techniques when a vocalist sux

[Goodfellas453]

i dunno if yoiu guys have this problem, the bands pretty tight, the vocalist sounds like hes on the verge of throwing up. or they whisper all the screams like any youtube cover song, apart from applying more gain to the whisper guys what do you guys do to your vocal chain to make em sound decent, good maybe great, they should make an auto tune scream version for this.

 

[timislegend]

i've said this a lot in the past, but the most important (significant) part of the vocals (heavy vocals) is the delivery.

if you have hundreds of takes and none of them sound better than the first one, chances are; the vocalist isn't doing it right.

and yes, there is (most definitely) a right and wrong way to scream.

 

[Goodfellas453]

i totally agree with that, i am a vocalist and learned the hard way how to actually scream, i always recommend the zen of screaming to the guys coming in but i dont have time to teach them what to do, is there techniques you use to salvage the tracks after they are recorded?

 

[timislegend]

theoretically you can make anything quieter seem much louder in a mix... for instance; if you mix "whisper" vocals next to a snare drum, obviously the snare drum is realistically 'louder' however, the signal with more perceived loudness can be the vocals.

if you are having trouble with the mix, maybe you should post a clip with vocals in an effort to troubleshoot much better.

it's difficult to know exactly what you are referring to.

 

[Goodfellas453]

not so much in a one case thing, but a what to do to make not so well performed vocal takes sound as good as you can.. a lot of bands think well in the studio everything will sound better

 

[timislegend]

hmm... well, for me it's almost never one trick as each performance is different, as well as each person's output.

additive and subtractive eq are the more promising methods to employ. using exciters and compressors that maintain a particular characteristic is also very helpful.


i guess if you are asking "what is the best way to make a horrible vocal sound good?" ...the answer would go a little something like this.

-track the performance like your life depends on it
-edit!-edit!-edit! the performance with the best comps available
-use additive and subtractive equalization
-lower the dynamic range of the vocals in an effort to increase the signal level (compress then limit)
-hope for the best response from the talent and audience

9/10 reasons why the vocal performance sucks is due to the lack of confidence in the talent... the other 1/10 reason is because the talent isn't really all that talented to begin with. it is what it is.


hope any of this makes sense.

 

[punkrawk]

compressing the fuck out of them with an 1176 style plug in works most of the time

will never sound as good as proper technique though.

 

[Folkrav]

Got this problem couple of weeks ago. A great deal of editing, some saturation + so-much-EQ-I-died-from looking-at-the-curve made most of the job. Not perfect at all, wasn't so happy of what I had to do but heh... The singer was so sure he was a great screamer...