Breathy Vocals or Jars of Clay.

[Princeton]

I'm currently finishing up a contemporary christian album for a band called "Eyeris" I hope to start mixing next week. These guys have requested the some effects they heard on a Jars of Clay CD. Has anyone done a mix with a very breathy vocal, close to a whisper and what plugins do you use to achieve that effect.

[stut5]

I think that is probably more of a vocal technique than an effect.Maybe some chorus and a long wet reverb together might give you an airy quality. Stu

[Aussie169]

Gee, I've never attempted it or heard the CD you mentioned, but I would think that it would be a singing technique to be done firstly by the talent whilst tracking before it's a mixing technique.
Just my uneducated thoughts [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Mark

[Princeton]

I've tried to capture the vocal with the artist giving his best impression of a breathy vocal, I was just wondering if someone knows of a particular plugin that would enhance the vocal to produce that effect.

[Aussie169]

jinx stu [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[recordingguy]

Which song and CD from Jars of Clay are they talking about? I might be able to help you.

[darrylnb]

my impression has been that the talent is close to the mic to start, so you begin by picking up a lot of breath. the "jars" vocalist sound doesn't have a lot of bottom or 'body' to it. so, either he doesn't have it, or they roll it off. then, lots of work with a good compressor, to bring the peaks down to raise the lower level sounds (breath) up. mic choice would be fairly important as well. many of the high-end mics used to record pop these days (Neumann et al) emphasize the frequencies breath is found in. my Studio Projects C1 seems to do that quite effectively (at a tenth the price) i've compared it to a few other mics and found that the Shure KSM44 is even brighter/crisper than the C1. would love to compare it to a U87 someday.

good luck,

darryl

[Ke productions]

I like to use a technique called stacking. I'll lay maybe two or three soft vocal tracks and then lay two or three "whisper" tracks where the artist actually WHISPERS on the track. Then I'll either pan them left and right raising the whisper tracks a little higher in the mix or pan them center and raise the whisper tracks higher. It's always worked for me fine (although I may be waay off base since I haven't heard the Jars of Clay CD you're talikng about [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ).

Hope this helps.

[Bloux]

All great ideas posted,

I agree with Ke productions. I've sang plenty of whisper tracks similar to how he mentioned.

George Michael was/is the king of using whisper tracks. He's been doing this since his Wham days "Careless Wisper" If you ever pick up his solo album "Listen Without Prejudice" fantastic songwriting/production, and vintage "airy/breathy" vocals.

[Princeton]

I'm using a Audio Technica 4047 Mic, and I had it placed an inch away from his mouth. He gave his best performance of a whisper. I'll try a few other whisper tracks with some compression.