UAD Recording Vocal Chain - Suggestions?

[G-BANI]

Hi S.O.S pears,
looking for a UAD recording vocal chain. 41 years old, a lot of hard consonants, harsh voice. It is for RAP.

The one that I have now:

Vocals recorded on t.akustik vocal booth, placed in an untreated medium/ small room with no considerable ambience sounds .
Sound interface: Apollo Twin.
Microphone: Rode NT1.
Headphone bleeding, minor, nothing to serious or uncommon.

Mic preamp: UAD VT737-sp, printed.
Compressor: UAD VT737-sp, printed. Fast attack (as fast as 737 can), fast release, rate 4:1, threshhold 0. Average 3db reduction.
EQ: UAD VT737-sp, printed. 60hz -4db, 150hz -4db, 2050hz +5db, 20k +6db.
Deesser 1: UAD Oxford Supresser, printed - 3010hz to 6050hz
Deesser 2: UAD Oxford Supresser, printed - 1.73khz to 3.33khz.
Special processor: C-Vox, printed - Ambient noise reduction 50%. No artifacts added.

[jaminem]

Cant comment on the settings at all, as this is very singer dependant but I wouldn't be doing any noise supression/De-essing on the way in - do it in post if you need to.
Yes the Avalon 737 is often used for hip hop vocals so if it suits thats probably a good place to start but if it was me, I'd go for Neve 1073 preamp into a CL1-B (cos its pretty transparent unless you push it hard) and i'd use it very lightly.

[Matt Houghton]

What Jaminem said: there's no universal setting for EQ and compression that will just work with any vocal/performance, and de-essing is best handled with mic/singing technique and then in post with processing. (More of my thoughts on the latter here.)

That said, the actual plug-ins you've listed are fine. Though any number of UA plug-ins could fit the bill too.

Personally, I'd start with the mic and learning to get the best sound with no processing. Nothing wrong with the Rode, but it may or may not be the best choice for your style, and a different mic might lead to different processing decisions. Eg. for more forceful/aggressive styles of rap, some like to use dynamics such as SM7b or EV RE20. All depends on the sound you're going for...

[Wonks]

Your vocal booth may not be helping with the sound. The internal booth size is 930mm x 930mm, which is going to give you a very boxy sound. Yes, it has foam panels, but looking at the installation video for the booth (depth not stated in the specs), they are probably only 30mm deep at best, and have a wave pattern which reduces their effective depth to maybe 20mm.

So the foam will absorb some high frequencies, but not to much for mids and nothing for bass. As the size of the booth will encourage standing waves around the 369Hz region and also at multiples of that frequency (so 738Hz, 1107Hz etc.).

I'd be tempted to try first making a recording in the room without the booth for a sound comparison. Don't set up bang in the middle of the room. If that sounds better but roomy, I'd then try setting up an open booth from duvets (if you've got enough. Definitely one right behind you, and then one or two duvets in a V-pattern in front of you. The lack of non-parallel surfaces should definitely help you.

You are boosting at 2050Hz, which is quite close to your upper de-esser band and unless you have the Hi-Q switch for that EQ control set, you will be boosting frequencies that you want to reduce with the de-esser.

That 5dB boosting at 2050Hz is right in the middle of the second de-esser band, which is totally counter-productive. That second band isn't in the normal frequency range for de-essing (5-9kHz), so you are obviously using it to try and cure a problem caused by the EQ boost.

Just because you can record with effects on the way in, doesn't mean you should.

I really would just use maybe a pre-amp model with flat EQ for recording and then apply effects to the recorded sound. If there is an actual requirement to use the de-esser between 1.73khz to 3.33khz (it won't actually be de-essing there), then do it first, before you apply any EQ boosts. You can't do that with the VT737 as the first effect in the chain.

If you are actively compressing with the threshold on 0dB, you may be recording at too hot a level. The UAD manual for the VT-737 doesn't state anything about this but I expect it's directly modelled on the hardware where studio signals could be a lot hotter, and I'm not sure how UAD convert that to 0dBFS on their preamps. You can of course boost the signal within the VT-737 for colour and then adjust the final output level to get back to the original signal level.

So what level are you recording at prior to any processing?

[G-BANI]

Thank you Jaminem, Matt and Wonks for your replies.

Actually my vocal booth is not giving me any boxy sound at all, it has reduced the ambient resonance sounds and I am really thankful for it.

The first supresser which I am being criticised about because it is not on the Sigma frequency band, is serving me to reduce my SH (fiSH) constants, so is de-eSHing. The other supresser is doing the de-essing task successfully and I am happy with it.

I am boosting at 2050 because it is giving me a very pleasant tone and intelligibility. As it was said here, voices are different and so are treatments for them. Of course there are some frequencies that are standard for sibility, boxyness or muddiness. However, I do not regret boosting at 2050 and I dont see it right to not boost some frequencies because they are close to problematic frequencies. What I believe is smart to do, is getting the best out of those frequencies when taming the harshness that they produce on the same time, this is the reason for the dynamic equalizers and multiband compressors. I guess this is what the classics EQP-1A and MEQ-5 do also, by having boosting and attenuation options, booth on the same range.

Preamp gain, 26. Output level, 0.

Again, this is the vocal chain that I already have, and critics and opinions are the reason why I am here. But I tried to explain that I was looking for another vocal chain also, with some starting point settings. This one, I made my self and it is not too bad. Any other combination like the classic one mentioned by Jaminem with the 1073 and the CL-1B are welcome. If anyone would share her/ his settings, that would be awesome.

Thank you so much every one!!

[Bob Bickerton]

The three factors that will affect your vocal sound the most - apart from the sound of your actual voice - will be the acoustics of the room in which you record and the type and placement of the microphone you use.

My approach is to record clean and process in the box, so if you want to consider an alternative approach, I’d be looking to try a different microphone and the one I’d suggest is the Shure SM7B.

Having said that, because of the way UAD emulates preamps, that’s the other factor to consider on the way in.

Bob

[G-BANI]

thank you so much sir!