Setting the Lead Vocal with Harbal

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Re: Setting the Lead Vocal with Harbal

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spunkymunkey wrote:For me getting the lead vocal at the right volume for every song has been very perplexing. After much experimentation what I do now is do a mixdown of all rythm tracks, bass and drums in mono. I then mix down the lead vocal track which is in mono already. I use harbal and compare the volumes of the 2 tracks. I then take the numbers and go back and set the lead vocal 3.1 db over the mix. I then set the lead instruments based on the lead vocal. Is it the way to do things?, i'm not sure but my point is I can't waste days and days getting the vocal exactly where I want it and also I want the lead vocals to be the same on each track volume wise. I also match volumes between bass and drums with harbal.


Please read the article below. It may prove to be helpful

Tracking and Mixing Vocals
Brian Redmond
4|2|2003


The market for vocal recording and mixing tools is huge, and some of them are worth the money. However, interesting and great sounding vocals can be accomplished using the most basic resources; a good ear and some creativity.

Tracking
The first step in attaining great sounding vocals is getting down good material to work with. The two major parts to this are actually singing something you like and applying creativity in recording the tracks. When tracking, I recommend tracking without any effects. The vocals should be laid down completely dry and you should be able to tolerate the tracks before you cover them up with flange and distortion. If you can stand the way it sounds dry, you can use effects to set the mood of the track and fit it in with the music. Trying to work with a sub par vocal track strongly limits your ability to be creative with it, and instead you're stuck with whatever effects mask the crappiness the best.

As for the technical aspect of recording the track, setting your preamp for a good strong signal without clipping and trying to minimize background noise (such as not recording in the same room as your computer) should be some things to aim for.

For the main vocal, singing close and right into the mic is probably going to be appropriate for maximum presence. If a Shure SM-58 is all you have, it's certainly workable, but an investment in a large diaphragm condenser mic will make a noticeable difference. SM-58s are both noisy and very dull in the high end. Some considerations for $500 or less include CAD Equitek, AKG C-Series, and Event Rode. A condenser will capture the high end in your vocal and make it stand out.

A trick to fatten up your vocals is with a small diaphragm condenser or two. A very affordable pair of Oktavas can be purchased for $200. Set up the main vocal mic and then point the pair of condensers at the walls in front of you. These will catch the immediate echoes of your voice called early reflections. With a bit of EQ, delay and possibly some compression, you can mix these echoes in with the main mic for a much fuller sound. No matter what kind of room you're recording in, this always sounds better than the early reflections on any digital reverb.

Finally, be creative with your approach to backing vocals and to record them differently than the main vocals, especially if the main vocalist recording both parts. Vocals recorded with the same mic, in the same room, at the same distance are going to sound similar and be difficult to mix. If you record the main vocals in the living room, try doing the backing ones in the kitchen with a different mic. Also, don't be afraid to stand further back from the mic, even across the room. You might even try pointing the mic at a wall or standing in a corner. If the vocals are recorded differently, then they will sound distinct from one another before even getting near the effects and will again leave more room for creativity.

Cleaning
From here on, I'm going to assume you've got some really good vocal takes to work with. Before I even get started with the fun stuff, I like to make sure I have the tracks sounding good and clean. The first problem I look for is plosives, or the P and B problem. When a singer uses P's and B's, a big puff of air comes out and usually hits the mic, making a bass-heavy, kind of kick drum noise. The best way to avoid this is if the singer can simply turn slightly to one side when they've got one coming up so that big puff of air passes to the side of the mic. Even still, a few are going to get through. While you can set up a multiband compressor to catch these, if you're not on a clock, I recommend minimizing them by hand. To do this, scan through the track and zoom in on each one. With just the pop selected, apply an EQ that cuts by about 6db or so below 300Hz or whatever sounds the best. If you catch it right, the nastiness will be greatly reduced without cutting the low end from the rest of the track.

Next, scan through the track looking for any large dynamics such as certain words sung unnaturally loud or where the vocalist might have turned away from the mic. Select these parts and change the volume by up to 3db to smooth things out a bit. Finally, chop out any sections where there are no vocals.

FX Creation
Before you dive straight into putting on heavy distortion or some such thing, take a second to think about what kind of song you're working on. Do you want to make the vocals distant or in-your-face, full or thin, cold or lush and huge? How the vocals are processed can change the whole feel of a song. Take into account the music, the lyrics and to be reasonable, audience expectation.
The first pitfall to avoid is putting one effect on for the whole song, especially a dramatic one. If you sit down with a few of your favorite CDs, chances are what you'll find is vocal effects used conservatively and subtly. Any constant effect loses its affect very quickly. Also, effects don't have to be complicated. Some of the simplest work the best:

Compression: Learning to use compression the right way can take years, but using it the wrong way can sound so much cooler. Setting high ratios and slow attack and release times can make a vocal more aggressive than distortion and add an intense presence all without obscuring it.

Noise gates: Noise gates can give extremely interesting effects when set to act fast. Try recording back from the mic a bit to get alot of room sound or add a reverb before the gate and then add heavy compression or light distortion after for an aggressive effect.

EQ: Getting too crazy with extreme EQ can cause problems with mixing, but cranking the mids or highs unnaturally can really work well on some vocals. A very light chorus followed by compression after some creative EQ can make for nice backing vocals. Another approach is to chain compression->EQ->compression. A good amount of compression is usually recommended for following odd EQ'ings.

On the other hand, a great approach is to layer several effects subtly and to create morphing effects. The beauty of computer based recording is that a vocal track can be copied several times with separate effects applied to each copy and then conservatively mixed with the original. For example, you might apply a heavy chorus effect with heavy compression to a copy of the main vocal, pan it slightly to one side and mix it back in quietly. Then, apply delay and thin EQ to another copy and pan it to the other side.

Additionally, you can automate these tracks to fade up at certain parts where the music is sparse and possibly pan them out further to widen the sound of the vocal. This approach can add depth and interest to a vocal without obscuring it because the original clean vocal keeps whole thing anchored.

Mixing
Mixing is a huge subject which is difficult to try to explain partially because there is no one right approach. However, I have a list of my own tricks which I think are worth trying.

Number one, trying to fit vocals into a mix where there hasn't been space made just isn't going to work. For me this means moving midrange elements of the mix out of the middle and thinning them out a bit with EQ. Most often we're talking about guitar and some keyboards, especially distorted ones. Thick sounds like hihats can also clutter up to the center area. These things don't have to be hard panned, but some panning will help.

I start with the main vocal panned to the center. Solo the vocal and take a good listen to the lowest area. If you're hearing any rumbling or other excessive things going on in the bass area, put an EQ on and apply a low shelving EQ or high pass filter to get rid of that stuff because even though it may not be very audible, any compression you apply will be fooled by it and pull down the vocal level unnecessarily. You shouldn't need to go above 120Hz at the most.

Next, take a listen to the very high end. Try putting on a high shelving EQ and boosting above 4k. You might not be used to listening in this area, but what you should be able to hear is that the vocal will sound more intelligible and more present. If you recorded with an inexpensive mic, you might try using an exciter before the EQ. An exciter actually creates high frequencies related to what's on the track to make up for what your mic wasn't able to record. If you have a dull sounding mic, all boosting the highs with an EQ will do is boost noise.

At this point, unsolo the vocal. Any other adjustments you make should be while you're listening to the track in the mix. You can add a little EQ in the midrange and compression to taste, but you shouldn't need too much because we've done such a good job with the vocals so far. You can of course add in those vocals layers we talked about in the last section at this point. Once you've done that, we tackle the backing vocals.

The trick with backing vocals is to keep them in the back and not to take the spotlight off the lead vocal. Your instinct might be to apply really heavy effects to obscure them or just to turn them down, but this isn't the magic trick and often backfires. Coating them with reverb rarely works either. If you tracked them differently than the lead vocals, they may just fit right in. If this isn't the case, though, you have a few options.

First, think about the concept of backing vocals. If a backing vocalist were actually standing behind the vocalist, there would be a very slight time delay between them. Placing a full wet delay of just a couple milliseconds on the backing vocal is often enough to slide them right into place, but not nearly enough to sound out of time with the song.

Another option is to take the same high frequencies that we boosted for the lead vocal to give it presence and cut them a bit. Use a high shelving EQ to roll the frequencies above 2k down a little bit and the attention will come back to the lead vocal. Finally, widening the backing vocal can work well. To do this, pan the original to one side and then pan a slightly delayed copy to the other. Choruses usually have an option to pan out the delays is uses and can be used for this. My favorite DirectX plugin for creating small delays is called SampleSlide and can be downloaded for free from http://www.analogx.com.
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