Clarity in Vocals?

[yungboss]

I've been pondering some general production techniques when it comes to recording vocals. I studied different artists and noticed that generally there are two different production styles: Diffucult and Simple


The diffucult way some engineers record is by taking multiple takes of the same verse panning it in different directions to give it a thick sound.

The simple way is ONE CLEAR take and then an extra one that functions as a dub/lib track. An artist I notice that utilizes this production technique is Jay-Z. You can listen to any Jay-Z track and notice that he has only One track as his main vocals with a little bit of reverb. The problem with this production method is getting this clear output.

I cant figure it out; is it the gear he is using that produces such a lovely sound or is it the EQing done by the engineer? Any suggestions?

 

[hanayalator]

Lol. You can bet Jay-Z is using the best gear money can buy. I'm sure he's using some type of ridiculously expensive Neumann mics, or something similar. With that being said, you should be able to get a decent vocal take with any microphone available to you. Always try to get the best take possible, and only use eq to help balance the track out, not add anything significant (unless you're going for some type of effect).

 

[Shonsteez]

You should check the the thread located directly above this one!

 

[scandal]

Your Preamp, Compressor, and Converters are gonna be just as important as the Mic to get that sound.

 

[Shonsteez]

Word, a lot of people try to argue that it doesn't matter what gear your using to get the sounds you want, this in part is true if your gear is at least decent enough to render an average/mediocre recording, but many things come into play here aside from good engineering skills.

Even if you have your mic placement down, your gain structure right, and you know how to clean up unwanted frequencies later with your DAWs EQ thats still not gonna make a difference if your trying to obtain that particular sound. This is because a good deal of where that sound comes from is your signal chain....

So for example, if your tracking through a radioshack mic, into a podcast interface or even worse - the odds are that even with the best engineering skills your still gonna end up with a very limited recording in terms of how well your mic represents the frequency spectrum or matches that vocalist, plus your converters and pre's are prob so low-end that once your audio is finally inside your DAW your still left with a lifeless piece of audio that your just gonna have to try and make better with plug treatments and it will never be the same as if it was just tracked through good gear.....

I know this first hand man, I started with a radioshack mic in the literal sense and went straight into the 1/8th input on my computer tower, lol...as you can guess it sounded like shit. Then later I copped my first interface, this improved my computers ability to render and handle streaming audio, etc. but now my mic was a piece of shit going into a decent interface....so as you can guess, now i had to go cop a decent mic in order to render at least ok results as far as what I was going for.

Like many have said before: "Garbage IN - Garbage OUT"... Its very true.

The unfortunate reality of it is that audio recording is an expensive sport. Shit, Im still not even close to having the signal chain I would really prefer!


(Another factor I didnt even mention is "room acoustics" - this can play just as big of roll as your gear sometimes.)

 

[yungboss]

I understand now, basically what i need 2 do is get a better mic, and interphase, find a better room to record in and pretty much enhance my engineering skills. I got it now

 

[thedreampolice]

You need to forget about interphase anyone who uses that word is grasping at straws and does not know what he is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interphase


or do you mean you need a better audio interface?

 

[Shonsteez]

Im pretty sure he means interface.

 

[yungboss]

Im pretty sure he means interface.

Interface!!! lol... my fault