laying down rap vocals on top of an instrumental

H

Hopper7903

New member
Hey I'm a producer, I've gotten really good at using logic to make beats but Ive decided i want to start rapping over them. I recently bought a blue yeti mic to record vocals over my instrumentals (is this a good mic to start with?). I dont have time to go to a studio so im forced to record at home in my room. the only thing is i am having trouble getting my vocals to sound right, they are not blending with the beat very well. it sounds weird. Am i suppose to record my vocals over an instumental that ive already bounced or should i record the vocals as a track with in the instrumental (un bounced) also how can i get my vocals to sound like they belong over the beat. Please help thanks!
 
The room you're in is going to play a factor in what type of vocal sound you get. The converters will play a role, the mic will play a role, pre amp will play a role, gain staging will play a role, mic placement will play a role, etc. All of these things contribute to getting the "right" sound and at the end of the day what is "right" is subjective anyway but you still want something that you feel proud of and are comfortable with.

For my album, I got a rough mix of the music, bounced the music to two track files and created new sessions with just the bounces. I didn't need headphone mixes or anything like that as I was already familiar with the music and knew what I wanted out of the songs. From there I did all of the vocal takes I wanted without having to worry about clutter and things getting out of hand. After that I edited vocal tracks and then started comping (use this sites search engine if you don't know what it means.) Once I had my comped takes I imported them into the multitrack sessions that contained the music. From there it was a matter of readjusting certain elements in the music, like turning up a snare for example, and getting the vocals to sit, but I never had to put everything at unity and start from scratch. And how I got the vocals to sit was drums-->bass-->vocals. I would listen to those and adjust and then I would bring everything else in (mostly guitars as it's metal/rap) based on importance to the song.

You can record the vocals like I did but in order to have the most control of the final product you're going to have to import them back in. So it's a now or later type thing.

Concerning your mic, I have no opinion on it as I've never used it.
 
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Thanks for the reply helps out a lot. what program do you use to record? and do you record at a studio? and as far as mic placement whats good? i know its subjective to preference but what will get me a nice crisp sound alsowhat presets do you use on your vocals while recording?
 
Hopper7903 said:
Thanks for the reply helps out a lot. what program do you use to record?
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Pro Tools LE and REAPER.

and do you record at a studio?
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Sometimes. And when I do it's usually LE, HD or Reaper.

and as far as mic placement whats good?
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You have to experiment. The room, the mic and the vocalist all contribute to placement.

i know its subjective to preference but what will get me a nice crisp sound alsowhat presets do you use on your vocals while recording?
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It is subjective and what is "crisp" to you may be harsh and brittle to the next guy. You have to use your ears. Concerning presets, I don't use any presets while recording anything. I don't even like compressing while recording but I'll record with a compressor on the track but it's only for monitoring purposes. The recorded track doesn't have compression unless I route it to an aux and another track or I apply the compression afterwards.
 
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oh ok Ill try that i also noticed that my mic has a gain nob on it and it was turn slightly up does that effect vocals
 
1. Mix Beat to -6dB
2. Use a Limiter, Maximiser, Compressor to raise to master volume to -0.3
3. Go back through your mix and make sure every thing still sounds good to you.
 
Bounce your beat to track out'd files, load them into you're DAW, record your vocals the best you can where you can. Take an EQ roll off all the low end till about 100Hz, and some sparkle around the 8-10k range. Compress your vocals so they are consistently loud throughout the track made add a slight distortion plugin to the vocals to give it a little warmth. But other than that thats all you really can do, if you start with a shitty recording their isnt MUCH you can do. It all starts with the quality of the recording man, good luck
 
i did some research on youtube haha and they said the same thing about taking the low end out thanks man, now what do you mean by sparkle though? is that like a term for equalizing?
 
From my experience, when recording over most instrumentals, a lot of the audio is in the center of the stereo field. I add a little phase to the vocals to make it a little wider, which allows it to sit better in the mix. Exporting the beat to separate tracks(kick, snare, pad, etc), is the best method. You could bring those into another session, along with the vocals, and space everything individually.
 
There are a lot of things you can do to make your vocals "Sit" better in the mix. I run into this problem soooo much because the people I make music with usually use pretty cheap mics. I personally like using some delay in this case, a very short delay that you really can't hear if there is a beat under it. Reverb works in the same way. If you feel the vocals are being drowned by the beat, than boost around 2kHz a little bit to give it some more presence and punch.

I don't usually do this because I don't use a bunch of instruments but you can always play with the stereo field and pan certain instruments a little bit to the right here, a little bit to the left here at certain parts.

Vocals should almost always be mono too.
 
Hopper7903 said:
Hey I'm a producer, I've gotten really good at using logic to make beats but Ive decided i want to start rapping over them. I recently bought a blue yeti mic to record vocals over my instrumentals (is this a good mic to start with?). I dont have time to go to a studio so im forced to record at home in my room. the only thing is i am having trouble getting my vocals to sound right, they are not blending with the beat very well. it sounds weird. Am i suppose to record my vocals over an instumental that ive already bounced or should i record the vocals as a track with in the instrumental (un bounced) also how can i get my vocals to sound like they belong over the beat. Please help thanks!
Click to expand...

Tips for Mixing Vocals to an Instrumental

and

Mixing Rap Vocals
 
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