Tracking Vox With Monitors On

[jauernis]

Anyone here tracked in the control room with monitors on? Want to know if there is a trick to controling the bleed and if anyone here has done this. Seems like the performance is so much better and more in tune when I sing like this but would like to have these takes with very minimal bleed

 

[Metaltastic]

Honestly, my limited experience is that there's really not much noticeable bleed (esp. with cardioid mics), and more importantly, it'll be TOTALLY masked whenever the singer is...singing (though whisper parts or something are another story, but you can just do those separate), and you can just gate/delete the gaps in between!

 

[if6was9]

flip the phase of one of the monitors, there was some letters in tape op about this.
Bleed isn't that much of an issue but turn anything off that wont make it to the final track like click tracks and stuff cause they'll stick out.

its a good way to get a more natural relaxed performance, alot of singers get weird with headphones on

 

[Rockchops]

If the monitors aren't so loud, a noise gate does the trick perfectly imo

 

[schnarf2]

I recorded with a singer in my bedroom. No special positioning of the monitors. Shure KSM32 so that the singer is facing the monitors, about 4-5 feet away. The lack of bleed was surprising. We tracked really loud and the bleed was basically negligible.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Didnt metallica do the whole "track with monitor and flip the phase when recording overdubs" trick for the black album? Seems to work well.

 

[beyond dead]

what about feed back? if you dont get feed back, then just use an expander to remove the bleed, then compress. you could also automate the bleed out!

 

[Melodeath]

Try to use a directional mic.
Try to aim the monitors into the null of the mic.
Flip the phase on one of the monitors, if it's not too awkward sounding to the vocalist.

Or, after the vocalist's takes, don't move anything or change any levels, don't play back the vocal tracks, and play the whole song through (or however much of the song you played through for the vocalist) and record (the vocalist isn't singing here, we're just recording the "bleed" of the monitors). Once it's in the DAW, reverse the phase of those purposely-recorded bleed tracks. It might even help if you have the vocalist stand where they were standing when singing, while you do this bleed recording, because of relections. Also, it helps if you put a LPF on the master bus while doing the vocal takes and the bleed takes, as it's harder to get the high frequencies to cancel than the low frequencies when you flip the phase, so you should take them out before you record them.

 

[MetalJonesy]

for proper screamy stuff i prefer tracking with the monitors on!

i did sum shit over these LoG stems, just with the 57 with monitors blasting

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/369408/hahaha-02.mp3

 

[lomky]

*Edit: haha, took to long logging in, Melodeath beat me to it.*


First post I've made on your fantastic forum lots of great info here.

Anyway, haven't tried it yet, but I have recently read if you track your vocals in your control room once you are finished tracking play the track again and record it through the same mic that is on the stand. When you are done tracking the song through the mic adjust for level and flip the polarity and in theory it should cancel the music bleed that is on the vocal track.
I have found that singers stay on pitch much better when singing to the monitors even if they do not hear their voice coming back to them than with headphones. Some people just can't sing with cans, it just feels unnatural.

Good luck!