Tips to approximating certain vocal recordings

[Phait]

Ok, I know the initial answer:

 

"hard to say since we don't know what microphone/mic setup/room they're using" -- but (there's always one, isn't there?

 

 

[Synonym Music]

Second example uses a little mono reverb and mono 1/8 note delays on certain words (via automation). Delays are definitely low passed - notice that you can't discern exactly the words that they are articulating but rely on the phrase that they repeat to tell you. The plate is probably an insert post-delays.

 

First example is double/triple/quadruple tracking etc with a short plate that extends around center and left of center (think of a "U"). Nothing with a long time at all - a very succinct sound.

[Phait]

Man you seem to have quite the ear for things, esp. for streaming-grade audio. I'll have to toy around with these things, thanks

[IceBryce]

No kidding what an answer.

[newlyformedmind]

 

Second example uses a little mono reverb and mono 1/8 note delays on certain words (via automation). Delays are definitely low passed - notice that you can't discern exactly the words that they are articulating but rely on the phrase that they repeat to tell you. The plate is probably an insert post-delays. First example is double/triple/quadruple tracking etc with a short plate that extends around center and left of center (think of a "U"). Nothing with a long time at all - a very succinct sound.

 

 

Since you have a great ear, could you tell me what fx are on Three Days Grace's Pain, and/or Crossfade's song Cold. I love it whatever it is

[Synonym Music]

 

Since you have a great ear, could you tell me what fx are on Three Days Grace's Pain, and/or Crossfade's song Cold. I love it whatever it is

 

Pain seems like a variation of typical filter vox (bandpassed). They're putting the cutoff point a little lower, closer to maybe 1400 Hz, and compressing the bejeezus out of it afterwards in a leveling manner. The filter helps make the voice seem more forward because the middle frequencies are most important for discerniblity to the human ear - this is definitely not to say others are unimportant, far from it, but if you think of a telephone conversation, what frequency range are you hearing most? And while you may not be listening to great fidelity, can you usually make out what the other person is saying? Oftentimes yes.. So we don't need a great deal of frequency content to discern coherent speech, and when those frequencies are boosted (or in this case, the high and low end are attenuated), they tend to pop out at us a little more, and seem more aggressive or insistent. What about high end? You have to boost that quite a bit before it gets really aggravating unless your source is very bright already. Low end? You could probably boost that till it clipped the stereo buss.

 

The compression is not for a specific character. It's to flatten the dynamics and make the breaths more apparent. The "C" consonants reveal this immediately.

 

Another revelation is that Chris Lord-Alge mixed the record (or maybe it's not revelatory; it sure sounded like him before I looked the credits up on Allmusic). There's a preset for the Waves SSL Channel plugin - "CLA Filter Vox" - that gets in the vicinity of the sound on Pain. He basically cuts everything above ~3200 Hz and below ~350 HZ, and then boosts +9 dB @ 1500 Hz and +9 dB @ 2500 Hz with a moderately narrow Q. Then he slams it with an ?:1 ratio (limiting), fastest attack and fastest release.

 

It's just bandpassing and boosting where you want, then compressing hard to make everything pop out at the listener. I thought the Pain sound accentuated frequencies a little closer to the low mids, but the effect seems to follow this technique very closely. It's also worthy of note that the SSL channel takes a lot of extreme tweaking to make the EQ sound ringy or resonant, which is something lesser EQs bring out quickly (especially parametrics with poor phase coherency). Finally, the SSL channel added a tiny amount of distortion that helped the EQ section sound less plastic, but it seemed to be a question of taste rather than anything that "made the sound."

 

The doubled verse sections use a duplicate filtered vox and/or bypass automation on a chorus effect. I tried using a flanger, but it sounded to metallic and modal because of the feedback. The chorus has a high depth (the frequency range of LFO oscillation) because there's a good amount of detune.

[Synonym Music]

Cold is a double with a 16th note delay.

 

There's a lot to be said for tightly double and triple tracking vocals. There aren't any mixing tricks that will fully replace that; you have to phrase and breathe and control vibrato as closely to the original as possible.

[newlyformedmind]

Cold is a double with a 16th note delay. There's a lot to be said for tightly double and triple tracking vocals. There aren't any mixing tricks that will fully replace that; you have to phrase and breathe and control vibrato as closely to the original as possible.

 

See it's about {censored}in time that someone says some pro vocals are doubled or tripled. I personally double everything and some things do triple track. It takes a long damn time for me at least to nail the double. Plenty of comping and repeat takes if you want it right. Again, this is in my experience. Thank you both for showing me these tricks. I'm going to try both of what you guys said.

 

I do have the SSL channel plugin so I will go for the filter setting you were talking about. Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate it.

[Synonym Music]

A great example of a slightly off double vocal is Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing". The entire thing is (at least) double tracked with some harmonies going in and out of the chorus, and it's very obvious.

 

But maybe that's a bad thing; maybe not. Sheik can be a little pitchy if you listen to his other work - this could be the reason. It could've been a creative choice - another reason. It could be both, though I find it difficult to imagine the song without the "iffy" double (and that's iffy for a professional.. There are far worse degrees of questionable takes in demo recording purgatory!)