Veni, MIDI, vici ... "tricks" and best practices for MIDI stuff, DAW and final mixing

Technique
563

I remastered several tracks now with Smart:Chain and am still very impressed.

Everything sounds better, clearer and all instrumental/vocals have a clear position in the stereo image.
Great!

Today I will re-record my own vocals as they are getting good enough for punk & electro songs. Even my girlfriend said that she does not b@rf (anymore) when she has to listen to my voice :slight_smile:

It’s a matter of letting go and confidence!

Now, I used an amp simulation before, to get the distortion I wanted for my voice. But it has one downside: it makes the vocals muddy too.
The vocals don’t cut through the mix as they should, and you can’t understand what I’m singing sometimes (which might be a good thing for some lyrics :-))

So, now I’m looking for a way to emulate an amp with plugins that are NOT amp simulations, as to have complete control over every aspect of the vocal effects.

I guess, it’s a combination of EQ, compression, saturation, filters and limiters. Possibly flanger too?
Don’t understand filters yet. What’s that?

I am really am lost, how to achieve the effect I want. I experimented a little, getting closer, but I’m still not there. I sound too harmless, and I want the vocals to feel “dystopian” … more like a horny killer android, if you catch my drift!?

I looking for the harshness of a megaphone, while still having the vocals intelligible and close to my original vocals, maybe a little darker.

Any ideas?

564

For vocals:

  • too much saturation => mud
  • EQ boost on the bass and low mids => mud
  • overcompression => can be mud (as this will tend to oversaturate)
  • reverb on vocals => can add mud if overdone (though most vocals benefit from some reverb or delay, IMO)
  • distortion on vocals => can add saturation, and therefore mud
  • bad mic => definitely can add mud

Like bass-heavy instruments, absolutely high-pass filter your vocals; for vocals, a second order filter (-12dB/Oct) with a cutoff around 50-100Hz is usually good, maybe a little on the lower side of that range, play with it.

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565

The mic is great - I know, cause I felt the park punk chick tickling my brain when listening to the vocals I recorderded with my new mic.

I will try that as soon as I recorded (my) new vocals!

566

You can apply it to your existing vocal tracks, just like any other EQ.

1 Like
567

I know. But I’m in the process of rerecording all vocals of most tracks I did, to apply my new learnings…

568

Ok, re-recorded my vocals. I’m such a softy … can’t get aggressive, really, but ok.

So, I discovered the channel of Ken „Hiwatt“ Marshall, who has quite a lot to say about recording and destroying vocals, being the producer for Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly.

Let’s see/hear what I can learn from this guy. I’m not looking for the total craziness of his sound, but I hope to use his approach a little turned down. My girlie voice will do the rest :slight_smile:

1 Like
569

HiWatt’s awesome. Great channel. One thing to bear in mind is he recorded and engineered the 2000s era stuff for these bands though, not the earlier stuff or (IIRC) the recent. but he’s still great.

He shares my love of the Lexicon PCM-42 :rofl:

The plugin is expensive but it’s my go-to delay.

1 Like
570

Yeah! I thought so - he looks so fresh and un-abused :slight_smile:

I will use his approach only as a starting point to find my own style for vocals.
It’s just hard to watch his videos and find real information: he is very enthusiastic, which is ok. But sometimes I wished that he would spend more time on going through stuff step by step, so old people like me understand what he’s doing :slight_smile:

Anyway, I learned that the original vocal recordings are already “human” distorted.
I’m not looking for the Skinny Puppy style vocals, but I will rerecord my vocals DAF style and put some HiWatt magic on that - hopefully that leads to to something more satisfying.

By the way: after several days of going mad over the vocal recordings I did with my park punk chick - 90% of those being sh#t - I listened to my own vocal recordings and they were … also sh#t!

At least I sounded motivated, unlike her. But we both did not manage to bring energy to the table. It’s a matter of breathing technique, but also a matter of having a bad day.
We both did…

HiWatt talks about vocal recording and production in one of his videos and almost gets an orgasm. I wish I could share his sentiment :slight_smile:

571

Just uploaded “Ohne Halt” (remastered) to Distrokids, yay, so it will be visible on all major streaming services soon.

Of course, I made two mistakes, so I had to cancel this relase and re-upload:

  • I did not normalize the final track.
  • I did not select the right starting point for the preview audio. When it starts at the beginning, it does not exhibit the full emotional power of that song.

I’m still not sure if everything went right, especially when it comes to creating my pages on all the streaming services as well as linking to my park punk, G.GOERE / G.GÖRE (the “Ö” was an issue).

Also, I discovered later that I can add lyrics too, but this could be easily corrected.

This is a new adventure…

572

I posted “Vielleicht Kastrieren?” on zzzeee ZZzzzerman forum and got two remarks about the mix:

  • The (sub) bass collides with the vocals. I rechecked and this is not true. What is true is that there is a certain amount of sub bass that I used deliberately, in order to keep the ADHS audience engaged - and this collides with smaller speakers.
  • I (over) used the de-esser to remove sibilances. That is true, but it’s all @TheMaartian’s fault :slight_smile:
    No, all good, but the funny thing is that when I listen to my mix while thinking in English, the sibilances sound too hard - hence: de-esser. After the remark of a German, I had to force myself to German thinking mode and then I also realized that the de-esser was set too strong, introducing a slight lisp and even changing the pronunciation of words, so those even sounded like different words sometimes. Interesting!

This is a further reason to spread alpha versions on forums, so people can point me to mistakes I don’t hear…

1 Like
573

That is interesting. And…entschuldigst du mir. :wink:

574

Kein Problem :slight_smile:

I always have the inner-Maartian enabled when listening to German vocals, as you found the sibilants to harsh. It’s an issue since 1933, I guess.
But with the current situation in Germany, sibilants are coming back, I’m afraid :frowning:

By the way, it’s just “Entschuldige!”

1 Like
575

Like “pardon” in French. Been too long. I forgot. Thanks for the reminder.

So, entschuldige for the inner-Maartian. :rofl:

1 Like
576

I am working on the first draft version of “TÜV geprüfter Huhrensohn”.
As for “Vielleicht Kastrieren?”, I let my park punk chick sing to a raw metronome beat, to be inspired for some tune.

For this one, I start with a simple punky electro rhythm, like from a cheap 80s drum machine, do some conventional stuff with more and more deep layers (like I always do), … but from 0:37 I want to into full-on (old school) drum&bass … but with a lot of strange psychedelisch effects for the vocals: stutter, crazy chorus, backwards delay, that kind of stuff.

I’m looking for a complete destruction of the vocals, without loosing “musicality”…

But: I don’t know how.

Any ideas?

This is a very very very early version, more like a concept test:

I want to destroy the vocals starting at 0:30…

577

Try using a vocoder. They can do a LOT more than create robotic voices. Your vocal is the modulator signal. You can play around with different carrier signals until you get a result you like. Here are a couple of good references and a link to the TAL Vocoder (free, of course).

How to use vocoders

What is a vocoder?

TAL Vocoder

1 Like
578

I have Ovox from f#cking Waves. It’s actually quite interesting, you’re right.

I have avoided using vocoders, as the effect is often too dominant and too robotic, but I might solve that with distortion on the main track and then Ovox on a bus, with a very low level.

Will revisit that, thanks!

1 Like
579

Try the TAL Vocoder. It can use an external carrier source! That would give you a lot of flexibility. And read the first article I linked. Hopefully, it will give you some good ideas.

Bis Morgen.

1 Like
580

Vocoders can do tons of things. Definitely not just the robot.

581

That said it’s also not necessarily the effect you want - give an example of how you want the vocals “destroyed”

1 Like
582

I have something in my mind, and I know that I heard this in existing songs … but I had two hours sleep last night (f#cking insomnia!) and my brain refuses to work properly, even after a quite a few double espressos.

Hopefully, I can post some tracks that have the effects I’m looking for tomorrow!