That old vocal sound.

[the_dr38]

Can anyone please tell me a technique I could use to achieve that old fashioned vocal sound. I don't really know how to explain what I mean but I have a sound in my head of what it is, I suppose 70's kind of analogue classic sound. Anyone have any ideas??? Sorry for the unclearness

Thanks

L.Dudley

[Shan]

Can anyone please tell me a technique I could use to achieve that old fashioned vocal sound. I don't really know how to explain what I mean but I have a sound in my head of what it is, I suppose 70's kind of analogue classic sound. Anyone have any ideas??? Sorry for the unclearness

Thanks

L.Dudley

Name a few songs that we can use for reference and then I'm sure many of us can tell you exactly how to get it.

Shane

[the_dr38]

Well the kinda style I Mean.

Johnny Ray - Cry, Somebody stole my gal, Just walking in the rain, Gla drag doll, Candy Lips
Otis Redding - Sitting on the dock of the bay
Jimi Hendrix - All along the watch tower, voodoo child, hey joe
The Doors - Light my fire

Some of the modern day acts I like for their vocal sound which is slightly different but in the same ballpark I'd say:

The Strokes - Reptilia
The Bravery - Honest Mistake

Maybe the latter two are just using distortion or other FX.

However the old ones I def would like to know. I hope this makes it clear.

Thanks

[lemix]

That is a well guarded secret..

[superpenguin79]

That is a well guarded secret..

the_dr38: for that sort of stuff, T-racks comes in handy with the filters and EQ to emulate the old style mics. Another deal would be to simply score an old style mic and run it through some form of tube based pre-amp which will give it that warmth/distorted texture a bit. Also, sometimes different effects might work for things of this sort, but that is where I would suggest starting for starters. goodluck

[sgladm]

in addition to a million other things, some of the tracks you mentioned use a short delay on the vox, maybe around 120-130ms.

[Cliffy_Boy]

U47-1073-1176 period. As stated above, a slight delay.

[rockrev]

McDSP Analog Channel AC2 (tape emulation) has filter options and tape saturation options. That and a little optical compression (like the Waves RenComp) and a vintage EQ (URS, Waves RenEQ) before it should do the trick. Overall, you'll hear the most desired "effect" from AC2. In fact, you may not need much more than that.

Oh, effects would also play a role. Slap delays and vintage reverbs would be a start. Try the "Slap Elvis" effect in Waves SuperTap 2 and some basic hall/room settings in Waves RenVerb.

rockrev

[Shan]

I agree with Rockrev. McDSP will get you close to the 'tape' sound. I would also start with a 'chamber' preset on your verb. 'Light my fire' sounds like a real chamber for the verb but it may be a spring reverb. A good IR style reverb should have some convincing 'chamber' sounds. You might also want to add a bit of vinyl sound for that extra touch.

Izotope Vinyl is cool and free.

Tape delays also come to mind. You can imitate these buy using the stock Digi delay on an Aux channel and putting McDSP AC 2(Tape emulation) after it. I wouldnt use the feedback on the delay plugin though. I would create a send and bus this to the input of the aux channel itself. Then the number of 'repeats' would be controlled by the send fader. In this way, each delay repeat gets a little more degraded with each pass.


The best approach would be to find out what was actually used and then imitate it with your plugins. And of course if you could find out the exact mic and pre combination etc and actually use them if possible, then you would even get closer to that sound.

Shane

[rockrev]

Vinyl is definitely cool, and I used it several times on my latest project. I've tried the tape loop trick too. The thing is, it always crashed my session for some strange reason. So instead I simply roll the highs off of my delays (aux of course) and in the mix it seems to be about the same (so long as the mix is busy). I'm guessing that the crash may be unique to my setup and/or simply more stable on a TDM system.

rockrev