I have been recording some music over the summer and for the time being I've decided to try to record some vocals. I don't find my voice such a great fit for the music I'm making so I hope to find someone else to sing eventually but I figure that perhaps I may do background vocals or something so I'm attempting a cover song right now. My vocals have sounded fairly flat on my initial attempts and I don't mean flat in a key sense, I mean that the sound doesn't sound very lively. So my question is does adding reverb, echo and other effects make a big difference with vocals?
It helps obscure a sucky voice. Consider Depeche Mode. The singer doesn't sing, but the added ambiences do make his chanting musical.
You could try recording the same vocal line twice,over-dubbing the first one with a second one,trying to sound as much the same as possible with the two takes.This basically means you are layering one vocal line with a virtually identical one.But they will inevitably sound slightly different as we are not machines.This will produce a fuller sound and also you might get some subtle pleasing harmonic shifts in you vocal lines.
I hope that when you are recording your vocals, you are wearing headphones so that you can hear yourself as you record. My recorder has ten V-takes for each track, so I can record ten times and pick the best one, or cut and paste the takes on the mix down. I also have a VOCAL-300 for lots of various effects. It even has one that makes my voice sound like Barry white. There's a new voice effect pedal that has three part harmony. These days, all the gizmos can make you sound like Elvis, even if you're tone deaf.
That's if you are using a condenser recording mic. And a screen is good for snuffing out your P's. If you are using a low impedance mic you'll need to be closer.
This applied to any mic. I've never mixed vocals without adding compression and reverb. I doubt that anyone does. When I record louder male vocals, I use a Shure SM7B, which is a low input, dynamic microphone. Even when I use a SM58 I get them to stand a foot away from the microphone. Impedance has nothing to do with it. Swallowing the mic (any mic) will give you a bassy flat sounding tone called a proximity effect.
So I've taken some of the advice here and I'm pretty satisfied with how its turning out. I was working with compression effects tonight and attempted to use some on the beat as well. At times it sounded really spot on but I kept making some minor adjustments and it kind of threw the vocals and beat off into this overly crunchy sound where it sounding like It's starting to get static-y. So should I just keep playing around with it til I get something I feel works? Also I have a multiband compressor on my master mixer, is that necessary if I'm individually compressing vocals/instruments/beat?
If it starts to get distorted, try to turn down the output volume on your compressor. And I dont know which program you are using but make sure you have a stereo master track. If everything is too loud it'll start to distort. A master fader will help you monitor this.
I just had a conversation with another singer about this very thing. I don't know that any singer was transformed into a great singer thanks to the addition of reverb. I would record the vocal dry. Listen to what you don't like, and see if this is something that can be fixed with another take. Did you hit a wonky note? Are not getting into the song properly. I think singing is a lot like acting. You can sing the lyrics and hit the notes, but if your performance is not delivering the emotion that song calls for, it'll land in your ears boring and lifeless. This is what has enabled a lot of "bad" singers to deliver great vocals. When you get that vocal track that you like, or one you can tolerate, maybe toss a little reverb in there, I've found plate reverb works nicely with vocals, try some compression too. I hope you get the track you want.
I just want to bump this thread to thank all of you for your tips on compression, doubling up on the vocals, reverb and what not! In the time since I have posted this, I have found that many of these techniques can be applied to instruments effectively as well and I feel like I just had an 'aha' moment tonight on learning how to balance the addition of some of these features without overdoing them.
