Vocal recording problem.

[Alphanumeric]

Hey guys,


Avalon, SPL gold mic's, SPL channel one which are far better than anything I could afford, as well as fully treated booths for vocals, and array of microphones (SM7B, MD421, 4040 etc) which gives us more choice than my beat up SM57.

So Im thinking I could simply bounce the whole session(s) down as 24 bit wav files like I have done already, and simply insert into Logic, get the vocals recorded raw and use the nice hardware comps and eq's on the way in with the SPL channel strips or avalon analog stuff, bounce out the vocal stems, and import into my sessions at home, so I can further mix from my waves, stillwell, bootsy, sonimus plugs etc which the studios at uni I have access to don't have, only stock logic plugs.


Thanks in advance guys

 

[scorpio01169]

or you can make a quick two track mix of everything you have done....import it at the universitys system then record the vocals...take the vocal waves back home at mix on your system.

 

[FarBeyondMetal]

or you can make a quick two track mix of everything you have done....import it at the universitys system then record the vocals...take the vocal waves back home at mix on your system.

Yep, easiest way.

 

[Alphanumeric]

or you can make a quick two track mix of everything you have done....import it at the universitys system then record the vocals...take the vocal waves back home at mix on your system.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Skinny Viking]

he means a normal rough mix of the song ... 1 stereo wave file

 

[scorpio01169]

Thanks for the reply!

By two track you literally just mean a route of all the tracks through the master 2buss? And bounce from there,
rather than a bounce of the 40-50 session tracks at once?

yes. The only thing you're recording is the vocals. you can then take the vocal waves back home, import them into your project at home. Remember don't print any processing on your tracks at the university. just take the raw waves home.

 

[JeffTD]

Whenever I track vocals I always do it to stems of the rest of the instruments just to have a super clean and focused session in which vocal tracking/editing happens.

Bounce out one track each for stereo drums, mono bass, stereo rhythms, stereo leads, and stereo synths if applicable. I like to be able to raise/lower things individually as it can influence vocal performance (drums up helps with timing, bass up helps with pitch, rhythms up helps with aggression, etc) otherwise I would bounce a single stereo mix.

I track/edit all my vocals in that session and then import the final wavs into my mix session and don't have to worry about touching them from that point on. That also lets me comp backing vocals to stereo tracks, apply outboard or vcc/vtm processing, etc before I'm in the mix session and tends to make life very easy in the end.

I should mention that I do projects in one large session per cd, so this process is pretty batch-based and "all-in-one-go." If I were doing one session per song, I would probably just do my tracking to a stereo file and only track/edit before importing into the mix session, not bother with further comping or processing.

 

[Alphanumeric]

yes. The only thing you're recording is the vocals. you can then take the vocal waves back home, import them into your project at home. Remember don't print any processing on your tracks at the university. just take the raw waves home.

Yeah haha I feel a little silly now.

I guess its a placebo effect but I was always under the impression that just doing a standard bounce to disk somehow has a qualitative difference to internally bouncing everything to a master track and simply exporting the stereo file of it, of course if when you bounce to MP3 there will be some loss in quality but I've looked around and people seem to think bouncing to disk with wav at 24 bit compared to exporting a master track, the difference is negligible.

 

[Skinny Viking]

if you're uncertain about the difference between printing internally and exporting vs bouncing ... do both and then put them both in the same session and flip phase / invert one of them

that should help kick that notion out of your head moving forward






there's no difference

 

[Trevoire520]

if you're uncertain about the difference between printing internally and exporting vs bouncing ... do both and then put them both in the same session and flip phase / invert one of them

that should help kick that notion out of your head moving forward

there's no difference

+100000000

See this nonsense mentioned far too often "bounce to disk sucks, you need to print internally" etc etc

It's been disproved many times, load of pish.

 

[scorpio01169]

What I mean printing any processing is, if you're compressing the vocals or adding a little reverb just for the singers pleasure make sure you disable or remove it from the track before you export that track. if you compress or add reverb....you can't undo it.

 

[Skinny Viking]

You can undo reverb now apparently

 

[Skinny Viking]

What I mean printing any processing is, if you're compressing the vocals or adding a little reverb just for the singers pleasure make sure you disable or remove it from the track before you export that track. if you compress or add reverb....you can't undo it.

if you're running compression and / or reverb as an INSERT in the tracking session removing it when you're ready to export will make no difference ... you've already tracked vocals through it ... its been essentially "printed" to the track

adding a very light & small amount of compression is fine during tracking of vocals if its needed to help tame some crazy peaks but you should spend the extra time getting your setting right on the signal in & out of your pres ... if after you have a nice strong signal happening you feel it wouldn't hurt to shave a couple dbs off the loudest parts to make things more consistent, go for it ...

reverb shouldn't be used as an insert during tracking ... just set up a send to an aux track with a reverb inserted on the aux ... this way you can control how much of the dry signal is going to the reverb to make the singer more comfortable if needed but you're still only recording the dry vocal take

 

[Alphanumeric]

if you're running compression and / or reverb as an INSERT in the tracking session removing it when you're ready to export will make no difference ... you've already tracked vocals through it ... its been essentially "printed" to the track

adding a very light & small amount of compression is fine during tracking of vocals if its needed to help tame some crazy peaks but you should spend the extra time getting your setting right on the signal in & out of your pres ... if after you have a nice strong signal happening you feel it wouldn't hurt to shave a couple dbs off the loudest parts to make things more consistent, go for it ...

reverb shouldn't be used as an insert during tracking ... just set up a send to an aux track with a reverb inserted on the aux ... this way you can control how much of the dry signal is going to the reverb to make the singer more comfortable if needed but you're still only recording the dry vocal take

I'm planning on using the SPL channel 1 comp (or Avalon preamp comp, whether I prefer one or the other) going into logic for that very reason, it is standard practice really isn't it? Same to remove below about 100-200hz from a male voice whilst going in etc