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vst fx's for vocals?

i'm inexperienced for this area, could anyone recommend some good vst's to put on vocals? thanks

Re: vst fx's for vocals?

quote:

Originally posted by djbruuen i'm inexperienced for this area, could anyone recommend some good vst's to put on vocals? thanks

reverbs/delays/etc...

just make sure you have 2 instances of the vocal... one dry one, and one thats a little bit quieter with all of the FX on it.. this way you'll have the clean voice plus FX of it in the back

Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

quote:

Originally posted by System101 just make sure you have 2 instances of the vocal... one dry one, and one thats a little bit quieter with all of the FX on it.. this way you'll have the clean voice plus FX of it in the back

i've never heard of this technique, i can't see how it is of any use. wouldn't you just get phasing from the two overlapping? isn't the obvious alternative just to reduce the mix of the effects? i could be wrong, but it sounds like a bs thing to to in my oppinion lol.

anyway, reverb and delay are your bread and butter effects, as you will always have at least one of them on there. if you want more creative effects, look into:
vocoders
ring modulation
bit crushing
comb filtering (if you combine this with some lfo madness, you get some pretty awesome sounds)

another popular technique is to take two (mono) instances of the sound, pan one hard left, the other hard right, and make a small time offset on one of them. this creates a very interesting stereo effect. you'll hear this excessively overused in every BT track...

it is also good to have a harmony layer. if you can't get another take, duplicate the original and transpose it one 5th or an octave.

have fun


edit: i assume you already know, but i will say it anyway! ideally, compression would be applied MOSTLY at the recording stage, before it even hits the ADC. however, if your vocal still has blips, crank out your compressor. also, with eq, it is important to not do very much. the more you eq, the less human they will sound. that could be a good thing or a bad thing i suppose!

Reverb tends to move instruments to the background. So, if you are going to use reverb on vox and want to give them their own space, but not drown them, try cranking up the pre-delay to ~40ms or more. This creates a short delay before the reverb kicks in, so it separates the vocal transients from the reverb, thereby keeping the vocals up front in the mix.

Another common vocal effect is to automate a hi-pass and/or low-pass filter from a parametric EQ to create filter sweeps.

Compressor or gate sidechaining a vocal track using an intricate hihat or other pattern can create interesting stuttering effects.

Chopping, cutting, pasting, splicing of vocal tracks can create cool effects with/without other VST effects.

Re: Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

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Originally posted by echosystm ...ideally, compression would be applied MOSTLY at the recording stage, before it even hits the ADC.

As a long-time recording engineer, I completely disagree and I don't think you'll find many experienced recording engineers that do. Compressing prior to the ADC is destructive (i.e., cannot be undone), so you are almost always better off reserving most of the compressing until after tracking so that you've got more raw material to work with, ESPECIALLY with vocals. The reason is that compression introduces distortion and can sound very inconsistent as the compressor kicks in during the loud parts and drops out during the softer parts, especially on tracks with a lot of dynamic variation. This usually sounds terribly unnatural and cannot be undone once it's printed. More often than not, the most natural sounding approach is to record your takes using light compression (see below), use clip gain/volume envelopes to tame the worst peaks, then compress the overall clip as needed.

Compressing while tracking should be kept conservative - just enough to keep any peaks from creating digital "overs" and maintaining a relatively consistent level for the singer. If you are recording at 24-bit (and you SHOULD be), you will have so much headroom that digital overs should never be a problem (unless your signal path is f@#$ed). So, if your vocalist has good mic technique, you should need very little (or maybe even no) compression while tracking. A good rule of thumb is this: if you can hear the compressor kick in (i.e., squashing the signal) while tracking, it's probably too much. Back off on the threshold, attack, and/or slope until its effect is inaudible.


edit: clarification

Re: Re: Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

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Originally posted by cryophonik As a long-time recording engineer, I completely disagree and I don't think you'll find many experienced recording engineers that do.

people don't use channel strips anymore?



everyone i know does. hell, they even eq the sound before it hits the adc lol.

the way i was always shown, is to cut bass on the eq, put a bit of compression to tame really wild points pre-emptively, and ride the fader as you're recording. from my understanding, it is better to do this and get a loud signal, than to screw around with a weak signal and raise the noise floor. i'm only talking a bit of compression though, not a low enough threshold that the whole take is being affected - just the outliers.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm people don't use channel strips anymore?

Yes. I record almost everything (vox, guitar, bass) through a channel strip. But, the point here is that I don't do MOST of my compression during the tracking stage - I use it very lightly (along with some light de-essing and/or EQ) and do most of the compressing in-the-box. There's nothing worse than having a singer nail that chorus after an hour of trying, but then find out that the compressor squashed the high "A" at the peak of the performance.

mabe you put more compression on that me in general? i prob put as much on the channel strip as you do, but think it is enough

i only really use compression to compensate for the singer being a boob and belting shit randomly. that said, at home, i don't have a channel strip so i just do it all in the box. i don't get as good results this way though.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

Ahhh - I see. I also just saw your edits (below) and I agree.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm ...from my understanding, it is better to do this and get a loud signal, than to screw around with a weak signal and raise the noise floor. i'm only talking a bit of compression though, not a low enough threshold that the whole take is being affected - just the outliers.

Yes, weak signals and noise floors are a problem, especially for newbie vocalists who don't know how to project, work a mic, etc. But, I usually try to avoid fixing that with compression and instead try to get them to just sing louder, or just avoid working with them altogether .

Most gear isn't so noisy that you need that much compression to make it all work... I've always thought very light compression was a good idea, but because its destructive to leave it alone as much as possible until mixing. I Don't actually use one at all until the vocals are in the computer since I don't have any hardware, it well enough for me.

On the original topic, its really a matter of preference. My vocals usually get sent to the reverbs with everything else, they also often get sent to the delays too. Ping pong is really good for stutter edits, as is a really punchy compressor setup, with hard knee and all. For more general stuff, I often find a soft knee and short attack work wonders with a low ratio. Eq wise I like to de emphasise the low mids because condenser mics always make them too tubby, but it depends on mic and voice. Otherwise, try distortions and other delays. Vocals are more about editing than effects in my opinion, a well placed stutter or a good backing vocal can transform your vocal beyond belief.

Re: Re: Re: vst fx's for vocals?

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm i've never heard of this technique, i can't see how it is of any use. wouldn't you just get phasing from the two overlapping? isn't the obvious alternative just to reduce the mix of the effects? i could be wrong, but it sounds like a bs thing to to in my oppinion lol.

Phasing has never occured...

the original vocal i leave pretty dry... usually just add a bit of compression and EQ just to remove a bit of the low end...

the FX vocal would have the delay/reverb/filter/etc. so when all of that is applied it sounds nothing like the original.

the advantage to doing it this way IMO is that i can EQ the FX completely different than the original vocal... i usually cut anything below 300-400 on the FX vocal and only about 70-100 on the original vocal.

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