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Post by jazznoise on Dec 5, 2018 6:57:57 GMT -6
1. It's just an observation. Most I've worked with ask for some kind of reverb on their headphone return. I've also noticed that most sing more evenly with some compression in addition to the reverb too. They instinctively harmonize with their own voice if they can hear the reverb too. It's a trick for a better vocal at the mic. As well all know, the source is where it's crucial to get the best performance. I don't understand what you mean by "2 reverbs merge" because the reverb on the headphone return isn't the one I might use in the mix, it's only on the headphone feed. I track the vocal itself dry, it's just what they hear that has effect on it. Another trick is to track the warmups and play them back with a little verb during the real tracking so the singer can harmonize with those. It makes them more even sounding and strangely enough it seems to calm them if they are jittery. Maybe it's like singing with a group and they don't feel so singled out? Yes but what is in the mix will also have a reverb on it, surely? In both of those situations, the room reflections will merge unless there's an extremely long pre-delay, that's just a phenomenon of perception. I generally find singers just sing, and that unless it's a specific thing for a type of performance like wanting to do a whispery vocal into distortion or something similar, the effects usually aren't on their mind. They're just worried about performance. Fair enough on the compression, I've never had any luck with it outside of some peak limiting. It seems like for newbie singers they would find it difficult and struggle to articulate the problem, and my worry would be that they'd blame themselves. 2. Because I don't know what the mix will be like half the time, and it's best if the vocal is dry enough to be effected to how the mix turns out. I USED to record in spaces, but more often than not, it's either overdone or underdone or the tone doesn't work as the band changes it's mind and by that time it's impossible to change the tones in the mix (and they certainly don't want to pay to do it all over). It's the same as recording a fender twin and then the guitarist wants the mix to sound more like a mesa rectifier during the mix.. Which is why I always DI guitars and bass now, so I can change anything and everything later. It's all about the result and rarely do the bands/artists care about how we got there, they just want it to be bigger and better than any effort they put it. I've often heard mixes where everthing is super dense and lush and the vocal sounds like it was recorded in a shower and sounds nothing like the rest of the mix. To me it sounds like the effect was a poor choice but was baked into the track and the engineer had no choice. That's not me. I've been there and it sucks and I'm not being stung by that again. I'm leaving options open until the mix. Maybe it's just the clients I have, I never have artists do a total 180 on me out of nowhere and we tend to have a talk about it if what they're asking for makes the work we've done contradictory. If someone wants a clean guitar, and then later wants it to be a distorted guitar, that's not the engineer's fault. There's a healthy amount of pressure to be had in not leaving all options indefinitely open. I usually meet bands prior to talk through what their intentions are and to get them thinking about it. It seems like you had a very bad experience. Maybe I'm just lucky! 3. I never said tuning issues. Giving them a solid vocal with some effect allows them to hear themselves no matter how dynamic the other instruments are. Lots of vocalists complain that they can't hear themselves during loud passages, so the compression helps without them turning their headphones up. Headphones up ruins their ears during the sessions and they lose their tonal perception and it makes things much worse, as well as makes more headphone bleed. A nice even compression allows a lower headphone level for the same clarity, and thus less ear fatigue and longer sessions before tiring. Mind you, these are tricks I've worked out over the years to get better performances. These aren't just ravings, these are developed techniques that seem to work much more often than they don't, and such, I don't really care what others have done, nor do I care what others think about it. It works, if you have an open mind. Ah well, I go the other way and limit the track going to their headphone feed! Scoop out a bit of midrange too sometimes if I feel the snare and the guitars are walking on their singing style a bit. Well if it's not pitching, I'm not sure what you're referring to in terms of poor performances. I agree on headphones, if someone's going to be at it for a while I think they're just too tiring and uncomfortable even in the best case scenario. Scratch-pad versions of vocals even just done with a 58 and then tracking them "properly" after could be a solution there. Again, I only use headphones when we don't have any alternatives to doing so. 4. Well, with a thread full of folks telling us that "this is how vocals should sound" (my paraphrase), I can at least inject my opinion that I don't like that old style vocal sound, and a thread full of folks dismissing my thoughts as wrong for offering a differing opinion is the smug you truly seek. I mean, you did write a lengthy reply to essentially tell me I'm wrong for doing things my way.. But hey, critique away because I have good reasons for why I do things this way and I'm completely open to discussing them. Well I don't think there's any consensus on "should" here, I just think that by dating them you're casting a pejorative view that doesn't need to be had. I didn't write a lengthy reply to tell you that you "do it wrong". I was asking some questions and highlighting what I'd consider contradictions. The make-it-inhumanly-dry-and-then-add-space-after thing in particular does not make sense to me, because it's not a binary situation. I'm also not a big fan of most artificial reverbs, though. All in all, I don't really care what others do, I only care that they feel the need to attack my way of doing work, which comes from decades of developing a workflow that is faster and easier for all involved at my studio and I'm not ashamed in the least. I've spent my years feeling inadequate and questioning everything based on internet opinions and I'm done with all that now. I feel that folks who've taken their time to reply to this thread have an overwhelming nostalgia for older sounds/tones, which I don't share. Look, you're clearly on the defensive. I'm not attacking your workflow, I'm asking questions to it and you seem to think that discredits your decision making somehow. We all need to be questioning ourselves to some extent is the unfortunate reality. I've also been doing this for a long time (as have many here) and my methods aren't perfect, but from my education and my own years of experience I've tried the standard methods and found many of them lacking and I'm presenting my own problems with those bits that overlap with your workflow. If you didn't want to hear the opinions of others on these things, then I don't think an internet forum was the best place to go for this discussion. I also think it's a shame you're not addressing the deeper questions of what "Old" means. Post-modernising an audio debate might seem pretentious, but there's fruit to be had from it. "Punchy modern mixes" also had a definition in the 90's, and the 00's and they're all very different. Remember, mixing isn't about just putting together the sum of the tracks and calling it a day. We're selling the illusion of being bigger than life. We need to be agile with the mix and avoid rigidly sticking to plans because that's how we end up with mundane results. We need to twist knobs and add effects and produce greatness from average input, and after all that's what the bands pay us to do. The bands and artists can get mundane results from their own garage and some mics and a 2i2 if they wanted. I'd rather try and make them rise above "Average Input" and have a workflow that feels seamless and their art just begins to "exist" in front of them. The guys at home already play cock-and-ball torture with the 2i2, and a pair of headphones in a dead vocal booth experience. Offering the premium version where it's a really big 2i2 and really big headphones doesn't seem like an upgrade at all to me if I'm to be honest. To be even more honest,the phrase "Average Input" gals me. Who are we to say? Where's our big amazing bands? Why is molesting their performance always an improvement? They pay us to facilitate the making of their music, whatever that is, and my key point within all that is that they should feel empowered during that process. Sometimes you're required to be creative, but the artist is the artist.
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Post by svart on Dec 5, 2018 8:43:47 GMT -6
1. It's just an observation. Most I've worked with ask for some kind of reverb on their headphone return. I've also noticed that most sing more evenly with some compression in addition to the reverb too. They instinctively harmonize with their own voice if they can hear the reverb too. It's a trick for a better vocal at the mic. As well all know, the source is where it's crucial to get the best performance. I don't understand what you mean by "2 reverbs merge" because the reverb on the headphone return isn't the one I might use in the mix, it's only on the headphone feed. I track the vocal itself dry, it's just what they hear that has effect on it. Another trick is to track the warmups and play them back with a little verb during the real tracking so the singer can harmonize with those. It makes them more even sounding and strangely enough it seems to calm them if they are jittery. Maybe it's like singing with a group and they don't feel so singled out? Yes but what is in the mix will also have a reverb on it, surely? In both of those situations, the room reflections will merge unless there's an extremely long pre-delay, that's just a phenomenon of perception. I generally find singers just sing, and that unless it's a specific thing for a type of performance like wanting to do a whispery vocal into distortion or something similar, the effects usually aren't on their mind. They're just worried about performance. Fair enough on the compression, I've never had any luck with it outside of some peak limiting. It seems like for newbie singers they would find it difficult and struggle to articulate the problem, and my worry would be that they'd blame themselves. 2. Because I don't know what the mix will be like half the time, and it's best if the vocal is dry enough to be effected to how the mix turns out. I USED to record in spaces, but more often than not, it's either overdone or underdone or the tone doesn't work as the band changes it's mind and by that time it's impossible to change the tones in the mix (and they certainly don't want to pay to do it all over). It's the same as recording a fender twin and then the guitarist wants the mix to sound more like a mesa rectifier during the mix.. Which is why I always DI guitars and bass now, so I can change anything and everything later. It's all about the result and rarely do the bands/artists care about how we got there, they just want it to be bigger and better than any effort they put it. I've often heard mixes where everthing is super dense and lush and the vocal sounds like it was recorded in a shower and sounds nothing like the rest of the mix. To me it sounds like the effect was a poor choice but was baked into the track and the engineer had no choice. That's not me. I've been there and it sucks and I'm not being stung by that again. I'm leaving options open until the mix. Maybe it's just the clients I have, I never have artists do a total 180 on me out of nowhere and we tend to have a talk about it if what they're asking for makes the work we've done contradictory. If someone wants a clean guitar, and then later wants it to be a distorted guitar, that's not the engineer's fault. There's a healthy amount of pressure to be had in not leaving all options indefinitely open. I usually meet bands prior to talk through what their intentions are and to get them thinking about it. It seems like you had a very bad experience. Maybe I'm just lucky! 3. I never said tuning issues. Giving them a solid vocal with some effect allows them to hear themselves no matter how dynamic the other instruments are. Lots of vocalists complain that they can't hear themselves during loud passages, so the compression helps without them turning their headphones up. Headphones up ruins their ears during the sessions and they lose their tonal perception and it makes things much worse, as well as makes more headphone bleed. A nice even compression allows a lower headphone level for the same clarity, and thus less ear fatigue and longer sessions before tiring. Mind you, these are tricks I've worked out over the years to get better performances. These aren't just ravings, these are developed techniques that seem to work much more often than they don't, and such, I don't really care what others have done, nor do I care what others think about it. It works, if you have an open mind. Ah well, I go the other way and limit the track going to their headphone feed! Scoop out a bit of midrange too sometimes if I feel the snare and the guitars are walking on their singing style a bit. Well if it's not pitching, I'm not sure what you're referring to in terms of poor performances. I agree on headphones, if someone's going to be at it for a while I think they're just too tiring and uncomfortable even in the best case scenario. Scratch-pad versions of vocals even just done with a 58 and then tracking them "properly" after could be a solution there. Again, I only use headphones when we don't have any alternatives to doing so. 4. Well, with a thread full of folks telling us that "this is how vocals should sound" (my paraphrase), I can at least inject my opinion that I don't like that old style vocal sound, and a thread full of folks dismissing my thoughts as wrong for offering a differing opinion is the smug you truly seek. I mean, you did write a lengthy reply to essentially tell me I'm wrong for doing things my way.. But hey, critique away because I have good reasons for why I do things this way and I'm completely open to discussing them. Well I don't think there's any consensus on "should" here, I just think that by dating them you're casting a pejorative view that doesn't need to be had. I didn't write a lengthy reply to tell you that you "do it wrong". I was asking some questions and highlighting what I'd consider contradictions. The make-it-inhumanly-dry-and-then-add-space-after thing in particular does not make sense to me, because it's not a binary situation. I'm also not a big fan of most artificial reverbs, though. All in all, I don't really care what others do, I only care that they feel the need to attack my way of doing work, which comes from decades of developing a workflow that is faster and easier for all involved at my studio and I'm not ashamed in the least. I've spent my years feeling inadequate and questioning everything based on internet opinions and I'm done with all that now. I feel that folks who've taken their time to reply to this thread have an overwhelming nostalgia for older sounds/tones, which I don't share. Look, you're clearly on the defensive. I'm not attacking your workflow, I'm asking questions to it and you seem to think that discredits your decision making somehow. We all need to be questioning ourselves to some extent is the unfortunate reality. I've also been doing this for a long time (as have many here) and my methods aren't perfect, but from my education and my own years of experience I've tried the standard methods and found many of them lacking and I'm presenting my own problems with those bits that overlap with your workflow. If you didn't want to hear the opinions of others on these things, then I don't think an internet forum was the best place to go for this discussion. I also think it's a shame you're not addressing the deeper questions of what "Old" means. Post-modernising an audio debate might seem pretentious, but there's fruit to be had from it. "Punchy modern mixes" also had a definition in the 90's, and the 00's and they're all very different. Remember, mixing isn't about just putting together the sum of the tracks and calling it a day. We're selling the illusion of being bigger than life. We need to be agile with the mix and avoid rigidly sticking to plans because that's how we end up with mundane results. We need to twist knobs and add effects and produce greatness from average input, and after all that's what the bands pay us to do. The bands and artists can get mundane results from their own garage and some mics and a 2i2 if they wanted. I'd rather try and make them rise above "Average Input" and have a workflow that feels seamless and their art just begins to "exist" in front of them. The guys at home already play cock-and-ball torture with the 2i2, and a pair of headphones in a dead vocal booth experience. Offering the premium version where it's a really big 2i2 and really big headphones doesn't seem like an upgrade at all to me if I'm to be honest. To be even more honest,the phrase "Average Input" gals me. Who are we to say? Where's our big amazing bands? Why is molesting their performance always an improvement? They pay us to facilitate the making of their music, whatever that is, and my key point within all that is that they should feel empowered during that process. Sometimes you're required to be creative, but the artist is the artist. Interesting takes. We're definitely on different paths here. I can tell you care about it though, which is really what matters in the long run. So to clarify poor performance.. I've had most singers focus on technical perfection and end up wavering, moving around too much or oscillating in volume. Pitch is something they already know when they're doing wrong. They try extremely hard to get all the pitches correct, but in doing so they'll back off a bit and lose the power and control of the performance. It sounds weak, lackluster or simply just unsure of themselves because they're focusing on the details too much. I focus on the vocals more heavily these days because it's what 90% of the listeners are focusing on as well. I just try to give them something solid they can harmonize with so they don't falter as much. OLD: Midrange-y, lacking top clarity, muddy/heavy bottom. The sound of crooners on vinyl recorded in a room with tons of bleed in the 60's. I like my vocals in your face, crystal clear, realistic to a fault. I want them to sound like they're part of the mix, but bigger than the mix at the same time. Like I said above, most people listen to the vocals and lyrics over anything else in the mix, so I give it to them. There is no reason to write meaningful lyrics and build a song around them only to bury them in the mix because the vocalist is shy about their performance. Really big 2i2: I don't know the caliber of gear you use, but if you can't imagine something drastically better than a 2i2.. Besides, I'm not only selling the notion of better gear, I'm selling the notion of being able to use it quickly and efficiently to get them better results. Honestly most folks who come through the studio don't even care about the gear. Anyway, if I can't do vastly better than a 2i2 and some mic in a bedroom closet then I better just give it up. Average: If you record enough, you know there is an average. It's not a disparaging comment, it's a truthful one. There are "big amazing bands" and there are terrible, terrible bands, but there are a lot of average bands. The bell curve of bands.. I've had amazing bands come through, we did great things quickly and easily because they were well rehearsed, knowledgeable, and most of all had a good work ethic. However, the majority are just average. They practice hard but need a few takes to get it right. They have songs written but need/want to change things after they hear them recorded with more than a 2i2 and a mic in a closet.. They hear things more clearly and realize that some stuff doesn't work like they thought it did and want to do edits and changes and maybe find tones that mesh better in the mix than what they heard in a padded garage with blown out ears. So I offer them vastly better quality, and I offer them the ability to change and mold the pieces of the mix as they hear their work come together and realize how their imagination and how reality are a bit more different than they expected.. That takes the ability to change the roots of the mix, and why I do DI's for the ability to change guitar tones and such later. Lots of these folks have ONE guitar and ONE amp. They've never played or heard something different. Coming into the studio and seeing 12 different guitars on the walls, or 9 different amps, or 6 different cabinets is a daunting experience. We could spend days trying to get tones for one guitar passage. It's easier to just have them track the DI through what they're used to and then find the *right* tone later as the mix comes together. Sometimes even that doesn't work right, but it's better than the guitarist being overwhelmed by choices and worrying more about that than the performance. So that makes me ask these questions.. Who am I to tell them "well, that's what you recorded, so that's what you get."? Why can't I "molest" their performance to get them something more? Why shouldn't I strive to tease out something greater than they expected and make them happier than they ever expected to be? We already edit takes together, quantize, autotune, etc.. So why aren't those also "molesting" their performance? Why is there an arbitrary line just beyond doing these things, but before the point where I take the mix further? I think the attitude of not going further because of being afraid of changing the artist's work is self-defeating. The artist will absolutely tell you if you've gone too far, and I've had that happen a few times, and then we figure out how far I should go. It's give/take, and the artist always gets something that makes them happy. Besides, why would the artist come to me and pay me if all I'm going to do is record them with a "big 2i2" and do nothing further for fear of "molesting" their work? The artist IS the artist, but I'm also an artist and they come to me and pay me to take their work and apply my work(sound) to it. Why else would they come to me for this? Most of the time, the discussion around whether they want to use my services hinges on whether they like what I've done in the past which means they desire what I do to mixes. If I didn't "molest" the mixes, then how would I have formed my "sound" and how would it attract other clients? This is my philosophy and what drives me. If I didn't do everything I could to produce something greater, then I'd feel like I was letting them down. Forum critique: I might be a little defensive, but we definitely have some one-way thinking on this forum from time to time, and I at least try to offer an alternative to a perceived group-think. Society fails if we all think alike. We don't need echo-chambers, we need alternate beliefs and discussions like this. If someone reads something I said and finds a new trick or something that helps them, then it's completely worth it. Even if they disagree with my process but it helps figure out their process, it's still worth having the discussion. I spent far too long following other's directions and losing my own way, and my work suffered for years from it. I don't necessarily want others to follow my flow, but I want them to know that alternates do exist and that every avenue should be explored on their way to finding their own process. But the thing we do much better here is that we're having a civil discussion between folks who disagree and I wouldn't hesitate to have a beer and a laugh with each and every person on this forum who disagrees with me on technical opinions.
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