Clean vocals on one track..... Screams on another

[ApolloSpeed]

Ok, I hope this is the perfered method, the singer wanted to focus on clean vocals and scream parts individually..... so we did all clean vocals on one track and now we are currently recording the screams on another track.

But, when I start mixing it, I've heard it is good to keep vocals nicely compressed, slight reverb, and panned "dead center"!

But does the same apply to scream parts ?

Should I apply any doubling or stereo technique?

Any other tricks or FXs to use ?

 

[KeithRT99]

i tend to only use one track with screaming vocals, but you can double low - death growls and it works pretty well.

 

[gumplunger]

Ok, I hope this is the perfered method, the singer wanted to focus on clean vocals and scream parts individually..... so we did all clean vocals on one track and now we are currently recording the screams on another track.

But, when I start mixing it, I've heard it is good to keep vocals nicely compressed, slight reverb, and panned "dead center"!

But does the same apply to scream parts ?

Should I apply any doubling or stereo technique?

Any other tricks or FXs to use ?

I'll be the first to say it: there are no rules.

As general guidelines, you'll probably want to compress the screaming a bit more than you would for singing, and reverb may not be of much use - you'll have to use your ears on that one.

Some screamers can get away with one take, some need doubling or beyond to get their voice to the desired thickness. As to panning, the most common treatments are straight down the middle or panned around 75% each side.

Stay far, far away with fake doublers and nudging (hell, stay away from nudging in particular always).

And yes, most of the time the screaming and singing are recorded on separate tracks, often with separate mics. A lot of the time people will use a dynamic with good low end response like a SM7 for screaming and growling, and then a nice LDC for singing.

 

[cobrahead1030]

generally i find that singing vox will need to processed (compression, verb, etc) slightly different than screams to fit in the mix well

i like to record vocals with two different mics, then having the option of isolating or blending later on (currently using an mxl v67, and shure beta 58) gives you a bit more options to find the right vibe, and if you want certain parts to sound a bit different than others you've got a few choices at your fingertips before you even touch the tracks

i like screaming vox compressed just a bit, with a TINY bit of verb (so you almost can't hear it) to thicken it up a bit...then singing compresses just a little more, with a bit more verb

just a few rules of thumb i generally go by, vocals is really one of those things you gotta use your ear and just see what fits for each mix

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

When i record screams and growls I usually add a little distorsion on the track as well, to make it cut through the mix better.