Screaming vocal processing

[Melb_shredder]

To be honest, I'm not exactly 100% sure what you're trying to achieve on your mixing end, but a little saturation/ heavy compression and correct EQ have always helped me get a nice commercial soundingscreaming vocal on anything I record. So unless what you're looking for is a specific thing to the actual vocalist, then I don't know :S

 

[Ermz]

loads and loads and loads of analog 1176.
gives you the saturation and compression.

just dicovered very recently how much I love that thing

+1. The Rev A is especially magical on vocals. Next best thing is the CLA76.

Other than that it tends to depend on the character of the vocalist. Some need more saturation than others. I've used everything from Tessla to Trash to Decapitator here, and it's really just about whatever works. Decapitator is a really cool and versatile modern one, but i always end up finding a use for Trash when it comes to gritting or lo-fying vocals. For lead vocals the tape saturation setting can really add some cool stuff. For effected backing vox the 'cheap radio' and tube saturation settings can be awesome.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

LA2A + 1176 work great too

 

[GarethSE]

Dear Op, I'd just like to say a quick howdy do and a fuck you for having the balls to claim that the fry sound is the PROFESSIONAL, CORRECT way of doing screamed vocals.
Frank Mullen and Randall Blythe would like to have words for you.





but yeah, I'm done being a cunt for now.

Anyway. For pretty much any kind of vocal, screaming, singing, whatever, I compress shit to high heaven, usually a bit of eq to cut some low mids and core mids (I find a lot of the tracks I get have a lot of 900hz-1.5khz so I have to cut a little bit for them to sit in a mix nicely.
The thing that I find really helps get a vocal sat in the mix is tasteful use of delay and reverb.
I usually use a bright plate for the verb and steinberg double delay for muh delay and then turn them up until i can JUST about hear them, then back them off a bit. Once I think I'm happy I start flicking the sends on and off and listening for the difference.
When they're at a good level you shouldn't be able to really hear them but when you turn them off, you'll miss them.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Randy Blythe as an example of good screaming vocals lolololololololol

 

[GarethSE]

lol all you want, but you know what? FUCK THA HATAZ NIGGAZ or some shit. this guys going on about tim fucking lambesis who has ZERO emotion, zero fury, zero anything interesting. all this shit should just be an aid to self expression, and to state that a technique is incorrect or unprofessional? Who fucking cares as long as someone's making a fucking statement that's deep and from the heart, and blythe's vocals embody that. All Tim Lambesis' vocals embody is sterility and pure boredom. If that's correct and professional so be it, but some of us expect more.


edit: plz do not take this as me trying to make some massive topic derailing rant or anything. plz continue the vocal mixing discussion ^_^

 

[Line666]

He's right though, anyone who's ever had to record vocal fry will know its the most fucking useless vocal technique known to man, it just sounds weak and its far too low in volume and has a bad overtone, you'll never get a good sound out of it.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

lol all you want, but you know what? FUCK THA HATAZ NIGGAZ or some shit. this guys going on about tim fucking lambesis who has ZERO emotion, zero fury, zero anything interesting. all this shit should just be an aid to self expression, and to state that a technique is incorrect or unprofessional? Who fucking cares as long as someone's making a fucking statement that's deep and from the heart, and blythe's vocals embody that. All Tim Lambesis' vocals embody is sterility and pure boredom. If that's correct and professional so be it, but some of us expect more.


edit: plz do not take this as me trying to make some massive topic derailing rant or anything. plz continue the vocal mixing discussion ^_^

Haha, I hear ya dude, and I started it anyway, so in this case I'm the derailer bastard (but yeah, no great love for AILD here either naturally )

 

[CatharsisStudios]

So with Fry screaming (ie the professional, correct way of screaming) you always have this characteristic overtone sound thingy going on, kinda like a gurgly, creaky noise. False cord screaming (the nooby way of screaming, the thing you do when you're angry. also common in "unprofessional" death metal) doesn't have the same aggressive overtone sound (although much louder in volume)
y

vocal fry is gay as fuck at times

 

[Ermz]

wtf is vocal fry? Do I even want to know? Sounds like something I'd order down the street at the asian takeaway.

 

[Terminus]

Anything they can do to keep from actually screaming and still sound like screaming (not).

 

[Line666]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4363530/blah.mp3

Here's my grumpy Scotsman view on the whole thing, with appropriately terrible vocal examples.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

God damn I love your accent Owen And yes, vocal fry is officially ragingly homo, if anyone those ridiculous wimpy-ass noises are better (or more professional) than this:





You seriously need to have your head examined

 

[Line666]

God damn I love your accent Owen

At least I know there was something redeemable about making stupid twat noises on the internet then

Gareth was telling me something similar the other day actually, although I've always thought it was too much of a monosyllabic drawl without much of a pronounced accent, guess I must be wrong.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

And now that I've already gone semi-OT, I've always wondered how guys like Speed got their kind of shouty growls; observe (starting at 0:34):



Ignore the appallingly retarded lyrics, but he's one of my favorite vocalists because of the RAEG you can hear in his delivery, it's not as gutteral as guys like Mikey A. but still so ballsy; still the lower chords you reckon?

 

[Line666]

Different technique. Growls got a different tonality to the distortion element. Thats more a shout with a distortion to it, the only people that do any terminology for this sort of stuff are a bunch of whacky Danes called Complete Vocal Institute, who agree its all perfectly healthy unlike many other vocal teachers and that sounds like what they would describe as a overdrive or curbing with distortion.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Well there's that sorta filter effect in the first 4 lines, but once his voice kicks in proper it's definitely unprocessed as far as distortion goes (unless you mean like natural vocal distortion)

 

[Line666]

Yup, natural vocal distortion. The difference with this sort of screaming is that it has really more of a pitch than growling.

 

[-JohanFrisk-]

Oh dear god!
I didn't mean to badmouth the other kind of screaming. i meant "professional & correct" as in more common for the kind of music i did at the time and vocal teachers find it "better" since it's not as harmful. not saying the other technique is unprofessional, just that some beginners try to use falsecord to imitate fry becuz falsecord is easier to learn.

oh yeah, and fry screaming has the stupidest name ever.
it's one of the most advanced vocal techniques (fact!) and takes a lot more practice than falsecord which happens to be one of the easiest.
but it's definately NOT wimpy once you've mastered the technique (unless you do the emo sh*t).
i'm talking deathcore (w/ full range screaming) and not-so-wimpy metalcore

this thread failed :Smug:

edit: some youtube links were posted... I lol
Scar Symmetry - The Illusionist
Soilwork - Light the Torch
you gotta be kidding, thats fry screaming all the way
you'll have to hunt me down, slowly torture me and dig my grave before i take it back

 

[Line666]

I think you've got your terminology muddled mate. If you've been watching those daft Mellisa Cross dvd's I dont particularily blame you, because she has completely contrasting examples for just about everything.

Never the less, the only one that she demonstrates personally ie the fry, is a wimpy piece of piss. She says it requires the "most finesse" but that's just bullshit, fry needs a lot less support and has more constrictions because you're holding both sets of chords shut then passing air through a gap, its easy to teach and no one uses it. False chord has a lot more volume and therefore is much more dangerous because it needs more diaphragmatic support and when you're working at higher volumes its a lot easier to fuck something up.

You're probably taking false cord examples and thinking they're fry.