The vocals sound like poop

[Pukahontas]

Ok this is gonna hurt but here it goes…

I just want to start off by saying I am not a recording kind of guy. I've tried and found that for the most part, I have a terrible ear for it. I've spent hours, days, and weeks trying to mix things only to find most of the time the bloody presets sound better to me and others than what I did. Coupled with no idea of what I'm doing doesn't help. So yeah… I plan on having someone else mix for me when the day comes.

So with that out of the way, here's my god awful "demo" track.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55179186/Billy%20Milano%20Ain%27t%20Yer%20Fuckin%27%20Roadie2.mp3

There's no bass, the guitar is made with a Garageband plugin (I could say Logic plugin to sound like I'm a sliver more knowledgeable than I really am!), and the Superior Drummer drums haven't really been tweaked at all. Sounds like shit to ya'll I'm sure but the point of this recording is pretty much just to have a raw track for me and my vocalist to have as a reference and maybe to show the occasional friend.

The problem I'm having comes with the vocals. I got them sounding a bit better than before but they really sound like shit to me and the vocalists ears. Not at all like how they sound in the room but I know that's expected. My vocalist gets really bummed out hearing his voice on the tracks and all the tweaking and re-recording of the vocals really slows things down for us, so I'd like to get them to the point of being decent.

We recorded his vocals through an SM58 (Honestly we can barely tell the difference recording with this mic vs. a cheap $20 mic we have as well) into my Apogee Duet. Oh snap can't forget (So gonna get knocked for this and I think I know why…) that we found running his vocals through my tube screamer pedal sounds IMMENSELY better than not using it. Goodbye stereo! I'm willing to forego using it of course but it's been my crutch for the time being. The settings are usually 9 to 11 o'clock on the drive and 10 o'clock on the tone.

Once in Garageband (Feel free to facepalm anytime), I duplicate the track, and on the first copy I turn up the volume a bit, pitch shift down about 40 cents, and compress with these settings:

Threshold: -23.5 dB
Ratio: 3.1:1
Attack: 7.0 ms

On the second copy of the track, I turn the volume down a little bit, add probably way too much reverb and delay, and compress with the same settings as the first track.

So other than "go to a professional NOW you dumb fuck" (I plan on it at some point) does anyone have some advice I could use to get these vocals sounding like they don't sound so weak and out of place?

 

[Diego_Teksuo]

Add some distortion to the vocals. Decapitator from soundtoys (I guess..) works really nice on growls.

 

[ashgallows]

I vote eq and compression over the tubescreamer going in at least. it sounds better to you because the distortion is sort of levelling the vocals. You should get the best performance you can going in and eq it so it sounds balanced then compress/limit it. you may want to add some grit from tse808 later, but it's usually better to have that kind of seperation. it sounds to me like you need to dip out some around 1k or maybe a bit higher like 2.5k.

 

[Terminus]

Do a search for "vocal chain" or "Vocal processing" here or with the nifty google search feature that lets you search this forum only. Plenty of guys on here have posted theirs over the years, you might find one that works better. Usually with screams/yells/growls you'll want to stage the compression a bit. Wouldn't use a TS on vox unless it's for an effect on a certain part.

 

[smy1]

I've actually heard far worse than this ...

 

[Kohugaly]

best trick for vocals is to use more compressors with light settings in chain with saturation (also very light just to brighten the track) between them. And add ping-pong delay or something simmilar - it makes them sound much bigger and less funny. I also agree with everything mentioned above.

 

[Pukahontas]

Thanks for all the advice, fellas.

I've implemented pretty much everything except using multiple compressors (I'll get to trying it but the concept makes my head hurt) and it sounds much better, although I'll have to wait until I can get more vocals recorded without the tubescreamer.

The EQ helped bring things out and hide the poop a bit. I got the Decapitator trial and it sounds friggin great on some uncolored vocal tracks I had from awhile back although its a little tricky to tame. Gonna have a hard time justifying the cost of it but still I'm grateful to know such an awesome plugin exists.

One thing that still really bothered me was that the track also sounded thin to me because it was centered. I tried duping the track, adding a slight delay to one, and panning each L/R at different degrees but then the center of the track sounded really empty to my ears on headphones, even with a 3rd track at a somewhat lower volume, pitch shifted down slightly, and delayed a bit more than the two panned tracks. I don't really notice this on speakers. It mostly bothers me on headphones, or maybe my ears are playing tricks on me... AARGGGGH!!

But anyways things are sounding quite a bit better! Thanks again.