Workflow: listening through vocal takes

[Rip-G]

How do you guys get through vocal takes to make your life easy? I know a lot of depends on how it was tracked but lets assume there are a lot of them. I used to have many takes on one track but now I try to put them on different tracks (in a separate project from the mix). I cut from them and paste pieces to a new track. Every track is routed to a group with a compressor and some delay.

I hope there are better ideas : )

 

[professorlamp]

be brutal, audition each segment and bin the less in tune/meaningful ones.

Or leave them in your DAW in a folder out of sight for safe keeping, just incase something doesn't work out as planned

 

[Trevoire520]

I use playlists in Pro Tools when recording and audition them as we go. Even once I'm sure we have a take that's good enough I'll record a few more just to be sure. Comp it all together and listen back to it to make sure it's ok.

 

[vespiz]

I use playlists in Pro Tools when recording and audition them as we go. Even once I'm sure we have a take that's good enough I'll record a few more just to be sure. Comp it all together and listen back to it to make sure it's ok.

+1

And if you record "too many" takes, you can always use the non-keeper takes as doubles, tribles, etc. Provided they're good enough, of course..

 

[cent73]

Two things: If it's me who records the stuff I try to be as decisive as possible, that is I'm not afraid to commit and scratch a take that's not good enough - less headaches when selecting a right one during mixing. If I'm mixing I basically do the same as Professorlamp above. I also comp the tracks a lot if possible, so I won't have, for instance, 2 tracks for a chorus (say, with lines 1 & 3, and 2 & 4).

I don't use a separate project or EFX just for editing.

 

[Rip-G]

I have always too many takes because I'm recording myself and I can't really judge on the spot when it comes to vocals. On the next day everything seems so different : )

 

[ArnaudM]

I'm maybe too old-school.
When I track vocals, I put every unsatisfying take into the bin.
If I'm not so sure about the quality, I open another track, keep the take, and ask the singer to do it several times again. It is, then, easy to know if the take was good enough or just crap.
After the song is finished, I let it sleep several hours, then listened to the result again with the singer. If something seems uncamy, we record it again.
I find this method safer, and less headache !
I consider my work as a listening effort, and I think I am bad if I can't immediatly guess if a take is good or bad. We have to be technicians AND musicians.

 

[crillemannen]

I'm maybe too old-school.
When I track vocals, I put every unsatisfying take into the bin.
If I'm not so sure about the quality, I open another track, keep the take, and ask the singer to do it several times again. It is, then, easy to know if the take was good enough or just crap.

+ 1

When i think im done, i listen to the song, edit, stretch etc. If everything sounds good then, done!

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

I cut up all the takes into phrases, listen to each take of every phrase, select the best, drag it to track named "leadvocal", select the second best, drag it to track named "leadvocal dub", stretch / shrink, manually tune to make them work together as good as I can, move on to the next phrase. I keep all the outtakes, unless they're total shit and hide the tracks to keep overview.

 

[crillemannen]

I cut up all the takes into phrases, listen to each take of every phrase, select the best, drag it to track named "leadvocal", select the second best, drag it to track named "leadvocal dub", stretch / shrink, manually tune to make them work together as good as I can, move on to the next phrase. I keep all the outtakes, unless they're total shit and hide the tracks to keep overview.

I do that to if the singer is really crappy. If hes good/great then i try to get as big phrases in one take as possible, to get a nice natural flow

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

I do that to if the singer is really crappy. If hes good/great then i try to get as big phrases in one take as possible, to get a nice natural flow

I do record large phrases. If the singer is really good I usually take 4 complete takes of the whole song. If the singer is a bit less good then I usually take some more takes and divide the song into verses and choruses separately. If he's really bad then the phrases get smaller and smaller.
What I said was that I always cut up the recorded takes to compare each phrase and pick the best

 

[AudioGeekZine]

record 3 decent takes of entire song.
Comp.
overdub problem sections 3-5 more times and comp.
consolidate.
Tune, print to new track.
Adjust timing, breaths, fade in/outs.
Consolidate.
Now double it.

Alternately you could double it after the overdubs, and use the double as the lead. I've had that be the best take more than once.

Recording yourself sucks, do you have no friends that can push spacebar for you?

 

[Ermz]

Not sure about the question.

I work in real time. We normally record 1 or 2 lines at a time, they are auditioned immediately, and if they're sub par they get undone immediately (no binning, so they don't waste HDD space). We work it in small steps, committing all the way, so there is no need to keep extraneous takes.

 

[462studio]

Not sure about the question.

I work in real time. We normally record 1 or 2 lines at a time, they are auditioned immediately, and if they're sub par they get undone immediately (no binning, so they don't waste HDD space). We work it in small steps, committing all the way, so there is no need to keep extraneous takes.

This is generally how I do it as well. Typically the singer will go through the entire song one or two times to get a feel for what they want to do, etc, and I'll save those first complete takes. Sometimes I'll chop those up and use them as backgrounds or doubles because a lot of cool shit can happen during the first few passes of a tune.

 

[Steven Otto]

Tip:
Keep a few good takes and get rid of the sub-par ones.

Now use those takes to combine those takes into one good take. So you might want to ditch the first part of Take 1 and use Take 2 instead and use Take 3 for the middle section etc. This way you can choose which parts of a take were the best and combine it.

 

[-Noodles-]

I only keep the ones I want.
I delete as I go.

 

[Rip-G]

Recording yourself sucks, do you have no friends that can push spacebar for you?

Well, it's not really about pushing spacebar isn't it?

 

[462studio]

Well, it's not really about pushing spacebar isn't it?

Haha, it's more about hitting the spacebar and then delete. Friends that can push the spacebar? Yep. Plenty. Friends that know when to hit space+delete and throw me a dirty look? Not so much.

 

[rfahey86]

Comping is a lifesaver on vocals and leads