Where do I start with this dry vocal track? (DAW is Mixcraft Pro 7)

[keenly]

I am newbie trying to mix for my on personal home theater. I am not a musician or engineer, just a fan of heavy metal. I have 400GB of stems and raw multis, and need some advice please.

I have Mixcraft pro 7, Audacity and a bunch of plugins.

I have researched EQ and a bit about reverb but I can not find anything that starts from scratch and guide one through in a SIMPLE manner.

This is King Diamond raw vocal for Welcome to The Sabbath. It is pretty terrible. He has a great falsetto but the rest is horrendous.

Where to start? Any quick tips to radically change this abomination?

I want a large somewhat airy, but less whiny bitch ass sound

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfpy0qbiivqiaqm/Vox_1.zip?dl=0


cheers

Paul

 

[Heabow]

Hey man! I don't want to be an asshole but here is my reply:
First - I'd suggest to read the threads about mixing vox here.
Second - I'd suggest to try everything you can from your own so you can also learn.

 

[keenly]

Hey man! I don't want to be an asshole but here is my reply:
First - I'd suggest to read the threads about mixing vox here.
Second - I'd suggest to try everything you can from your own so you can also learn.

I have tried a bunch of times and read everything I can get my hands on.

 

[MrBongo]

it´s not done in "a bunch of times", more like years. Also, you have to accept that you can´t always transform the source into something entirely different that still sounds natural

... are you sure that´s an original King Diamond recording?

 

[keenly]

it´s not done in "a bunch of times", more like years. Also, you have to accept that you can´t always transform the source into something entirely different that still sounds natural

... are you sure that´s an original King Diamond recording?

The idea of these forums is so that isn't the case, right?

If everyone should just do everything themselves, end all forums now, I tell thee!!

YES it is from Mercyful Fate multis. Authentic, and crap!!

Stereo mix

 

[MrBongo]

you don´t want to do it for yourself? Then send the entire multitrack to me, I´ll mix it for you. You can find the rates in my sig ...

No one will tell you "Use the EQ xyz, set up eleven bands and put them this way: ...
Then add compressor abc with these settings.
After that you need this exact phaser ..." and whatnot. Because no one knows how you want it to sound like, there´s endless variations.

Also: you cannot make this recording sound like *insert random singer*. It´s not possible. If you don´t like the fact you can´t, don´t try mocking on us for answering your questions.

 

[keenly]

you don´t want to do it for yourself? Then send the entire multitrack to me, I´ll mix it for you. You can find the rates in my sig ...

No one will tell you "Use the EQ xyz, set up eleven bands and put them this way: ...
Then add compressor abc with these settings.
After that you need this exact phaser ..." and whatnot. Because no one knows how you want it to sound like, there´s endless variations.

Also: you cannot make this recording sound like *insert random singer*. It´s not possible. If you don´t like the fact you can´t, don´t try mocking on us for answering your questions.

This recording is KING Diamond. It is the raw lead vocal track from song I posted.

I just wanted some quick tips, no worries, relax please.

 

[Phil_ocean]

This recording is KING Diamond. It is the raw lead vocal track from song I posted.

I just wanted some quick tips, no worries, relax please.

Hey man, welcome to the forum As the other guys already said, there are no quick tips, there are some general directions but you still have to invest time if you want to achieve something good. For example, as general directions you can EQ the vocal in a way that is suiting the song (although there are certain frequency areas that usually have similar treatment like the roll-off from 80Hz and below), after that you can compress it really hard (its better to split the same amount of compression you would do in one compressor to 2 or 3 or even more compressors) and then you can EQ it again if you want somethings to be improved + add FX like reverb or delay or anything else you want or imagine. Those are really really general directions and even the order of them might change depending on the situation, the processing of audio is very relevant as I see it so its really hard to have fast tips or learning. You can watch tutorials on youtube to get started (I recommend to watch all 5 minutes to better mixes by RecordingRevolution, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A5D662058525F1C) and then spend as much as time as you can on this forum (and especially the FOH section) so you can get a good idea of what is happening at audio processing. If you want to just have fun, then open an EQ and mess around with the frequencies or mess around with compression, you never know you may be a natural on this

P.S. Airy vocals usually means that you need to boost some very high frequencies (like 10KHZ and above) or reduce the "muddy frequencies" (like around 200Hz) or both. You have to fuck around with it to listen for sure.
P.S 2. Are you sure this is original King Diamond? For starters, these vocals are out of tune most of the time + there are some screams that are different from the origian song (like the scream in 2.40' on the vocals you posted is shorter than the original). For the out of tune vocals, you could use autotune until a certain point but i doubt they used it so much back then (if it was even released back then, i dont know) and even if they did some parts of these vocals would sound weird with the amount of correction that they would need.

 

[Korwent]

First of all, it's definitely NOT the original recording, for the simple reason it's the one from this thread http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/mercyful-fate-come-to-the-sabbath-cover-dis.959028/, so I'm pretty sure O Grego will be pleased to learn that is vocals are crap as you said... Or maybe he'll be pleased that someone thought he actually WAS King Diamond, wo knows ah ah
Apart from that, the point of a forum is not to turn a years (decades?) long process and turn it into instant success, it just makes it a "friendlier and less painful" improvement.
There still are things you cannot not be taught overnight ("¯\(°_o)/¯ How do mix drums?"), maybe one can teach you an efficient workflow but no one ever will be able to teach you how to use your ears and know in depth what you are doing so fast.
That being said, you can of course follow general guidelines that will avoid making basic mistakes, but take them for what they are : guidelines.
On that subject, there are lots of references on what to read about everywhere in the stickies on this forum so just check them!

 

[Heabow]

Also please be kind when you reply. It does not cost anything to say Thanks to someone who took time to help you. It's a good thing to go straight to what you're looking for but if you act like that, chances are good that you won't get help later. As we speak about this forum, it is just a forum rule.

That said, it is crucial that you experiment by yourself. You can grab tons of tips here and there and it's totally okay to follow all of them just to try and see what works for you but if you want to learn and hopefully become a good mixer in the future, you'll have to spend a shit load of time. And believe me, that's never won! But that's cool after all, isn't it?