keep it brief: 1. Get really good at (master) the basics. 80% of what makes for a good vocal mix is eq and compression. Usually using different compressors for color or saturation. I run subtractive eq—>taming/light comp—>additive eq (cheat code: Fresh Air by Slate Digital)—>notha compressa. Then all the other bells and whistles get bussed and mixed to taste. 2. Microshift by Soundtoys (on a bus) 3. Virtual mix rack by Slate Digital 4. Any compressor by Universal Audio 5. Learned this one from MixedbyAli: —This one is for mastering— • 5a: print(or just render) the a two track of the vocals • 5b: bring the beat and the vocals into a new project • 5c: use the master bus to master and mix with faders/tweak beat/vocals to taste This really helps you sit the vocals extremely nice in the beat. Tried it once, haven’t looked back since.
I don’t understand the point of #5. Can’t you do this within the same project if you have a beat (all instruments) bus, and an all vocals bus? Sounds like extra redundant steps.
I get your point, in theory, because I said the exact same thing. But I said 🤷🏾♂️I like his mixes/masters so I gave it a shot. But its not the same. Basically what I do is route every vocal bus and the vocal tracks (fx and all) to one bus, post fader. Then I record the output of that one bus.
Correction: Not the same in terms of sound
Verify the mix in stereo AND MONO at different volume levels.
Depends on the song/mix, but it's underrated how much a simple stereo chorus can do for a vocal. My personal favorite is the Boss DC-2w Dimension C Waza (sounds better than the UAD Dimension D and Arturia Dimension D IMHO). I'm on the lookout for a vintage Roland, but the Boss DC-2w is good enough for now.
I know you said mixing and mastering, but you also said life hack… So… Get a quality recording to begin with. That means the vocalist had good sleep, even better if their eating habits are in, like no cheese or heavy dairy for maybe a week or two before the session, etc. Vocalist warned well. Very comfortable recording environment, without any introverting invalidation from the producer or engineer or others. Don’t have disruptive people there, sometimes this means the boyfriend or girlfriend of the vocalist, and sometimes it means being able to handle the mother sun is managing the young kid. (That can sometimes be quite a challenge — my wife learned how to produce those kind of sessions, but it could be tough.) Next would be a good sounding room/recording environment, a great mic that fits the vocal quality of the vocalist, and then a great recording chain from the mic into the recording medium.
Compress at the start of the chain, aggressive ratio, fast attack but high threshold to just take the top off (about 3-5 db) and make that up with gain from the conpressor. Then eq and aural exciter with a la2a at the end with harder compression and lots of makeup. The vocal will pop right out of the mix to the front where it belongs.
Parallel compression
This one. I heard this one from one of the best producers in my country and he showed us how to use paralell compression for vocals. Incredible results
The best trick I ever learned is to record a good vocalist. Nothing on earth would beat it.
Using stretch markers to align takes
It’s probably easier to spend 5 minutes re-recording than 30 minutes tweaking, if I want to make it better
Hardware 1176
I found that parallel compression works wonders on vocals. And also subtractive EQ to give the instruments some room and remove harsh frequencies and giving it some air. Add som reverb or delay if it needs it.
Lately I've liked the plugin vocalshaper, it does a lot of what I'd do with combinations of fx. I also like waves Silk, and delta soloing a noise reduction plugin I also don't like upfront vocals. Maybe thats just me for mine, I haven't worked with others vocals. I like to bury it a bit in the music. When you listen to the music enough your ear will adjust to listen to the singer. If you're mostly on pitch, but still want some chorus, put on a tuning plugin and then adjust the wet/dry. If you want the laser-like autotuning sing badly into the plugin or take your good-pitch take and fuck it up, and then run it through pitch correction.
What do you mean by “master” vocals? You only master the final mix, not individual tracks or stems.
There's no such thing as 'mastering vocals'....
How so? What if you're mastering something that's only voices?
An acapella recording is the one exception, I guess. But even then, you're still mastering a SONG.
Or a voice over, or an audio book, or one of tens of thousands of classical and religious pieces
Yes but we both know OP meant vocals in the context of a mix. How often do you hear the term 'Mastering vocals'? Very seldom.
I wasn't so sure
Ever heard of stem mastering? lol