Hello there.
Been a long time since iv been here. Iv had a break for a while, sold all my gear and have started to get back into electronic music producing again, this time im all software using Reason 9.
Now my brother is a singer just for fun at home, and is now wanting to get into recording his own songs along side Karaoke tracks, and get a very close to studio mix as possible. He has got Reason, Ballance audio interface, monitor speakers, decent mic, stand and pop shiled, and headphones so we are all set to go, or so we thought?
I dont have much experience recording vocals, im a electronic musician, but have done my research e.c.t.
Problem 1:
He cant hear his own vocals via the headphones, the interface headphone volume is full, so we know for his 250hm headphone he needs a pre amp, one on the way, there is no way to get his phones any boost from what I know of?
We continue and except for the moment he will have to deal with not hearing things that lound.
Problem 2: Mix recording level.
So I get the meter up on the screen, and him to sing the chorus, or most loudest part of the song, he does, I set the input to -10db. He starts to record still not hardly hearing his own voice, music turned right down, but his levels are now hitting at -20db when he hits the loudest parts, so how do I set the mix input level when each time his performance changes?
Problem 3: Still cant hear his vocals!
So I know he wont get it loud without the headphone preamp, but should get his vocals mixed with the music but there is a problem. The music is a Karaoke track, its mastered so its dynamics are very even, his vocals are sooo dynamic his voice gets lost. I turn down the music track very low, but should I have to do this, is this the proper professional way to work? I then try applying a compressor on his vocals live to tame his dynamics, but then he tells me even with slight compression he dont like the tone change, I cant hear it, but he can, even so the compressor is not helping things as its controling the peeks, so I need to make the gain back up, this dont seem to get the vocals loud enough for what he needs, and adds other complications to the matter for him.
If you where in a real studio what is the proper procedure, what is expected from the vocalist when the engineer is setting his vocal levels up, and how is his mix boosted to the singer?
Thanks for any help, Dan
Been a long time since iv been here. Iv had a break for a while, sold all my gear and have started to get back into electronic music producing again, this time im all software using Reason 9.
Now my brother is a singer just for fun at home, and is now wanting to get into recording his own songs along side Karaoke tracks, and get a very close to studio mix as possible. He has got Reason, Ballance audio interface, monitor speakers, decent mic, stand and pop shiled, and headphones so we are all set to go, or so we thought?
I dont have much experience recording vocals, im a electronic musician, but have done my research e.c.t.
Problem 1:
He cant hear his own vocals via the headphones, the interface headphone volume is full, so we know for his 250hm headphone he needs a pre amp, one on the way, there is no way to get his phones any boost from what I know of?
We continue and except for the moment he will have to deal with not hearing things that lound.
Problem 2: Mix recording level.
So I get the meter up on the screen, and him to sing the chorus, or most loudest part of the song, he does, I set the input to -10db. He starts to record still not hardly hearing his own voice, music turned right down, but his levels are now hitting at -20db when he hits the loudest parts, so how do I set the mix input level when each time his performance changes?
Problem 3: Still cant hear his vocals!
So I know he wont get it loud without the headphone preamp, but should get his vocals mixed with the music but there is a problem. The music is a Karaoke track, its mastered so its dynamics are very even, his vocals are sooo dynamic his voice gets lost. I turn down the music track very low, but should I have to do this, is this the proper professional way to work? I then try applying a compressor on his vocals live to tame his dynamics, but then he tells me even with slight compression he dont like the tone change, I cant hear it, but he can, even so the compressor is not helping things as its controling the peeks, so I need to make the gain back up, this dont seem to get the vocals loud enough for what he needs, and adds other complications to the matter for him.
If you where in a real studio what is the proper procedure, what is expected from the vocalist when the engineer is setting his vocal levels up, and how is his mix boosted to the singer?
Thanks for any help, Dan