oldbobd - Your Tip on How to Get Better Vocals

[bilco]

I rerecorded some vocal tracks today on my homegrown CD project that were depressingly pitchy.  Experiments with Autotune and Melodyne were not really satisfying so I decided to try singing all over again.  I remembered somewhere in one of your tips (I think it was you) about turning down the bass in the headphones to improve the singer's intonation.  So, I muted everything but the acoustic guitar and I rolled the bass off of it during recording,  I also panned the guitar hard left and my vocal hard right to help hear the details of my singing better.  For harmony recording, I then panned the main vocal hard and acoustic guitar hard left and the harmony vocal being recorded hard right.  What a difference!!  I KNEW I could sing more in tune live than I do when recording and now I feel vindicated!  These are the best vocal tracks I think I have ever recorded.  Thanks for that tip!

Could you please repost that tip here?

Thanks,
bilco

[oldbobd]

THE KEY TO GETTING A GOOD RECORDED VOCAL
BY ROBERT DENNIS

The Key
Vocals sound good only when they are “in tune.” If a singer is ”flat” (or sharp) the vocal performance doesn’t sound as good and can even sound poorly recorded.

The Problem:
A singer sings in tune when he/she gets a good “pitch reference.” The ears, however, are not always correctly “hearing” the pitch.
When music is played loud, a person hears the bass frequencies flat. How Flat? A lot flat - as much as the pitch difference of the next key on the piano and even more. In recording the singer hears the band through headphones. If these headphones are loud and bass-heavy, the singer will try to “tune” to what he/she hears and usually sing flat.

Its interesting to observe that if singers are off during recording, it is usually because they are flat - not sharp.

The Solution:
The solution is simple. If the singer sings flat, reduce the headphone volume and reduce the amount of bass-frequencies in the headphones. This may require a little “training” for singers to get used to using lower volumes and less bass than they want in the headphones.

When singers insist on loud bassy headphones and always sing flat, I will suggest an experiment:
1. Have the singer sing a verse with the headphones loud and bassy.   Record this on a track.
2. Have the singer sing the same verse again with the headphones much lower and with less bass. Record this second performance on a different track.
3. Without telling the singer which track is which, play each track with the music and ask which one the singer likes best. They will always choose the track done with the lower-volume, reduced bass headphone mix.

Other Tips:
When two instruments are supposed to be playing the same pitch but one is out-of-tune, there is a “beating” that occurs. This beating sounds like the volume increasing and decreasing regularly. When the instruments are close to the same pitch this beating slows down and when they are exactly in pitch this beating stops. Hearing this beating is a large part how we hear that something is out-of tune.

Adding reverberation “covers” up the beating that occurs when two instruments (or a vocal and instruments) are out-of-tune with each other.  Everyone likes reverb on the vocal. If you, however, have a lot of reverb on the vocal when a singer is trying to sing, it will be harder for the singer to hear he/she is off pitch. As a result, vocals are recorded best with little or no reverb in the headphone mix.

Unusual Circumstances:
Sometimes singers have become accustomed to singing in tune with loud music playing.  This kind of thing happens to singers that have done a lot of live performances where the music is very loud on the stage. Over years, the singer has learned to sing at the correct pitch with loud stage volumes. With a singer like this, low-volume headphone can cause the singer to sing sharp. Instances of this are rare - but they do occur.

Conclusion:
Two rules to record vocals by:
1. If the singer is having problems with intonation (being in tune), use different headphones volumes - usually turn down the volume and turn down the bass.
2. Use the minimum amount of reverb possible when doing vocal recordings.

[oldbobd]

I rerecorded some vocal tracks today on my homegrown CD project that were depressingly pitchy.  Experiments with Autotune and Melodyne were not really satisfying so I decided to try singing all over again.  I remembered somewhere in one of your tips (I think it was you) about turning down the bass in the headphones to improve the singer's intonation.  So, I muted everything but the acoustic guitar and I rolled the bass off of it during recording,  I also panned the guitar hard left and my vocal hard right to help hear the details of my singing better.  For harmony recording, I then panned the main vocal hard and acoustic guitar hard left and the harmony vocal being recorded hard right.  What a difference!!  I KNEW I could sing more in tune live than I do when recording and now I feel vindicated!  These are the best vocal tracks I think I have ever recorded.  Thanks for that tip!

Could you please repost that tip here?

Thanks,
bilco

Glad to repost and happy it helped!

bob

[bilco]

I knew I forgot something; I recorded the vocal completely dry, no reverb, no delay, in keeping with your tip about reverb covering up the beating effect when something is out of tune.  It really helped me hear details like the pitch of low notes and how effectively I was breaking my voice from regular range to falsetto.

I am going to try out your tip on the "exciting compressor" next.'

Thanks for sharing your expertise,
Bill Colbert