SLICE THE CAKE - SQUANDER COVER (vocals and production)

[P-E]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1149356/Slice The Cake ft P-E - Squander (loud master).mp3

Gareth and Jonas are great friends of mine so I did this cover to show my appreciation for their awesome music. All in all, I really want to know what you guys think of the vocals (I did all of them on this) and the overall mix. Please mention every small detail you don't like!

By the way, huge thanks to Jonas for sending me the tracks.

 

[XnaySaturo]

Awesome! Like I said before, it's similar enough to the original, but with really nice touches to make it different. Really like the low growls more than the previous version.

Overall I think the mix could use a bit more separation, but it's pretty fucking crushing \m/

 

[P-E]

Thanks man!

Btw, if anybody has questions considering any aspect of the mix feel free to ask.

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Vocals are sick!
I want to be able to do so, too. How did you learn it?

Which mic did you use for the vox?

 

[Jaymz]

Awesome dude!

 

[P-E]

Awesome dude!

Thanks man!

Vocals are sick!
I want to be able to do so, too. How did you learn it?

Which mic did you use for the vox?

Thanks a lot!

Learning vocals is somewhat tricky and intuitive. To learn how to do the lower vocals, do a natural (not forced!) URGH sound, like you were pissed off at something. Then mess around with how your lips are and gradually push more air as you practice. Try to have it coming from deep (diaphragm) instead of just the throat. For the higher screams I used a different technique, I just tried to imitate Protest The Hero's singer's screams and then pushed more air and went higher. In all seriousness screaming techniques are some of the toughest things to explain haha.

I used a Shure SM57 for the vocals, on a mic stand with a (kind of useless as it's really badly built) homemade pop-filter, directly into an E-MU 0404 USB soundcard.

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Thanks for trying to explain it!
I think I'll start to train screaming now. Hopefully I'll get some satisfying results soon...( I know it takes some time )

Nice to hear you used the Sm57. That's what I'll probably use for the band i'm recording at the moment (I still have to choose between the Sm57 and the Sm58).
Was the Sm57 also used on the original recording?

Edit: Would be nice to know how your vocal chain looks like.

 

[P-E]

A SM57 was used in the original recording, both mics should offer similar results from what I've read, best thing would be to try both and see which sounds best unmixed.

Vocal chain is pretty much the same on the low and high screams.
ReaEQ
Waves DeEsser (any decent deesser will do)
SSLEQ
Waves RVox
Waves CLA-76
Waves C4
Waves L1
ReaEQ
Soundtoys Decapitator

All the vocals are sent in the vocal bus where Waves C6 does a bit of processing too.

Basically, the first ReaEQ highpasses the vocals, cuts some weird sounding mids and removes a touch of low-mids, then the DeEsser totally blankets the highs. The SSLEQ is used to boost the highs (at about 8k, going too low will make them fight against guitars anyway) and color the vocal sound, so that they sound bright and clear with all the compression, almost floating over the mix. In Waves RVox I shoot to about 6dB of gain reduction, in CLA-76 10 to 20dB (attack and release are set so it sounds good), C4 filters out unnecessary stuff without removing it totally (like some lows and low-mids), L1 removes about maybe 5 to 10dB and makes the whole vocals sound really in your face. ReaEQ is used to remove annoying peaks and whatnot, then Decapitator adds nice saturation (I used the N function, probably a Neve emulation or something). The C6 in the bus is used to remove a bit of low-mids again and keep everything under control now that all the tracks are together.

The high screams chain is the same, but with a bit higher high pass and more compression on RVox so the screams sound really smooth. IIRC I EQ'd them a bit differently in SSLEQ but nothing drastic.

Learning to scream well takes a LONG time, but with practice you'll be able to do it for sure! BTW if you use a SM57 or SM58, make sure to use a pop filter and to have the singer sing pretty close to the mic. To me, the tracks sounded much better on a mic stand rather than handheld (like Gareth originally recorded), so that's you and the singer's call.

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Thanks a ton for the detailed informations!
I'll try that kind of vocal processing on the recording.

 

[LeSedna]

Can you elaborate this :

Waves RVox
Waves CLA-76
Waves C4
Waves L1

I never use that many chained compressors and it seems quite common here.

 

[P-E]

C4 is mainly for multiband compression on very specific parts so it doesn't really count.

I learnt that trick from a post Ermz did a while ago, messed around with it and had great results. The RVox gets a nicely smoothed compressed sound, but when you feel you could do it just a bit more it tends not to sound as good (6 dB gain reduction was what Ermz said was optimal and I have to agree with his findings, though I've found that higher vocals can take a bit more).
CLA-76 comes to the rescue, as it compresses the already compressed vocals with a lot of character. 1176s can take lots of gain reduction, which is why I abuse it, the vocals sounding even smoother and "tastier" in the end. To this point, it's more about the character that this compressor gives to the vocals than the compression itself.
The L1 then makes vocals sound very "in your face" and powerful, which is why it's used at the end. I haven't ever got a great vocal sound with only one compression plug-in, staged compression just sounds better on heavy vocals IMO.

The other thing is that there's a pretty huge high-end boost (even after the deessing) because of the SSLEQ (somewhere like 3 or 4dB at about 8000hz, more or less). Compressing it to fuckery splatters the highs on the vocals, making them really airy without making them sound too bright if everything is dialed right.

 

[GarethSE]

official seal of approval
sick highs, utterly sick

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Sorry for heading a little off-topic, but I don't want to open a new thread for this... :
At the moment I am working on the drums for the band I am recording and I ended up using kick10 and snare12a without any other samples.
(could it be less creative? ) I really like the drums on the Slice the Cake album and would love to know how to get a kick and snare sound like this, to get away from the standard ssd sound.

 

[P-E]

I didn't use any Slate samples on my mix. If you wanna know 'bout that, you could ask Jonas, I know he did on the official recording.
PM him, his username is Gubbkuk.

 

[XnaySaturo]

Re-listened and I'm still blown away by that scream halfway in!

 

[DanLights]

As I said to you through msn, this is absolutely awesome. Great vox dude, form a band and kick Montreal´s ass!

 

[Steven Otto]

Your vocals are brilliant!

Mixwise: I hear some slight pumping going on or is it just me?

 

[P-E]

Maybe there's some slight pumping, as I pushed the mix a bit louder than I usually do. Does anybody else notice it?

BTW, thanks everybody for the kind words, I really appreciate it.