Pop-ish Melodic Metal (female vox, Blue mic)

[Cyanide_Anima]

Sup. I'm testing around with this blue spark I picked up a couple of weeks ago. I kinda like the shitty dirty sound it has. Buuuuuuuut... It seems to 'pump' a lot or something. WTF is with that? It's almost impossible to compress normally, as the sound just goes to balls jumping all around and shit. I am trying for a smooth female vocal sound. It just seems like it too way too much effort to get this far. (my lack of vocal production experience surely plays into this)

Blue Spark > Mackie Onyx 400f

Vocal Chain: eq, abbey 127, saturation, logic comp (au setting), de ess, verb, widener
And: a send going to two bussess with two slightly different verbs all smashed to hell with logic comp (opto setting).

I know that recording in a living room doesn't help with the sound. I've constructed a vocal booth for future use.

Also, how do you guys get rid of the initial 'whoosh' of sound that can come in with a vocal? I'm not talking pops, but something down in the muck area initially. Automation helps a little, but it's only a little. I'm probably doing it wrong. I'm thinking of having her re-do the tracks anways, but she might be irritated 'cus I actually want this to sound good. haha. Damn singers.

Track:

http://soundcloud.com/insecticide-rain/knibblesbeta

Note: the lyrics are possibly awkward. But I am no lyricologist. Girls can get away with that sometimes I suppose...

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

Thanks for the help?



I guess I probably shouldn't waste my time posting mixes and asking for help and advice here when my threads (and many others who actually *need* advice) generally go ignored. How am I supposed to improve upon anything when no one will tell me WTF is wrong with the mix? You guys complain about people posting the same "shitty" 20 second clips of Jeff's DIs and the same music over and over without any vocals... then continue to post in those threads.

My mixes may not be great by any means, or even good, but at least there is actually something else here for y'all to destroy and rail on if you wish. It's cuz I'm one of those *muthafuckin'* "bedroom quarterbacks" isn't it? Hey, I'm not pretending to be a pro, or pretending I'm so awesome and that everyone wants my AUDIOZ like some do. I'm just trying to learn this shit because I'm completely obsessed with it. I don't give a FUCK about anything else (reasonably), really. I wish to learn this craft to the best of my ability, and eventually work up the gall to ask a local studio to let me clean their toilets and make them coffee just to get a chance to learn how it's all done "for realz."

If anyone actually wants to help me out here... what do you do to help make a vocalist with a relatively thin voice "appear" to sound bigger? Get her closer to the mic? multiple takes/tracks? She's all high-mid/highs and no low-mid/lows. There really isn't much on this forum about vocal production, let alone female vocal production. There are problems with the vocal mix (not just performance-wise) which I can't nail down and figure out on my own. HALP!

(I know there is a LOT of low end in the instruments, and as a whole it's generally dark, blah, etc... Yes the synths sound all clippy in the beginning, they are "supposed" to, but might change if is too distracting)

I've spent about 8 hours total on this track over the last 2 weeks just fucking with the vocals and I'm about to give up and start over from scratch, re-recording the vocals. Probably will anyways when she gets back from vacation. But, what would you guys do different?

/partial rant.