Hot answers tagged vocal
16
Definitely EQ. if you're not using a super-high quality mic then there's going to be a need for frequency compensation, and a good bit of EQing can make even simply lightly-reverbed vocal tracks sit much nicer in your mix.
Also, don't drown your vocals in FX (unless that's the aim of the track, or you're using a vocoder ;) ). A good plate reverb, maybe a ...
12
Compression in this context means compressing the dynamic range of an audio track. In a nutshell, it's making the loudest parts of the track softer.
Of course it's more complicated once you get into it. You can find all the details in this Wikipedia article on the subject.
There are many different reasons to use compression:
Reduce the attack of each ...
10
Caution: Professional mics like SM58 etc are supposed to be connected to pre-amps, mixers etc. If you connect a SM58 to your computer's inbuilt mic slot you'll get only a very feeble sound.
If you are planning to upgrade from voice-chat style headset-mics, you should consider buying an audio interface too, (Try M-Audio mobile-pre or similar), or you could ...
8
What happened to dynamics?
Depending on the situation, I use the following:
EQ -> A little compression -> [monitor out for singer] -> Multiband compression aka de-esser -> compression -> reverb
Everything pre-fader except for the reverb.
The first compressor is just making things a bit more comfortable for the singer and really shouldn't do much. The ...
7
A part from the classic SM-58, I've had joys with SM-57 and Beta 58. These are all similar, the Beta being the clearest of the lot. These are fine both live and in studio.
Another option is using cheap condenser microphones (I've used the AKG C1000 for instruments and AKG C3000 for voice) which are within your budget and decent for the price. These would be ...
7
That effect is called Backwards Reverb - the simplest way to do it is to reverse the waveform, then add a normal reverb, then reverse it again.
Many DAW's have a backwards reverb plugin which effectively does exactly this, but without you having to do the reversing manually, but I don't think Fruity Loops has this.
I did find this tutorial specific to ...
6
Yes, it's possible. What you need to do is demux and remux. Check out free tools like VirtualDub and Any Video Converter to split the original into separate streams, add what you want using Audacity or similar, then re-multiplex them together using a tool like AviMux. The video can remain unchanged.
6
Ah, the old question: How do I make the vocals heard over a band with a tiny PA? It's not always easy.
Compression won't help you; it may actually make things worse by making feedback more likely. It sounds like you're using underpowered PAs, and if you want the vocals to be loud enough you'll need the band to play more quietly. But the band has to want to ...
5
The "cocktail party problem" is actually a famous example in signal processing, and there are several different Blind signal separation or Source separation algorithms to solve it in different conditions. Are you doing this for homework in such a class? I've got an example of one on my website, but this statistical method (ICA) wouldn't work well for you ...
5
Before you buy any microphones, you will have to consider how you will connect them into your laptop. It sounds like you don't have a separate sound card, and the microphone input on your laptop is likely to be poor quality.
There are several options. First you could get a microphone that has a built-in USB interface (eg the Samson C01U). This will be the ...
4
Personally, I think the best way would be to train your ear so you can recognize when something is offpitch. Even the best singers cannot perfectly reproduce every note, and you'll know something's not autotuned when you hear pitch variation. To start this, I recommend interval training.
There are technical methods also. In a frequency plot of a vocal ...
4
This is a very tricky question because much of it is subjective. What may sound acceptable or even good to you may not be bearable for someone else and vice versa.
That said, there are several tiers of techniques and equipment that need rising levels of money and expertise. So I will try to answer the question as simply as possible.
The simplest way to try ...
4
When ever I've done stereo micing before I've used 2 identical mics. However there is a technique which uses 2 different mics called Middle Side, which then needs to be decoded either through hardware or software to give normal Left-Right signals. It's something I've often thought interesting but never had the opportunity to play with.
4
If you happen to be a video editor, then the latest Premiere Pro has a respectable voice transcribing component in it.
If your recordings are very clear and high quality, then a crazy idea might be to play back the recording to Dragon Naturally Speaking. But, given current technology, I doubt any software solution would work well, and all will generate ...
4
There is a solution to your problem that doesn't involve buying anything. You simply make a multitrack recording, and compensate for latency after the fact by moving your beat forward in time.
Here is an outline of the procedure:
Open up your beat file.
press record, this should record your new material to a new mono track below your beat Press play, note ...
4
As sound waves travel through bone as well as air, of course you will sound different to a recording. When you play back a recording you just won't get any of those sounds transmitted through your skull.
You will be able to approximate the sound by using an equaliser and boosting our cutting frequency ranges - trial and error is your best bet here, as ...
4
Neil Fein wrote a great post about what you can do, but another thing to consider is to make sure you talk with the sound guy about how you want it to sound. If there is a dedicated engineer there and it is a smaller venue, chances are good that they aren't very good and may be used to the "living room experience" ie, crank the bass and the guitars and ...
3
Autotune (and pitch correction in general) is an effect, and like any other effect, often the best way to identify it is just to be familiar enough that you know what it sounds like! Listen to recordings known to have it and not have it, in a variety of settings. In short, train your ear. Having a good sense of pitch seems to help.
If possible, get your ...
3
A compression effect compresses the dynamic range of a track or in other words it makes the volume of an track more even
It can have many uses but the most common is to iron out inconsistencies in an audio tracks volume. This can giving a impossibly consistent sound to a performance which is often desirable when processing things like vocals.
It can ...
3
A microphone that works well for vocals and is in a god price-range yet is good quality is the Shure SM-57. It also has the benefit to be an excellent mic to record electric guitars. As such it is pretty much the first microphone to buy of any kind.
If you want something that has a more transparent top, you probably want a large-diaphragm condensor. There ...
3
As always, mic selection is somewhat subjective, but I've had good experiences with the Sennheiser e Series. You might want to take a look at the e935 & e945 (dynamic) & e865 (condenser) - they would seem to fit your budget. I found them a step up from the 57 & 58 in sound quality. Probably not quite as durable (what is, really?) but they're not ...
3
If you absolutely refuse to just sing it, and have no friends you can coerce into doing it, you can use some sort of pitch-correction software, more commonly called "Auto-tune". This will sound more natural than a robot voice, unless you have really extreme settings.
You could also use a Vocoder (which I suspect the robot voice effect is). This takes an ...
3
There are several solutions for your problem, and they have huge price range and complexity differences. I'll cover the conceptual basics here and the issues you may come across. I am assuming that your question was literal; you are attempting to that a mic signal from a singer and send it back to her with some effects on her voice without recording her ...
3
Radio output in general will be compressed to within a millimeter of its life. With multi-band compression in particular you can boost the loudness a hell of a lot and everything will sound very full.
But, as with everything, it depends:
What you want it to sound like
What the actual requirements are (anyone need anything specific?)
What the source ...
3
Speech Detection
You havent mentioned what NLE you use to edit, however here is a method you can use to transcribe if you are using Adobe CS4 or later.
This method uses speech detection to automatically transcribe videos - a feature brought in with CS4. It then adds the the text into the metadata of the file.
Analyze speech to create text metadata
...
3
Try a parametric EQ, or a band-reject filter (essentially the same thing).
Setup your audio so that you can loop the section with the problem sound.
In your EQ or filter, adjust the controls so that your band is narrow and deep. That is, a small range of frequency is impacted, but that band is almost entirely attenuated.
slowly sweep the filter from low ...
3
There's no magic bullet, but here's a few things you can try.
First you'll need a program to edit the audio. I'm on a mac and use Apple's Logic. Its a couple hundred bucks and very powerful for the cost.
To clean up the hiss noise that was undoubtedly recorded with the laptop mic, use a de-noiser plug-in. Plug ins for audio work similarly to layer ...
2
My 2 cents:
I use Audix OM5 mics for the backing vocals: good rejection of the drum cymbals on a small stage.
(if it's a really noisy stage, OM7 is even better at it, but more expensive).
Don't expect the clarity, presence & fidelity of a KMS105: the Audix is a ROCK mic.
If you don't know what's coming: SM58Beta can't be beat as an allrounder.
2
If condenser microphones (and the pre-amplifier with phantom power) is outside your price range, then I strongly recommend you take a look at the Shure SM58 dynamic microphone. You can get far cheaper microphones, but the SM58 has very usable sound and it's built to last.
And I really mean last. I have three SM58 that I bought used more than 15 years ago. ...
2
First, be careful with microphones that do not list certain specifications at all. Most of the time, if a microphone isn't accompanied with certain specifications, there is an obvious reason for it.
Have a look at sensitivity, a microphone that is not sensitive enough can get you into having to turn up the volume of your pre-amplifier to such a level that ...
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