How do you process vocals

EARTH_MOVER · Post by **EARTH_MOVER** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:53 pm

So, I'm working with vocals for the first time really. I've used chopped vocals for effects before but this is this first time actually using reall full on vocal tracks.
The producer I'm working with is well known and professional, so the acapella he sent is already eq'd and sounds great. I've got two vocal tracks, one had a bit of effects on it and the other is basically dry. Both those are on a buss with some slight compression and saturation, with a reverb and delay set up for sends.

What do you guys do to get vocals sitting well in a mix? Just lookin for some other ideas, or even effects you like to do to change things up here and thwre

zosomagik · Post by **zosomagik** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:08 pm

I haven't worked with vocals that much, but when I have done it at home vs. a local studio I was interning at, nothing beats having a nice mic and preamp out of the gate. But after that, I would probably do some light compression to tame peaks that might be louder, de-ess, EQ, reverb, delay, and on a chorus part some widening probably. But that's me, and I'm not really a credible source

It also depends on what kind of vocals they are, like I've really only worked with Hip Hop vocals.

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:09 pm

How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.

AxeD · Post by **AxeD** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:12 pm

I tend to use band specific exciters a lot for vocals. Easy to overdo though, so watch that.
I'm stem mixing this funk track at the moment and managed to get a nice upfront, airy vocal sound with the harmonic exciter in Ozone.

Fragments, I was thinking the same thing, maybe he just made up for something the mic adds or lacks.

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:19 pm

^Could be. Or trying to reduce low end noise or something? Just seemed a bit odd to me to not leave all that up to the guy producer/mixing the final track.

zosomagik · Post by **zosomagik** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:25 pm

fragments wrote:How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.

Is this in reference to my post?

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:36 pm

zosomagik wrote:
fragments wrote:How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.
Is this in reference to my post?

No. OP.

zosomagik · Post by **zosomagik** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:38 pm

Ahh my bad, I see now. I just skimmed the original post, didn't see he said anything about EQ.

EARTH_MOVER · Post by **EARTH_MOVER** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:11 pm

Fragments:
Instrumental is finished, so he had a mp3 of the track to write and record to, and I think he probably just eq'd it to his personal preference to sit well with the track. Basically just cleaned it up a bit.
He recorded it on a soundlux mic and 7600 API preamp.
It's a Messinian acapella, so he's done enough that I didn't bother to ask what he did as far as eq went, I trusted his judgement.
I was just curious about any other mix down tricks outside of eqing

Genevieve · Post by **Genevieve** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:30 pm

fragments wrote:How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.

If he pre-decided on a vocal centered mix and he wants to make the vocals sound as good as possible?

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:38 pm

dearadamantium wrote:Fragments:
Instrumental is finished, so he had a mp3 of the track to write and record to, and I think he probably just eq'd it to his personal preference to sit well with the track. Basically just cleaned it up a bit.
He recorded it on a soundlux mic and 7600 API preamp.
It's a Messinian acapella, so he's done enough that I didn't bother to ask what he did as far as eq went, I trusted his judgement.
I was just curious about any other mix down tricks outside of eqing

Cool man. That makes way more sense.

Sharmaji · Post by **Sharmaji** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 2:36 pm

fragments wrote:How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.

you can clean up a vocal-- take out whatever's going on in the useless super-low region, multi-band out some resonances, de-ess if the S's are ugly, and brighten up if it needs it. Can't think of a vocal i've worked on in ages that didn't have that happen.

Samuel_L_Damnson · Post by **Samuel_L_Damnson** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 2:39 pm

I like to parallel compress them too.

fragments · Post by **fragments** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:00 pm

Sharmaji wrote:
fragments wrote:How do you EQ a vocal before you build a track for it? Not trolling, just curious.
you can clean up a vocal-- take out whatever's going on in the useless super-low region, multi-band out some resonances, de-ess if the S's are ugly, and brighten up if it needs it. Can't think of a vocal i've worked on in ages that didn't have that happen.

Yea. That makes sense. I never went to school for any of this or really worked on anything by my own synth music, but that totally makes sense. I know when I record vocals with my field recorder (I know, lol) I usually just gut the low end and bounce it down to audio before I even try to work it into a track!

knobgoblin · Post by **knobgoblin** » Wed Aug 13, 2014 7:13 am

I've not done much vocal work when it comes to electronic music. most of the vocal stuff I've worked on has been in a Rock/Pop/Jazz vein. That said, I was always looking for a reverb that would give me the "vintage" vocal reverb sound I had in my head, but struggled to get with most plugins. Realized that for me, the humble spring reverb (even plugin emulations) is almost perfect for vocal reverb for my tastes.
slight static pitch shifting in parallel to the main vocal can give you a super wide 3d vocal sound if the shifted signals are panned while the original is mono, but this effect can be used to subtly (or not) increase the width of any sound.
for out there, over the top kind of processing, huge reciprocal (for example using one plugin to shift the signal down an octave and then another plugin to shift the sound back up an octave) realtime and offline pitch shifts bring out tons of great artifacts. I've also gotten some pretty freaky sounds out of the isotope rx noise reduction plugin set abusively and then changed so that you are listening to just the subtracted parts of the signal. Or creative use of vocoders and feedback loops... experimentation is key

How do you process vocals

How do you process vocals

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