Breathy Vocals

[Lue]

I am trying to add a phone/radio effect to breathy vocals.

After I add the effect it sounds very muffled. Is it because the vocals are so breathy/airy? or is it due to my inexperience?

Is there a way to make the vocals sound more clear and still have the phone/old radio effect on them?

I'd like the vocals to sound professional, like how a vocals in a normal song would sound. Maybe something like the Gorillaz music?

Any advice appreciated.

[amagras]

Try adding an insane amount of compression after the filters and I mean INSANE

[briaboy]

Or use plugins - Soundtoys etc.

[musicman691]

McDSP Futzbox

[Lue]

Originally Posted by amagras

Try adding an insane amount of compression after the filters and I mean INSANE

Thank you for your feedback.
I tried doing this but it just made everything louder. Including the muffled vocals. I may be doing it wrong though.

I just googled what compression is and it seems to be making the volume of the vocals all the same. This isn't really an issue with volume, it's airy/breathy all the way through. The volume is pretty solid throughout.

This is more about - is it possible to make the vocals sound less breathy. But I'm not realizing that these EQ settings (the radio settings) might just not match up with breathiness/airyness in general. It brings them out, and only them.

So bringing up the volume on all vocals equally won't make them less breathy, it'll just make everything the same volume. Which isn't really the point of this question. It's more to do with can I even add the radio EQ effect on airy/breathy vocals or is it just going to cut all the parts where the singer isn't breathy ... anyway, I don't think the issue here is compression. I think that there just can't be this radio effect on these vocals. It's just highlighting the breathiness and I don't think compression can help this issue.

I think that maybe to make it less breathy I need to cut the mid range rather than enhance it in EQ. This will get rid of the radio effect but it might just be pointless right now.

Please feel free to correct me as I'm completely new to this and may be doing it wrong.

[Lue]

Originally Posted by musicman691

McDSP Futzbox

Hello. I'm using the Kings Microphone and Kramer Tape plugins.
I've heard other people use them nicely, but it doesn't work well for me.

Do you think that the breathiness in the vocals are mainly in the mid-range frequencies and that the radio effect is just amplifying the breathiness while cutting the more clear vocals in the high and bottom range? Is this why breathy vocals sound so muddy with the radio effect? Or is it because I'm new to pro tools and aren't doing the settings correctly? I'm really new to all of this so I'm just guessing and trying to learn on my own at the moment.

[amagras]

Every track is different. Use an EQ instead.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Lue

Hello. I'm using the Kings Microphone and Kramer Tape plugins.
I've heard other people use them nicely, but it doesn't work well for me.

Do you think that the breathiness in the vocals are mainly in the mid-range frequencies and that the radio effect is just amplifying the breathiness while cutting the more clear vocals in the high and bottom range? Is this why breathy vocals sound so muddy with the radio effect? Or is it because I'm new to pro tools and aren't doing the settings correctly? I'm really new to all of this so I'm just guessing and trying to learn on my own at the moment.

It depends on where the breathiness is coming from - is it in the singer's singing? If so there's a couple of things that need to be done. First is get a pop filter in front of the microphone. Second change the mic used. Not everyone's voice can be recorded with the same mic - every mic has a different sound and that's why studios have multiple mics available to them. What mic are you using?

If the recorded vocal is clean then ditch the King's Microphone and Kramer Tape. The Kramer Tape plugin is finicky as to the signal being fed to it as well as it's settings. As has been said to you many times you really need to get a good grounding in the basics of audio recording and what different effects do.

What is this 'radio effect' you are talking about? Is it one where the highs and lows are limited to sound like an old AM radio?

[Lue]

Originally Posted by musicman691

It depends on where the breathiness is coming from - is it in the singer's singing? If so there's a couple of things that need to be done. First is get a pop filter in front of the microphone. Second change the mic used. Not everyone's voice can be recorded with the same mic - every mic has a different sound and that's why studios have multiple mics available to them. What mic are you using?

If the recorded vocal is clean then ditch the King's Microphone and Kramer Tape. The Kramer Tape plugin is finicky as to the signal being fed to it as well as it's settings. As has been said to you many times you really need to get a good grounding in the basics of audio recording and what different effects do.

What is this 'radio effect' you are talking about? Is it one where the highs and lows are limited to sound like an old AM radio?

Like what I said in the beginning a sound similar to the gorillaz. The main vocalist has that kind of radio/telephone effect on the vocals.
It's the singers voice. The actual singers voice is breathy in real life. The breathiness is fine, I don't mind it. The vocals just sound like they don't belong because they are so unclear and muddy.

I've tried EQ, compression, and d-verb, watched buttloads of tutorials.. Just to give you an idea I've been working on just the vocals for 2 weeks with a minimum of 10 hours a day purely working on the vocals. I'm doing my best to put in the time but no matter what, even if I take off the telephone effect the vocals just sound unclear and muddy.. I'm not sure how to phrase it. It just doesn't sound professional.

I know for a fact that people can make even the crappiest mics sound good because some people even use ipads and phones to record music and vocals
and they somehow manage to still make it sound professional - even if it's distorted.

I don't mind if it sounds distorted or breathy in any way. It just overall always, no matter what I try, sounds unprofessional. Like it doesn't fit in the song. I've even tried different singers. It's definitely my lack of skill. I'm not too sure on what else to try when I feel like I've covered all the basics and even more advanced tutorials I could possibly find online.

A good song example that the audio was recorded on a phone is "White Light" even though it's clearly distorted it just "fits" in the song.. I just don't know how else to explain it. No matter what I do, the vocals .. any vocals I put in don't "fit"

[briaboy]

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-m...-gorrliaz.html


https://www.reddit.com/r/gorillaz/co..._voice_effect/