Approaching fry vocals when recording

M

Michiel

New Metal Member
Jun 29, 2012
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Hi there

Thanks again on the drum tips, just waiting to hear back from the sponsor on the request and will then post the choices etc. My next dillema is fry vocals. My usual chain seems to be inefficient at capturing the performance properly. I usually go B1 with 57 Dub (and Aligned) through DBX166XL and a tad bit of filtered distortion for anything metal. The problem is that because the voice is so soft, esses are naturally 10 times louder and any pre saturation from my 610 ends up creating a speakerphone effect. I've tried off center MIC placement 2 pop filters at once, heavy deessing before post saturation and after. The tonal quality of the voice just isn't there. Any suggestions or advice from you guys would be amazing and greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Michiel
 
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Have the vocalist actually scream and project? 0_o

I tend to hand em' an SM58 and let em' do their usual cup the mic and fry away. With some heavy compression and touch of saturation with a little verb is about all you can do. Double tracking will beef it up if they are decent with staying in time, but really weak vox in will always be a pain to get sounding powerful.
 
:lol:Haha! good one BURNY!

I've been trying to hammer projection into his skull, but the client complains about the strain on his voice, he goes no louder than a person talking to another. I'll try a few dynamic mics and get him to do it all natural. Thanks for the tip man.

Kind regards

Michiel
 
Ugh that is a tough one. I usually have more problems with the Puhs and Buhs than the SSS. But typically it is with guys that "have" to hold the mic.

Anyway if you think about what a de-esser is, it is just a side-chain compressor.

So I would probably not compress on the way in. I typically don't. Go with an SM58 and let them do their thing. Then dial in side-chains with an EQ to bring out the problem frequencies with heavy compression and carefully dialed attack/release times.

Then EQ and compress to taste. Usually for something like this, it is cleaning up the nasally mids, and adding highs to make it more airy. I typically will use RVox, since it has additional gating and super heavy compression which adds additional help.

Good luck!
 
You're kinda fucked man bc whispers will always be whispers no matter what you do. Vocals are just something you can't do tricks to to make up for a bad performance. If you do let the singer hold the mic up close be sure to use a HP to compensate for the proximity effect. If esses are really popping out that much you may need to go in and manually edit those esses down to size.
 
I swear your 1st post didn't make sense to me at all either and I probably looked like burny's post :lol:

I think when it's "that" bad there is no other choice than manually edit the fuck out of the performance. If even with this it sounds like crap, then something is wrong in the singer himself and he has to learn how to sing differently.

I love the strong esses though, in some ambiant songs. I find sometimes than exaggerating the esses, with delays and reverb, can give character to a vocal line, like you're playing with it. It's not desirable in a general context though.
 
:lol:All good Lesedna, i get that it wont make sense, cooped up in a studio talking to students all day gets your mind racing and its hard to formulate a proper question. I R RETARD! Anycase, had a long conversation with him regarding the vox, could not change his mind one bit as he's always done it that way. Got a heads up from another guy who reccomends a really cheap dynamic Prodipe dt11, sounds like shit on its own, but seems to work quite well in the mix, he gave me some rough tracks and it sounds very impressive. I tried manually bringing the esses down to size but now it feels like a patch job trying to fix fuckups, kind of pissed off with myself more than anything else. gonna try a different approach, just booked a new session with him. thanks so much for the advice, really love this forum!:worship:
 
I've learned my lesson the hard way...If the vocalist hasn't given a good performance, there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
 
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