Tips for getting a clean sound on vocal recordings?

[Hippie162]

We all do the best with what we can afford. It's no criticism of you; I just wanted you to have realistic expectations.

Yes of course I value your help too

[Hippie162]

Morning All,

Just an update as I received so much help from you all:

So on Saturday I unplugged the whole lot, moved it all downstairs, coated a corner of the room in duvets and blankets and went about setting this sorted.

The issue seemed to be two things, the main one.. the Audio driver in my Cubase was still set to "Generic Low latency audio driver" - This was really only because I had big issues setting up this cheap interface and couldn't get Cubase to recognise that ASIO4ALL was installed. Then on Saturday like magic there it was sitting in the audio driver dropdown like a beacon of hope so of course I re-set the driver to this, reconfigured the busses, inputs and outputs and the hum was gone. ALSO the latency was much improved.

I still had some "hiss" coming through and as Elf said set my pre-gain in my DAW to unity and upped the gain on the preamp on the interface, this improved things again but there was still faint noise.

I moved the laptop as far away as my mic cable would allow, untangled all the wires that were crossed over sat in the corner and recorded the best quality audio I have yet to achieve, I think the D5 cuts out noise in front of the singer which would help compared to my old mic but there was definately laptop noise in there...and I am so pleased and can't wait to start editing and mixing it now.

Thank you guys for all your help.

[blinddrew]

[The Elf]

By asking the questions and acting on the answers you have made a good start. best of luck.

[Martin Walker]

Excellent news - look forward to hearing some more audio once you get it edited and mixed!

Martin

[Hippie162]

Excellent news - look forward to hearing some more audio once you get it edited and mixed!

Martin

Thanks! If anyone would like to offer advice the I have uploaded a rough mix here https://soundcloud.com/user-410433233-5 ... nRFJXM5tlC

I did post a thread asking for advice but think it has been buried in all the many threads out there so no interest. I am struggling to get the sound I want from this track, I want a "big" "lush" sound but currently it sounds busy and muddy.. even a bit thin in places.

Again I have a lot of vocal tracks in there, I want a choir-esque sound from the backing vocals (think Florence and the machine) if anyone has any advice?

References for the track were John Lennon's "Imagine", Adele's "remedy" and Florence Welches "Grace". To give an idea of what I'm looking for.

Any advice on getting those claps sounding better would be so great too as they sound naff!

[The Elf]

I can hear that you are a long way from your references. You need to go back to your references and listen very carefully to the balance, tone and ambience, then begin making mix decisions to go from what you have to what you want to hear. Being realistic it's near-impossible to teach someone to mix by text over a forum. As long as you know your tools well it really is just about application. From what I can hear most of the basics are there - though I find that drum pattern questionable, I will admit.

First of all, there's also quite a bit of nip and tuck tuning work needed on the vocals - get that right first, and some of those harmonies will start to go from wobbly to lush.

[Hippie162]

I can hear that you are a long way from your references. You need to go back to your references and listen very carefully to the balance, tone and ambience, then begin making mix decisions to go from what you have to what you want to hear. Being realistic it's near-impossible to teach someone to mix by text over a forum. As long as you know your tools well it really is just about application. From what I can hear most of the basics are there - though I find that drum pattern questionable, I will admit.

First of all, there's also quite a bit of nip and tuck tuning work needed on the vocals - get that right first, and some of those harmonies will start to go from wobbly to lush.

Yes agreed.. long way off.

I think the drums.. yes, they need to be simpler especially on that second verse, perhaps I need to start from scratch with them, but I will have a good think.

Can I ask you about nip and tuck tuning? All my previous experience in music was instrumental only hence how much I am struggling with vocals. Can you suggest a tool to use to get them right in Cubase? I can maybe look at you tube tutorials if I know where to start, but I see a "pitch correct" and and Octaver in Cubase and don't really like either.

[The Elf]

The tool you need is Vari-Audio, but don’t just go at it expecting to throw it on and all will be well. You need to spend time adjusting the segments and tuning curve to make it invisible. I think the mag did a couple of tutorials, so try a search.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike Stranks]

Hippie162:

Both The Elf (Paul) and Zukan (Eddie) offer 1:1 teaching and guidance about mixing and all things recording. Both are superb trainers, extremely knowledgeable and very nice guys too! You would not be patronised in the slightest.

I have no idea of their rates, but as others here can testify, it's money very well spent. You can contact both of them via the Private Messages facility.

Just a thought...

[blinddrew]

Indeed, can confirm!

[Hippie162]

The tool you need is Vari-Audio, but don’t just go at it expecting to throw it on and all will be well. You need to spend time adjusting the segments and tuning curve to make it invisible. I think the mag did a couple of tutorials, so try a search.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you Elf..

My Cubase is only Artist 9.5 and I don't have Variaudio

Could you suggest a good pitch correction plug in that I can purchase for cubase?

[blinddrew]

The basic Reaper plugins are available as a free download pack to use in other DAWs: https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ and that includes ReaTune. It's not as sophisticated as VariAudio but it works and it's free.

[Hippie162]

The basic Reaper plugins are available as a free download pack to use in other DAWs: https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ and that includes ReaTune. It's not as sophisticated as VariAudio but it works and it's free.

Ooh in that case I already have it and had no idea Thank you!

[The Elf]

Seriously, rather than buying a plug-in your money would be better spent on Cubase Pro - VariAudio really is that good. It is seamlessly integrated with Cubase and lets you fine tune each and every note to an exacting degree, which is what you need to keep it sounding natural.