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Hey guys, I plan on starting a track tonight that will contain some vocal leads. This is going to be different for me as I've never really made a song heavily based on vocals. I will probably have a significant amount of effects on the vocals, so I don't think it will be a conventional trancey house song. In my experience I have used:

- Newtone
- SliceX
- Some basic Reverb
- Delay

I wanted to ask some others here and see what kind of plugins you all use to really make some superb vocals. I plan to records the vocals original with my own voice. I run FL Studio but still want to hear from everyone on any platform.

Thanks

Duplicate your vocal track until you have 5 tracks.

Track 1: Drenched in reverb (use a send for that), inverted phase. Panned center
Track 2: Dry, notch the highs a bit, pitched down between 5 semitones and 12 semitones. Panned center, this one is not needed, it just adds a bit of body to the vocals.
Track 3: Panned Left, slightly delayed in relation to track 4, different eq than the one in track 4.
Track 4: Panned right, auto pitch correction plugin like Nectar or AutoTune going really slow.
Track 5: Reverse it, apply heavy serial compression, reverse it again. Balance this signal with the signal of the other four tracks, like parallel compression.

Maybe a bit of delay to tracks 3 and 4, bus it all together excepet for track 5, add just a bit of reverb to glue stuff together and eq it as a whole.

Wow that makes complete sense and is awesome knowledge. I never even thought to do it this way, but it makes perfect sense.

Thanks man. I'm going to have to get Autotune/Nectar. I've never messed with those before, only Newtone.

So overall, the duplication of the tracks and shooting them left or right by panning truly creates body and size to the vocals. Thanks a whole lot.

All other input would be great too!

Agree with Hircine tbf, pretty much nailed it.

One thing to note, don't be afraid of being heavy handed with EQ (cuts) to get the vox to sit right in your mix.

And don't delay one duplicated channel too much - you end up overshooting the Haas effect and it sounds like shit.

Awesome mthrfnk - Any tips with pitch-work? I do plan to pitch this towards the higher end. I don't want it to be too chip-munky, but in my head I imagine giving it a less human feel and more high end pitch. I imagine if I do this, all 5 tracks would need to have pitch automations that would have to be exactly the same parameters or it would sound like shit.

Yes, avoiding going too high can be hard otherwise it sounds lame as fuck.

You could have things at different pitches (e.g. main right channel +2 semi tones, main right channel -2 semi tones, everything else standard), depends what sounds good. It's probably easier to repitch it first, then bounce and reimport and use that as your base.

Dustwyrm wrote:Awesome mthrfnk - Any tips with pitch-work? I do plan to pitch this towards the higher end. I don't want it to be too chip-munky, but in my head I imagine giving it a less human feel and more high end pitch. I imagine if I do this, all 5 tracks would need to have pitch automations that would have to be exactly the same parameters or it would sound like shit.

The key is layering and making small changes with every track. If you want chip munk-esque vocals, automate a huge notch on the main vocals to make room for a really pitched up layer. Just make sure you eq out all the sizzling around 10khz and maybe boost the 1khz~5khz range and parallel distort / crush it for more high end shimmer.

mthrfnk, data maxima venia, I don't think eqing the track to make it fit is the right thing to do. A vocal driven track should revolve around the vocals so the instrumental should fit around the vocals and not otherwise. But that's just my opinion and personal preference, yours is just as valid. In the end, it's up to OP to decide how to work with the vocals.

Waves have nice plugins which are all in one for vocal processing, sometimes tweaking a preset there does the trick pretty well.
http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=10261
But if you are going to record your voice, nice mic, vocal booth and all that stuff is much more important than processing. Shit in - shit out, you know.

Thanks for all the great input, I'll keep this thread open while I'm creating tonight because it's a lot of great info and insight.

Shitty thing is that I don't have access to a vocal booth. I'm going to do the best I can with my mic at home. I'm really hoping I can EQ some of the buzz or weird sounds out that take place from not having a studio vocal booth. Anyone ever messed around in a non-sound proof home studio with vocal recording? Any tips on that?

@Dustwyrm
"I'm really hoping I can EQ some of the buzz or weird sounds out that take place from not having a studio vocal booth."
It's kinda hard, you'll be cutting both your voice and your recording room, try improvising, there are a lot of guides on how to make a replacement for vocal booth with blankets and stuff.

That's what I thought - The first thing that came to mind is using egg cartons lol. I always see that on movies and stuff, I wonder if it actually works. I'll definitely have to check some stuff online.

Hircine wrote:

Dustwyrm wrote:Awesome mthrfnk - Any tips with pitch-work? I do plan to pitch this towards the higher end. I don't want it to be too chip-munky, but in my head I imagine giving it a less human feel and more high end pitch. I imagine if I do this, all 5 tracks would need to have pitch automations that would have to be exactly the same parameters or it would sound like shit.

The key is layering and making small changes with every track. If you want chip munk-esque vocals, automate a huge notch on the main vocals to make room for a really pitched up layer. Just make sure you eq out all the sizzling around 10khz and maybe boost the 1khz~5khz range and parallel distort / crush it for more high end shimmer.

mthrfnk, data maxima venia, I don't think eqing the track to make it fit is the right thing to do. A vocal driven track should revolve around the vocals so the instrumental should fit around the vocals and not otherwise. But that's just my opinion and personal preference, yours is just as valid. In the end, it's up to OP to decide how to work with the vocals.

I agree tbf, however I always find myself scooping chunks of low end and midrange to help with overall clarity, especially when using saw-based chords underneath.

Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtJg2sgU ... 8g&index=3
I'm not taking the piss, their vocals on those tracks sound legit for the genre.

Dustwyrm wrote:Thanks for all the great input, I'll keep this thread open while I'm creating tonight because it's a lot of great info and insight.

Shitty thing is that I don't have access to a vocal booth. I'm going to do the best I can with my mic at home. I'm really hoping I can EQ some of the buzz or weird sounds out that take place from not having a studio vocal booth. Anyone ever messed around in a non-sound proof home studio with vocal recording? Any tips on that?

You don't need a vocal booth. You need a small bathroom and a piece of foam blocking the back of the mic to reduce the room reflection. If you can, get a condenser microphone. Stay away from the m-audio and presonus usb / entry level ones, they lack high end and have a way too colourful (at least for me) low end. If you can't find a decent priced condenser mic, something like a shure sm58 will be better than going cheap. I can say that all the Krisiun and Dark Funeral vocals recorded in Brazil were either captured in the studio bathroom or in a room with a weird stone wall, no vocal booth business.

Hircine got it covered pretty much. Here's some good videos I watched last night(Professional Mainstream Studio Mix Engineer)



Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5a2mm30pj0



Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdz7G99LPbE

If you could make a square base that's a little bit taller than you and put a shit ton of blankets over them and make a ghetto booth...it will work.

A lot of famous youtube artists do that.

Hircine wrote:Duplicate your vocal track until you have 5 tracks.

Track 1: Drenched in reverb (use a send for that), inverted phase. Panned center
Track 2: Dry, notch the highs a bit, pitched down between 5 semitones and 12 semitones. Panned center, this one is not needed, it just adds a bit of body to the vocals.
Track 3: Panned Left, slightly delayed in relation to track 4, different eq than the one in track 4.
Track 4: Panned right, auto pitch correction plugin like Nectar or AutoTune going really slow.
Track 5: Reverse it, apply heavy serial compression, reverse it again. Balance this signal with the signal of the other four tracks, like parallel compression.

Maybe a bit of delay to tracks 3 and 4, bus it all together excepet for track 5, add just a bit of reverb to glue stuff together and eq it as a whole.

this right here damn, good shit

Yea I agree that Hircine post was l33t

I want to say I'm very surprised to hear everyone's take on how to make a ghetto booth or even use a bathroom. This is awesome advice and very reassuring. I think I will try the bathroom thing. What I'm thinking though is wouldn't a bathroom create like an echo or something?

Dustwyrm wrote:Yea I agree that Hircine post was l33t

I want to say I'm very surprised to hear everyone's take on how to make a ghetto booth or even use a bathroom. This is awesome advice and very reassuring. I think I will try the bathroom thing. What I'm thinking though is wouldn't a bathroom create like an echo or something?

Yeah, that's why you record it in there, it really puts an emphasis on the high end frequencies. You can try a small closet if you want something dry, just play with the reverberation around your house until you find a room where the vocals sound good. I think Les Paul used to record stuff like guitars in the kitchen and vocals in the bathroom. Worry more about capturing the sound, compressing it, riding the fader, stuff like that. Actually recording your vocals rather than using acapellas is a really delicated process.

A nice vocal booth would be a small closet with no windows, put a matress or two on the walls until there's no more reverb in the room. If your walls meet your ceiling in a 90º degree angle, try hanging a blanket from the ceiling to the wall to form a larger angle. Stuff like furniture and paintings on the wall also work as acoustic treatment.

Very interesting stuff; I never knew that my own home had so many 'acoustics' on the wall and everywhere around!

Well from what I understand, Acapella would involved basically singing without any music, correct? And non-acapella would be singing along to the track. Right?

What do you suggest I do for best results?

Dustwyrm wrote:Very interesting stuff; I never knew that my own home had so many 'acoustics' on the wall and everywhere around!

Well from what I understand, Acapella would involved basically singing without any music, correct? And non-acapella would be singing along to the track. Right?

What do you suggest I do for best results?

I was talking about acapella files, the vocal tracks of a certain song. When recording your vocals, send the signals to an auxilary out and connect your closed headphones to those. Balance the levels according to taste. If it's a riddin or a beat, send more drum signal, if it's a melodic piece, send more of whatever is playing the melody and so on.

Great tips again, thanks Hircine. I am probably going to push the beat a bit louder to keep myself in rhythm, but overall keep it pretty low through the headphones. I find if it's too loud I won't be able to hear my own voice well enough. This is going to be a difficult task overall, but I'm excited!