Rock Vocal tips

[stevesound]

I'm mixing a record for an acoustic rock band, kinda along the lines of Dave Matthews Band I guess, but with Eddie Vedder as frontman!
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any tricks up their sleeves for vocal mixing. Any tips to make that lead vocal really sparkle??

It all sounds pretty cool already, I used an Audio Technic 4033a for all the lead vocal recording, and it's fairly heavily compressed (4:1), anyone have any compression ratio tips to make the vocal really jump at you? How fast should the attack/release times be??

Apart from compression, it's bussing to a dverb aux.

I haven't done any EQing as of yet....

So what do you all recommend friends??!??

steve

[sdemott]

One of my favorite tricks for making a lead vox bigger is to use a stereo delay (the DigiRack medium delay works fine for this). I calculate the ms delay from the bpm (60000/bpm = ms delay for quarter note). Then I keep halving it until I get just about 30 ms and use that for one side of the stereo delay than half of that (somewhere near 15ms) on the other side of the delay. Bring it up just until you "feel" the vocal get bigger.

So, if you had a tempo of 160 bpm you'd get 23.44ms on one side and 11.72ms on the other.

For EQ I always start with a high pass filter. Just pop the EQ on the track and slowly bring up the high pass frequency until you notice the vocal starts to get thinner, then back off just a bit. Then, if you need more sparkle grab a high shelf and start around 5k with anywhere from +3 to +6 dB gain and adjust the frequency until you get the sparkle without any added sibilance.

If you want to get real detailed, make all your EQ curves baxandal shapes (butterfly wings)- it's more natural to the ear.

And for what it's worth, If you're going to use the Digi EQs, use 2 1-Band plugs, put the HPF before the compressor and the shelving EQ after. You'll get less "ess" if you don't compress the boosted top end.

For compression settings. I use a look-ahead (2ms) for my vox tracks to make the attack of the compressor a little less noticable. The release I find is dependent upon the tempo of the vocal lines (which may or may not be in sync with the tempo of the actual song). If you don't have a compressor with a look-ahead function you can make a copy of the vox track and slide it ahead in time just a couple ms. set the output to an unused stereo pair and then key your vocal compressor to this "early" vocal.

As usual, YMMV. This is what I like and I am suggesting this without actually hearing the vox track or the context in which it's being set.

HTH

[stevesound]

Thanks for that! Nice tips, particularily that formula for delay, I can see myself using that an awful lot in the future!
Nice one

[mikeWW]

Steve,

I do a lot of Vocal recording. I've done quite a bit of a capella recording as well. DVerb will be your worst enemy on vocals. It's really heavy from 250-315 Hz for male vocals. Plus, to me, it's got a tingy, metallic decay - but I guess you get what you (don't) pay for with DVerb.

Don't get me wrong, I've used it a lot in the past. But for vocals, I would opt for a different Verb plug.

-mike

p.s. - I agree with the delay formula. Works like a champ!!

[stevesound]

Mike,
I kinda agree with you about the decay, it's a bit too digital. Any reverb recommendations?? When funds permit I'll probably get some Waves plugs, what do you think of them?
steve

[sdemott]

Mike,
I kinda agree with you about the decay, it's a bit too digital. Any reverb recommendations?? When funds permit I'll probably get some Waves plugs, what do you think of them?
steve

DVerb has it's uses, but vocals aren't their forte. Though, if that's all you have...so be it. Just put a 1 band before it and dip about 311Hz (1 oct bandwith) to make it less muddy.

As far as inexpensive but decent sounding reverbs go, try the WaveArts MasterVerb ($149) or you can get that plus their TrackPlug (console style EQ (up to 10 bands) Compression (LA-2A-ish) and a gate) for $249. I like them both quite a bit. The tails on MasterVerb are smooth.

They have a 30-day trial, and I believe the URL is www.wavearts.com - but I'm not 100% sure of that.

[losttimestudios]

As long as you using the free stuff -- try the bombfactory 1176 plugin on the vocal track. It has the ability to bring the vocal up in the mix of a rock song.

[qgrm]

Spend the time getting a great performance. (and don't be afraid of a little cut and paste:)

[ajazzie]

Try this simple trick, actually lots of people do this.

Duplicate the vocal track, making some radical compression and eq changes to it, then bring up the level under the original to fill it out.(beware of phasing issues)

Delaying from side to side works fine, though tends to take th vocal out of your face alittle in my op, so slap delay helps here(mono).
Dverb, hmmm... good in non linear for drums, not a great vocal verb, Altiverb sounds great for mine.

Antares mic modeler is very handy, as is a good outboard tube compressor, do a search, you will pick up millions of ideas on this subject.

Good luck,

AJ

[R_Somerset]

I bought the Ren collection from waves and am very happy. The RenVerb was a huge improvement over the d-verb. The compressor and eq are nice too.