Vocal Sound

[typo]

reverb. over used, and often applied with a whitewash brush. ok it doesn't just effect vocals, but listening to lots of demos you do notice that songs are swamped in reverb, the vocals for sure.

what do you do to get a decent vocal sound? FX? EQ?

[FinnArild]

Firstly I make sure the source is as good as possible. I usually apply some compression upon recording, but only slightly.

Then I add some compression to the chain and start equalizing.

I usually end up with a bass cut, a notch up in the middle frequencies, and a notch up in the "etheral" high range.

If neccessary I add some de-essing.

I don't add any reverb before the vocals sits nicely in the mix. Then I tend to like a reverb with a medium long tail and a long pre-delay. The long pre-delay detaches the reverb from the vocal letting the vocals stay nicely in front.

On my next album I plan to experiment a bit and use mainly self-sampled convolution reverbs.

[Bitstream]

Just to add an extra technique; stick to FinnArild's rules and get the vocal recorded well first, then you could try adding a short reverb aswell as a gated reverb to add some depth.

[john]

Hey

I have to say I rely more upon delay and early reflections than reverb. It's a lot crisper.

Applying reverb to the delayed signal works pretty well. It fills out and smoothes the sound in a far more subtle way.

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

I've had quite a bit of fun on a heavy metal noise merchant song I was recording making a big evil vocal sound by reversing the tape of the vocals, applying reverb to it, and then reversing it again so the vocals are once again playing normally but now the reverb is backwards. Results will go up online sometime soon...

[FinnArild]

I've had quite a bit of fun on a heavy metal noise merchant song I was recording making a big evil vocal sound by reversing the tape of the vocals, applying reverb to it, and then reversing it again so the vocals are once again playing normally but now the reverb is backwards. Results will go up online sometime soon...

I did that on the "weird part" of Riding the Nightmare. Really cool effect. Hard to do live, though ...

[Bitstream]

Agreed in all posts. But for a home studio based band, the reverse effect should be used once and best left well alone after that. Believe me, you will never live it down

However consistency in a particular combination of effects applied throughout an album seems to be common practice.

[Gove]

Try subtractive EQ'ing

[memphisindie]

Vox, mic placement, get your gain staging right, try a flattering mic that sounds like it is not hooked up to a slight phasing effect, a good clear flattering signal, the high end should not be too loud yet it should be clear and un muddied by too much low end swamping the preamp. You can accomplish that without EQ if you have decent gear, or you can subtract a little lows in the right area if they are swamping. Cheap mics can sound tinny so you might have to lose a little high end to accomplish it if you have one of those. If the dynamics are too wide for the preamp causing unflattering distortion(as opposed to flattering distortion), compress starting at a low 2:1 ratio or lower. Two passes through slight compression is better than one hard compression ratio in most cases with vocals and less noticeable. Once you have that clear track in place, you might decide on what kind of reverb you want, natural sounding which encompasses certain parameters, or an un-natural sound which you would either need to be able to describe or not and just experiment. If you are looking for a natural sound, predelay (which determines the "perceived" room size) is between 0 and 31 ms max and reverb of 0.3 sec to any length with high end roll of set to 5 khz. Tighter times being more like ambience, longer times being like halls rooms, or theaters. Any cheapo reverb unit can accomplish this so don't frag your old unit till you start using it like this. you can roll off the low end below 300 hz of the reverb unit return too to clear it up too.