VHS's vocal recording technique

[vomitHatSteve]

JD asked about my vocal chain in another thread, so I figured I'd outline what my recording process and chain is. It's almost all assuredly "wrong" technique, but I like my results!

Hardware:
I've found it useful to build up a collection of cheap dynamic mics and to experiment with those. I've got the standard 57/58s, some sampson s12s, d112, cheap tom mics, and a handful of $20 nadys. I've tried them all and found that the s12 most complements my voice. When working with other vocalists, we'll try a few and see which works for them.
I like dynamics because they're cheap, simple, and help compensate for noisy or inconsistent recording environments.
That goes dry into the interface into the DAW

For the lead vocal line, I will do at least 5 takes. Full run-throughs of the song as much as possible. The most important part, tho, is that the takes are as near to identical as possible. Don't vary the wording, inflection, melody, etc.
Those 5+ takes are edited and comped down to 3 primary takes. I edit out all "silence" and breaths. (No one is hear to listen to me breath, and if they are, that's weird and I'm uncomfortable with it!).

For BGVox, I do at least 3 takes and comp those down to 2. Again, tightly-edited to remove any dead space, breaths, clicks, etc.

For mixing the BGVox, the two takes are panned opposite each other. Then I put all of those in a single bus with minimal FX (usually just a delay or 'verb)

For mixing the lead vox, I put the main copy into a track template with 3 tracks: 1 clean, 1 with reverb, 1 compressed heavily. Those are mixed so that the reverb track is barely audible, and there's just enough of the compressed track to help the lead cut through the mix.
The two secondary copies of the lead vox are hard panned and pretty quiet; I don't want them to be audibly distinct so much as reinforce the lead.
Then I edit out most of those two vocal copies so that they're only re-enforcing the most important part. Usually, most of the chorus and other high points of the song, plus a few line endings a-la the beasie boys.

[WhiskeyJack]

JD asked about my vocal chain in another thread, so I figured I'd outline what my recording process and chain is. It's almost all assuredly "wrong" technique, but I like my results!

Hardware:
I've found it useful to build up a collection of cheap dynamic mics and to experiment with those. I've got the standard 57/58s, some sampson s12s, d112, cheap tom mics, and a handful of $20 nadys. I've tried them all and found that the s12 most complements my voice. When working with other vocalists, we'll try a few and see which works for them.
I like dynamics because they're cheap, simple, and help compensate for noisy or inconsistent recording environments.
That goes dry into the interface into the DAW

For the lead vocal line, I will do at least 5 takes. Full run-throughs of the song as much as possible. The most important part, tho, is that the takes are as near to identical as possible. Don't vary the wording, inflection, melody, etc.
Those 5+ takes are edited and comped down to 3 primary takes. I edit out all "silence" and breaths. (No one is hear to listen to me breath, and if they are, that's weird and I'm uncomfortable with it!).

For BGVox, I do at least 3 takes and comp those down to 2. Again, tightly-edited to remove any dead space, breaths, clicks, etc.

For mixing the BGVox, the two takes are panned opposite each other. Then I put all of those in a single bus with minimal FX (usually just a delay or 'verb)

For mixing the lead vox, I put the main copy into a track template with 3 tracks: 1 clean, 1 with reverb, 1 compressed heavily. Those are mixed so that the reverb track is barely audible, and there's just enough of the compressed track to help the lead cut through the mix.
The two secondary copies of the lead vox are hard panned and pretty quiet; I don't want them to be audibly distinct so much as reinforce the lead.
Then I edit out most of those two vocal copies so that they're only re-enforcing the most important part. Usually, most of the chorus and other high points of the song, plus a few line endings a-la the beasie boys.

I wasn't expecting any of this, though considering the source i am not surprised. It works for you man. It works really well. You know i'd never considered a dynamic mic for the vocals ever really and i feel like a tool for having never considered it. I should probably start some experimenting. I have heard it is a fairly common practice to to have a 57 or 58 used in conjunction with a good condenser mic. Shame on me for thinking they weren't ideal in a studio type environment.

[JD01]

I use a condenser at the moment but I got decent results in the past using a 57. Its been ages since I went through all of my mics checking to see which one worked best for singing and my singing has improved heaps since then and the style I am going for has changed too.

Cheers Steve, a couple of interesting ideas to try there.

[rayc]

Using a heavily compressed track in parallel is the main component of the Motown Exciter process. They added LOTS of top end to the compressed track and cut some bottom then blended it with the original vocal track to suit.
http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

[vomitHatSteve]

Using a heavily compressed track in parallel is the main component of the Motown Exciter process. They added LOTS of top end to the compressed track and cut some bottom then blended it with the original vocal track to suit.
http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

Nice! I was recommended the technique by a friend, but he didn't tell me a name.

[Lt. Bob]

wow Hat ...... that's pretty cool!

I'ma try some of that once I get back to recording.