How in the hell do the pro's get such a larger than life sound with everything?

[wkoz]

Not an expert but one thing I noticed a lot on the web are unmastered tracks. If you have a good foundation, mix and seperation mastering should be the final step in the process. I do home recording and have my tracks mastered by someone who knows what they are doing (abount $45 per song).

[bighud]

Anberlin was engineered by Aaron Sprinkle...who is pretty dang good at what he does. I am pretty sure they used for vocals a Soundelux(or Bock) 251, which is pretty dang expensive...going through who knows what pres and eq. So the gear is amazing. Anberlin live, is as good/if not better than their albums. So the TIGHT band is there. Mike Shipley mixed the album, and he does amazing work. That is the secret...incredibly talented people doing their best work with amazing tools.

 

That said, parallel compression and blending in doubles will make your vocals sound much better(in terms of thick). I find that delays(when used well) are your friend in making vocals thick.

 

Good luck!!

[UstadKhanAli]

Phil has the Soundelux 251, and it is indeed a great quality microphone.

 

A lot of large sounding vocals do have a fair amount of compression, but they are using really top-notch compressors, so even at heavy compression settings, the audio is not thinning.

 

On a smaller scale, the RNC has Super Nice Mode, which is a surprisingly nice sounding setting that places three compressors in series, which obviously greatly reduces artifacts. I use this for vocals and bass quite often.

 

Also, the first line of "compression" is the vocalist. A good vocalist will "work the mic", moving in for softer, more intimate passages, and turning/moving the head or pulling farther away for loud or intense passages. It's almost an artform in itself, and far more effective than simply slapping a compressor on and saying, "Let's throw down!!"

[wwwjd]

 

Yeah. You ever thought of writing an article on achieving a great big large vocal sound? "Compress. Limit. Done."

 

 

no. material short.

[guit30]

I think people take mastering for granted, there are only about 10 GREAT mastering engineers in the country and their students, I was shocked at the difference a mastering engineer did to a single that I sent him, He actually put it back into analog , mastered it and put it back into digital, it sounded incredible. I didn't like what he did first, so He said, I will give it the big Song treatment

Jim

[newlyformedmind]

 

I think people take mastering for granted, there are only about 10 GREAT mastering engineers in the country and their students, I was shocked at the difference a mastering engineer did to a single that I sent him, He actually put it back into analog , mastered it and put it back into digital, it sounded incredible. I didn't like what he did first, so He said, I will give it the big Song treatment Jim

 

 

Jim,

Would you mind passing on the information of the guy who mastered your single that you were so happy with. What did he charge if I may ask? I'm going to need 5 songs mastered in the next month here or so. I saw your post on my thread and thought I'd ask. Take care,

Jimmy

[guit30]

You know, he was going to charge 70 dollars, and I was going to pay it, but he didn't charge me anything, because he was so busy and took so long. The thing I liked was the analog tube compression used broadband on my my whole track, it's actually the track in my sig which is a compressed mp3 version of it, but you might get the idea. He had sent me a quick pro tools job and I didn't like it, so that's when He got ou the trube compressor

Jim

www.johnvestman.com

[3red]

payola to the devil