Recording Female Vocals...

fred9311

New member
What up everybody, anybody have any advice on recording a female vocalist ala (beyonce, ciara, mya, etc) for a pop song (she's doing lead , background, and harmony,) I'm very interested in that thick chorus sound (On the chorus of beyonce hit :Upgrade u, it sounds like 8 Beyonce's singing, it sounds great) I'll take advice from anyone who can give me some tips. The track (Instrumental) is done already, now I just have to lay down the vocals. I'll take tips on panning, adlibs, eq'ing, etc.
 
Well overdubs give a thick voice sound, center 1 track, then pan overdubs left and right, with a slight chorus effect maybe, its all in what the mix needs, and how she fits with the mix.
 
It depends on your setup. If its R&B i discourage the amount of stacking you would use in hip hop. I'd do a lead with a touch of chorus. If you have a choice: use a tube mic with a good pre Beyonce uses a U47 and an Avalon pre (sells for about 10Gs) try and duplicate that setup as near as you can. I would stack once, play it at half volume and lather the stack with Waves doubler (with the center of the doubler half way back). Next you have to get creative with adlibs. Depending on the track you can do cool radio like effects panned 50% out one way. OR if the singer is really good- you could have her do multiple stacks of the Background vox and pan them both 75% out. Again- make sure she practices the SAME way every time. There are a lot of rolls and runs with R&B that some singers can't EVER nail the same way twice. So really pay attention to the talent of the vocalist.
 
My Set-up Is Pretty Simple: Digi-002, Rode-nt1a, And Reason 3.0 I Do Pretty Much All The Mixing In Reason , Then I Bounce It To A Stereo 2 Track In Protools Then Record The Vocals In Protools. I Have A Great Isolated Are To Record The Vocals. If Beyonce Performance Is A 10 The Artist I'm Working With Is 7 1/2. I Only Have The Factory Plug-ins 4 Production, And Post Production.
 
I'd try and see if I could download a preamp emulator or something. As i recall the nt1 has a kind of tubey sound (for the price) i've the the K2 (which is awesome on female randb) Like i said- get creative with panning and eq's and be careful not to stack her too much, if she's no beyonce- it we be very apparent that she's stacking if she doesn't nail it. Instead of Waves doubler, you could use something like the factory chorus plug in. you may have to duplicate and offset the BGV though to get a similar effect....
 
RelicRecordings said:
It depends on your setup. If its R&B i discourage the amount of stacking you would use in hip hop. I'd do a lead with a touch of chorus. If you have a choice: use a tube mic with a good pre Beyonce uses a U47 and an Avalon pre (sells for about 10Gs) try and duplicate that setup as near as you can. I would stack once, play it at half volume and lather the stack with Waves doubler (with the center of the doubler half way back). Next you have to get creative with adlibs. Depending on the track you can do cool radio like effects panned 50% out one way. OR if the singer is really good- you could have her do multiple stacks of the Background vox and pan them both 75% out. Again- make sure she practices the SAME way every time. There are a lot of rolls and runs with R&B that some singers can't EVER nail the same way twice. So really pay attention to the talent of the vocalist.

excuse me, but she use a different setup actually. On gearslutz an engineer (i lost his name) who worked on her last 2 albums told the vocal chain in a topic. She use a Telefunken ELA M 251 on a Neve 1084 preamp to 2" tape.

The vintage ELA M 251 mic alone now cost 20K if you can find it but their are good alternatives (like the vintage AKG C12 wich is easier to find and cheaper, but similar of sound, or the new Wunder CM-12H, the Peluso 22 251 or P12, ...). The preamps are rather easy to find, cause they are still made.

But i think that setup will be way over your budget anyway.
 
Ok- first of all the vintage neumanns ARE telefunkens- thats really irrelevant, but I was describing the SOUND of modern R&B as "U47ish" Through an Avalon style pre-amp- anyone with direct access to those pieces of gear (come to think of it, i could borrow them in about 30 mins...) would never be ASKING for advice on this forum. I was just giving him a place to aim at. But thanks for the correction considering nationally touring artists work in a LOT of different studios to make albums...but since gearslutz quoted it...i guess its the only thing she uses....
 
To a certain degree I believe it's more about the talented people involved with the project. I believe she (Beyonce) with her team of producers and engineers could achieve 85% to 90%of the results with my set-up in a properly acoustic room....Any takers.....?
 
Lead Vocals - Center - Boost around 3-5kHz to give body, and boost hi end to give clarity - Delay (optional, gives it thickness, turn down low so barely noticable) - Reverb (optional, depending on the depth you're trying to capture)

Backup/Chorus Vocals - EQ Optional. Its the contrast between the lead texture and backup textures that makes it sound good - Some engineers have L backups with hi end boosted slightly and R backups dull- Delay (optional) - Reverb (good to have on backups, to make it sound like they're in the backround). If using a doubler, lower the volume of the center vocal all the way down so you only hear the L and R voices. Pan as wide as it needs. Use the amount of voices it needs.

Harmony - You can use the same technique above, but different EQ, or use same technique above, different EQ but panned *slightly* left and right.

Compression/De-essers on all vocals
 
Thanks a lot ...hope you guys don't think this is a silly question, but what is exactly the difference between the harmony vocals and the background vocals ? They both usually involves multiple vocal tracks stacked on top of each other. If you could use use a very popular song as an example, it would help me out a lot with this project coming up?
 
fred9311 said:
Thanks a lot ...hope you guys don't think this is a silly question, but what is exactly the difference between the harmony vocals and the background vocals ? They both usually involves multiple vocal tracks stacked on top of each other. If you could use use a very popular song as an example, it would help me out a lot with this project coming up?

Avant ft Nicole - Lie about Us... listen to the chorus. the Chorus vocals go:
"So please don't say you wanna give up - How do I tell her that I'm fallin in love - and I know you waitin patiently for that day...."
and the harmony vocals go:
" please don't say you wanna give up - tell her that I'm fallin in love - ooouuu ouuu ouuu"
 
fred9311 said:
To a certain degree I believe it's more about the talented people involved with the project. I believe she (Beyonce) with her team of producers and engineers could achieve 85% to 90%of the results with my set-up in a properly acoustic room....Any takers.....?

that's true, but given information must be right. The tools do matter if you're going for the perfection, but skills, from the artists and the technical crew, are still the most important.
 
Do you think there are any advantages to doing all your mixing in Reason and then bounceing it into Protools instead doing your mixing in Protools ? Iv'e had this Reason 3.0 since day 1 (3/10/05) and even though I know I'm still only scratching the surface of it's capabilities, it seems more streamline for me to work this way. i use my protools mainly for vocals. I like be able to tweak the mix in Reason to my liking.. Any comments
 
You can mix your reason session better in Pro Tools because you can take advantage of PT's processors on reason tracks.
 
Your saying don't use any of the eq's or compressors or other effects Reason has to offer, also since I work with midi I can adjust the tempo if I had to, but I'm assumming your more knowledgeable than me so I'm listening...
 
Im not saying 'dont use reason's processors'. but you can use pro tool's effects/processors to supplement reason's effects/processors. But its not just about effects; having all the tracks seperate on Pro tool's mixer makes it handy for mixing efficiently.

Lets say you bounce your reason instrumental in a wav. then import it into pro tools. after recording your vocals, what if you discover your snare can't be heard? or the kick is too low....
 
I'm saying DONT use reasons processors. I mean, if its all you have to work with and your only alternative is the older digirack stuff- ok, however if you have ANYthing else to reach for in protools always do it there. the "m-class" mastering "suite" or whatever it is for reason absolutely blows. --though i do TOTALLY condone reason for pre production, sequencing, and effects.
 
RelicRecordings said:
the "m-class" mastering "suite" or whatever it is for reason absolutely blows. --

I strongly disagree. If you know how to use it, you can really make it sound MASTERED. Though, I'm not comparing it to Pro Tools mastering tools, that would be silly.
 
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