Tracking vocals, taking longer than any other instrument, seeking advice

[bryan_kilco]

Hey guys. My band has been tracking our first full-length over the past year or so. With our schedules, still trying to play shows, my work sending me away for weeks on end, etc.....this has ended up taking a LOT longer than I anticipated. Either way, we're tracking ourselves so it's free.

We're about 4 or 5 sessions into vocals now, and so far it's been the most painful and slow part of the process. Literally 2 of the sessions we tracked about 4 words and called it because his voice just wasn't working right.

4 or 5 sessions deep and not even finished with 2 songs. This has me SERIOUSLY depressed. It not only sucks up any free time I have on the nights he gets out of work early (he sometimes shows up at 8-9pm and wants to track until after 1am), but it's causing us to ditch band practice in order to record. It has me to the point where I don't even want to work on the album anymore.

Can anyone give any sort of advice? I know the proper thing to do is just have him go home and practice. But at the point he's at (only been doing metal vocals for about 2 years), I think he needs another year or 2 to really settle into something. I worked so damn hard on the rest of the album and I feel like vocals are going to be the weakest link, and that is NOT a good thing at all. =/ He has more off-days than he does on-days. At this rate, we'll be tracking vocals for fucking 6 more months yet and I'll absolutely not be happy with the end result.

I guess this is just a frustrated cry for help....

 

[mva801]

Post examples. Is he screaming? Shouting? Singing? Usually vocals are the easiest when the vocalist is good. An sm-7, good pre, and a distressor will get you there quickly. The rest has to come from dude's throat. If he can't hack it, maybe find another singer?

 

[anotherpaul]

How does he perform on practice and live? Is he any good at all?
If not, why even bother? If he is, then it might be your workflow or monitoring or something else getting in the way.
Does he warm up before recording session? I mean, not just scream some favourite metal song, but actual embaracing and ridiculous zzz-ing, yayaya-ing and all that stuff. Since I started warming up, my performance has improved drastically.

 

[bryan_kilco]

It's hard to explain his style. It's like screaming mixed with shouting. Sort of Corey Taylor-ish. Running SM58 straight into Profire 2626.

I'll see if I can get an example up in a bit.

I just know for sure that we shouldn't be spending 4 sessions on a single song and still not have it completed. I guess I just always hear him at band practice and now that he's under the microscope it's just hitting me hard. Love the dude to death, but when we were searching for a vocalist, I was pretty much the only one against choosing this guy because I didn't think he fit our style, which I still stand by. But we tried out fucking 12 guys or so and basically ran out of options. *sigh*

As far as preparing goes - he drinks a lot of water, warms up in his car on the way here, etc. We take a break about every hour or so.

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

Does he take singing lessons or visit a vocal coach? Does he know how not to abuse his voice prior to recording so he won't sound fucked up. Does he keep his health in check?
These would be the first things I'd start talking about to him in this case. And figure out wether he is nervous for recording and if so, find out ways to set him at ease. Little tricks like telling him it is just a testrun to set levels but secretly hit the recordbutton and stuff like that can help. With one guy I just explained how the daw worked and then left the room and let him do it all by himself. Having no-one listening in while recording made him feel so comfortable, he laid down some really good takes (as in: they ended up on the record).

 

[bryan_kilco]

No singing lessons or vocal coach. He is a fairly healthy dude. Smoker, but not an insane smoker. He doesn't seem really nervous at all, and I try to keep the mood up and crack jokes and shit along the way. I just think that he hears himself differently inside his head as what is laid out on tape. His "highs" and "lows" aren't really insanely different. His range is fairly limited to mids.

I also noticed that he tries to go for something different or unique, but I feel that it moreso hurts the song as a whole rather than help it. Like starting phrases on the upbeat instead of downbeat, and when I try to get him to change it to make the part more powerful, he doesn't always want to work with me.

I'm just super burned out on this album at this point. I'd have another band member take over as "producer" for me, but I honestly wouldn't trust their judgment on "good" and "bad" takes.

Never tracking a full album for my own band ever again. One of the other members is constantly getting on me about how "You guys gotta power through and get it done!". Said member probably only put about 10 hours total into the entire album. Where as I have had to be there through EVERYTHING over the course of a year. Sorry, now this is turning into a rant. It's all just such a huge weight on my shoulders right now, even though it's free.

 

[bryan_kilco]

A little example:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6443251/Vocal Example 1.mp3

Limiter and comp on the master bus, smashed pretty hard with comp and limiter on vocal bus. *shrug*

 

[Kohugaly]

I know how you feel bro... We also spend last year and a half recording an album and we spend a whole year tracking just vocals. Thankfully we are only a studio band right now (not playing live yet) so We've taken the liberty to try several vocalists. End result is that we have like over 5 different vocalists over the album (each song with different lineup basically - also the songs are quite different in terms of style). It was so annoying that a singer did one song just perfectly and sucked miserably in another. In the end I'm not 100% confident in all vocal content anyway.
From what I've learned so far - when it sounds bad, no matter how many retakes you do, it is mainly because of two reasons:
1. The part/song sucks by default - change it so it sounds good
2. Singer sucks - change the singer with a better/different one
From what you're saying I guess the problem is both in your case, because he seems to lack cooperation. You are the "producer"! Make him do everything exactly the way you want (go diplomatically about it like "I think It would sound better this way... let's try it to check"). You may try having another band member in, to check and help to decide which take is better (in reality he's there to over-vote the singer in case the singer stands for the bad take or vice versa - you do - it's called democracy).

 

[mva801]

He could be better but it's really not that bad. How does it sound in the music? Sounds like there's some saturation going on somewhere? Are you using distortion?

My fav recipe for metal vocals is an sm-7 > API > Distressor on 6:1, 3rd harm dist on, compressing the shit out of it. Then ITB maybe some eq, and digidesign lofi plugin adding a bit of distortion and noise. The distressor and the lo fi plug help a lot.

 

[FrankTheSmith]

I've recorded a few bands that have never heard their vocalist outside of shows/loud practices.
Record vocals in a makeshift vocal booth in the same room as my computer. Everyone sitting around in silence listening to them scream with no loud music.
One band kicked out their vocalist after they were done because they thought he was good at their band practices..... Where everything's loud/distorting/clipping.

Seems to me like vocals always take the longest.
My band went to a larger studio and did 3 songs. 6-7 hours drums, 8 hours guitar and bass combined, vocals 10 hours 1st day, 4 hours 2nd day.

 

[Drummerrrrr?]

It's very unlikely he's going to magicly get better soon, sadly.

 

[ArthurD]

No singing lessons or vocal coach.

Vocals are hard. Harder than any other instrument. No tech = Screwed up vocals.
No practice/no learning the song with all nuances = waste of money.

Just make him practice every word till perfection then go to the studio.

EDIT: I've just listened to the clip. He has to practice the pronunciation, more clarity on words.
If he has to shout than he is doing wrong and will screw up is voice.

BTW, I feel that his major problem is the lack of breathing (or control breathing).

 

[anotherpaul]

Listened to an example. He doesn't actually sound that bad, but I can hear how his throat would be ripped in a couple of hours.
I agree about breathing. Simplest advice is to inhale fast through nose, tense your abs really hard and let the air flow steadily while singing the phrase.
Recently my friend spent total of 18 hours in studio recording vocals for a single, all screaming. I guess the problem was the abscence of a good producer to give an advice on technique and pick "good" takes with right expression. In the end the song came out really nice, though.

 

[Fandus]

That sounds like a workable vocal to me. The right post processing and it could sound really polished. I sent you a pm if you'd like to discuss a similar issue I had a while back and how I worked my way around it.

It's just a voice that needs an extra push with some heavy compression and saturation/distortion.

 

[ArthurD]

That sounds like a workable vocal to me. The right post processing and it could sound really polished. I sent you a pm if you'd like to discuss a similar issue I had a while back and how I worked my way around it.

It's just a voice that needs an extra push with some heavy compression and saturation/distortion.

The pronunciation is awkward IMO, because he is not breathing correctly. It seems he recorded 2 words at the time, not the whole phrase. Thus, this need more work on the breathing parts, then the song will become humanly possible to sing...

Even this has more breathing:

 

[bryan_kilco]

Yeah that example I posted is definitely cut up and there are punch-ins all over, not insane but we were shooting to get each phrase down and move on.

Thank you all for the input. I can throw up the same clip with music too if anyone would like to hear. No FX aside from hitting it pretty hard with a comp and limiter. Oh and I think a little verb. All post-processed, though...nothing on the way in.

 

[Fluffbot]

I've done the same twice for both our albums, full on DIY! It's really rough going sometimes man, and not everyone appears to sympathize/care about it at all times, but trust me they do. I got to the point where I basically blacked out from stress and yelled at everyone (which I never do) and they all told me how appreciative they were and how awesome it is that we don't have to pay for studio time - although we spent thousands on our own studio. As shitty as it sounds, you really do have to just tough it out and be honest if something isn't working!

 

[Mago]

Be glad that you're not also having to do the vocals yourself, at least

But yeah I dunno...doesn't sound bad, but it's also not earth shattering awesome or so...maybe with music it will make more sense, cause frankly I very rarely think that growls/grunts/screams sound particularly awesome a capella

I guess trying other mics wouldn't harm either...sm7, md421...maybe the sm58 works against him, who knows.

Don't underestimate the mental strain on a vocalist who didn't already record a lot...not being relaxed it deadly for getting awesome vocaltakes.
He'll try to force certain sounds/tones out, and that will only weaken and harm his voice.

 

[greyskull]

He doesnt sound like he's in anyway bad!

Vocals are always the hardest to get right; but as it's your own project, just take the time, make him comfortable, and focus on nailing the performances.

 

[bryan_kilco]

The pronunciation is awkward IMO, because he is not breathing correctly. It seems he recorded 2 words at the time, not the whole phrase. Thus, this need more work on the breathing parts, then the song will become humanly possible to sing...

Even this has more breathing:

Holy fucking shit!