Perhaps more important than spending thousands on a name microphone is finding a mic that suits the singers voice and style. I have used an EV RE20 to great effect, and even an SM58 if suits the voice and track. A cheap mic and a good match can produce results as good as a mismatched Neumann!
Best Wishes
Steve Coates
On 14 Sep 2010, at 18:06, GAmoore@... wrote:
> The sound depends on the microphone too. thats why people spend $10,000
> on an old U47 or C12.
>
> Re autotune - try to use different amounts on different parts of the
> track - not just one setting for the whole thing. you can bring the
> audio up and put it on several parallel tracks, and then put a
> different setting on each.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregory Anderson <glists@...>
> To: Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tue, Sep 14, 2010 9:29 am
> Subject: Re: [Logic_Cafe] Tips for improving vocals?
>
>
> I did not get very far on capturing that sound. I know that reverb
> does not play much of a role in it. It's striking when I listen to
> CD's from the 70's and 80's and hear how much reverb was on the vocals
> back then. You don't hear any of that on today's pop.
>
> What I'm wrestling with right now is pitch-correction. The "auto-tune"
> effect is very prominent in all the vocals I hear, but I'm having
> trouble getting the same sound. I think it's because I'm using Logic's
> own Pitch Correction tool, which is only automatic, vs. AT, which has a
> graphical mode where the target pitch is assigned, rather than
> determined algorithmically. When I set it for a slow response time
> (100ms), I can't hear any difference in the vocals at all. I think you
> need a really fast response time to generate the noticeable artifacts
> that are the new "normal" in contemporary recordings. However, when I
> set it fast enough to hear the effect, it then catches my vibrato and
> turns it into a trill!
>
> I don't know if I heard it on this list or elsewhere, but singing
> really close into a dynamic mic for the proximity effect was a good tip
> and has resulted in something a little closer to what I am looking for.
> But I have a long way to go!
>
> Gregory
>
> On Aug 18, 2010, at 3:09 PM, Andy Brook wrote:
>
> > This was a message from Greg on a similar topic to the current one
> on
> > delay and reverb in vocals, and I was wondering if you ever found
> out
> > how to produce the sound that is made in Glee? (By the way, I had
> no
> > idea what Glee was when you posted. Since then its been a big hit
> in
> > the UK)
> >
> > Andy Brook
> >
> > On 18 Dec 2009, at 23:09, Gregory Anderson wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On Dec 18, 2009, at 6:15 AM, HKC wrote:
> >>> so you'd be hard pressed to find a more
> >>> difficult task if that's your goal.
> >>
> >> Well thank you, Debbie Downer!
> >>
> >>> I doubt that EQ will do it if you don't like the actual
> sound of
> >>> your voice
> >>
> >> But seriously, I am curious that the only response that
> mentioned EQ
> >> was this one. I am in a similar situation to Andy's and have
> been
> >> focusing mainly on EQ to get that contemporary pop vocals
> sound.
> >> Maybe Andy and I have very different goals for our voices, as
> I have
> >>; a very big voice that does well in barbershop and broadway
> style
> >;> music, but doesn't play well in pop (forget rock!). But
> >> descriptively, I would use similar terminology ("thin") to
> contrast
> >> my voice with what I want.
> >>
> >> Pardon my geekdom here, but an example would be the singing in
> the TV
> >> show Glee. It's really striking how much processing is
> involved in
> >> the singing voices, and it sounds very jarring when they go
> from
> >> speaking right into singing, because the speaking sounds fairly
> >> natural and the singing sounds WAYYYYYYY Y processed. But I
> don't
> >> know what processing is involved. While the girls mostly have
> >> exceptional voices, the guys seem to have fairly mediocre
> singing
> >;> voices, but the processing makes them sound very fat,
> compressed and
> >> "in your face". So my thinking is - Hey! I have a mediocre
> singing
> >> voice! Maybe I could sound like that too!
> >>
> >> Here's a cut up 24-second audio example of the transition from
> >> speaking to singing that I find so jarring in the show.
> >>
> >> http://brokenpick.net/myfiles_files/Mattress.mp3
> >>
> >> What is it that is being done to the singing that is so
> noticeable?
> >> The closest I've come to involves two layers of compression and
> >> channel EQ with Low cut at 240 and High shelf at 2800, and
> pitch
> >> correction. When I run a match EQ on my voice using boyband
> vocals
> >> as a source, it sounds horrid and is just a massive high
> frequency
> >> gain and low frequency dropoff. Duane mentioned utilizing the
> >> proximity effect, which sounds on the money, and I have not
> tried
> >> that yet.
> >>
> >> Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I find it very
> interesting,
> >> and have been meaning to seek advice for some time now, so any
> >> discussion would be greatly appreciated.
> >>
> >> Gregory
> >>
> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]Message
Re: [Logic_Cafe] Tips for improving vocals?
2010-09-14 by Steve Coates