Vocal processing. Dynamic processing

sound designer

So, after the vocals have been equalized, we can begin to process them dynamically. Since our articles are intended for a general reader, I would like to start this chapter with a small analysis of the phenomenon of dynamics. It’s interesting that when we asked people just starting their musical journey what dynamics in music are in their understanding, each of them answered differently, meaning something different, often subjective. Frequent answers included: speed, tension, movement, drama, etc. In fact, dynamics is not directly related to these concepts. Dynamics is related to volumes, namely their difference during the composition. In fact, in academic music, dynamics are denoted by f and p (forte and piano and their gradations).

As for the dynamic processing of vocals, here we will talk about working with much smaller quantities than those indicated in classical music, which is why those dealing with this processing must show extraordinary scrupulousness. So, as mentioned above, we will talk about loudness, based on this it is significant that the main parameter of dynamic processing devices is expressed in the following units - dB. What devices can be used for dynamic processing of acapella?

Let's look at what each of them can give us in terms of vocals.

Gate limits the signal depending on the input signal level. It has a certain threshold value (threshold), which the sound engineer sets himself and which is expressed in dB. Anything quieter than this value will not be allowed through the gate; in other words, it will be cut off.

The gate is not used too often on vocals, more in cases related to restoration. Its operation is quite rough and is very noticeable on such a delicate instrument as vocals, so we recommend including a gate in the circuit only in extreme cases and with extreme caution.

Why can it be useful to us? If the vocals were recorded in not very professional conditions and we clearly hear background and extraneous noise between the words and if the vocalist has bad habits of slurping, smacking and breathing loudly between words. In the gate, you can set the threshold in such a way that all sounds quieter than the main signal will not be passed through. In our case, the main signal is vocals, it is the loudest, everything else is much quieter, although, of course, everything depends on the performer. It is worth noting that the gate may cut too roughly; in this case, you should try to increase the release indicator (signal recovery time). You should also listen to the gated acapella from start to finish without music. It should be borne in mind that by nature a person begins and ends words more quietly than he pronounces them in the middle, the same with the beginning and end of phrases, which means that a gate with an inaccurately set threshold can cut off all the endings of words from the vocalist. In the case of loud human breathing, using a gate may leave behind unwanted vestiges.

De-Esser. From the name it is clear that this device works to eliminate excess hissing and whistling sounds. In essence, this is a bandpass compressor operating at a frequency of 2k. Each person has his own dictation and features of the speech apparatus, which can be most noticeable in the area of ​​pronunciation of sibilants. Plus, there are many high-power microphones that are particularly sensitive in the same area. All this in a compartment can give depressing consequences in the sphere of sounds “s”, “sh”, “sch”, “ch”. Sometimes these effects may not be audible at first, but after using an equalizer and compressor, they become very obvious.

Most often, digital di-essers have presets like Male vocal or Female vocal. In most cases, they need adjustments to the frequency at which it operates, the threshold and the bandwidth. You should also remember that each person’s diction is unique, so the di-esser settings are individual in each case.

Often de-esser is not used at all as a means of smoothing out sibilants, especially in modern Western music. This approach also has a right to life and depends on the taste and hearing of the sound engineer.

De-esser can also be used to soften the tone of the voice in the frequency range from 2k to 4k. In people who have a harsh timbre or who are not very professional vocalists, when singing and speaking loudly, a clear rise in this range of the so-called second formant is often noticeable. In case the sound engineer decides to smooth it out using an equalizer, it will affect the entire signal, even in places where it is not needed. While a di-esser allows you to soften exactly those parts of the acapella that need it, due to the correct selection of the threshold level.

Inept handling of this device can accidentally make the vocalist sound hissy or too deaf. Therefore, you should carefully select the depth of the threshold, and also be careful about the degree of compression.

In the circuit, the gate and di-esser are usually placed in the gap before the equalizer and compressor, respectively.

Compressor. Usually placed at the break after the equalizer, but there are many points of view on this issue, and the debate on this issue can be considered incomplete.

The compressor, as a means of compressing the dynamic range, sort of averages the volume of the acapella, bringing it to approximately the same level. This level is the threshold (threshold) of the compressor, which the sound engineer must choose correctly. If the threshold is too high, the vocal will not be compressed at all, and if it is too deep, it will be compressed, which will lead to overdrive effects on the signal.

If different parts of a composition are sung or read at sufficiently different levels and this is part of the overall musical concept of the song, then all the quieter and louder parts should be divided into separate tracks and processed accordingly by different compressors with their own threshold levels, and possibly with different ones altogether. settings.

There are several most common approaches to vocal compression:

- “natural” compression

Strong and noticeable compression

With natural compression, the vocal part retains its character. The work of the compressor in this case is almost unnoticeable and serves its direct purpose - smoothing out peaks. If the goal is to leave the vocalist as “alive” and airy as possible, then the compressor uses a very fast attack and a very fast release, while the threshold value is very high. If this value is too low, the voice will become more compressed and a nasal sound will appear in the voice.

Strong and noticeable compression serves to change the character of the part. For example, if vocals or speech are sluggish, unconvincing, using a medium attack, a fairly deep threshold and a compression ratio of the compressor, you can make them more accentuated and expressive. If you make the attack and release values ​​of the device too large, and the threshold is too low, then you can accidentally shift the stress in words.

It also happens that two compressors are used on one vocal track: the first is for highlighting accents, the second is for general leveling of the part, or vice versa (sequential compression).

Possible manipulations with dynamic processing devices have a wide field for the creativity of the sound engineer. The operation of dynamic devices, and especially the compressor, is very subtle and may be inaudible to an inexperienced person. In this regard, the main thing in the approach to compression, as well as in other types of processing, is the main commandment of the sound engineer - do no harm.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Making vocals perfect is difficult, but there are plugins that can help you achieve a more transparent and balanced sound.
We have selected the 5 best for vocal cleansing and correction.

1. iZotope Nectar 2

Nectar 2 is a vocal processing station with built-in presets and a convenient audio interface. In addition to the classic tools such as de-essing, gate, compressor and EQ that form the main vocal processing, it can also mix in reverb, saturation, delay and much more.

2. Revoice Pro

Revoice Pro is used by virtually all top producers to quickly and accurately adjust the pitch, duration, and balance of voices and instruments.

This plugin includes many features that are simply indispensable for mixing both solo parts and backing vocals.

Celemony was one of the first to create a flexible track editing program that works well for both vocals and live instruments. It is perhaps the most comprehensive editing tool ever created. Naturally, this program does not perform miracles, and it is still important for vocalists to sing as well as possible in order to fix this painlessly.

This is not a plugin, but a bundle that Waves often provides at a discount.

This kit includes cool plugins for vocal processing, such as: DeBreath, Doubler, Renaissance Axx, Renaissance Channel, Renaissance DeEsser and Waves Tune. There is everything here to edit the pitch of notes, remove whistles and saturate properly.

If you want to process vocals professionally, this package of plugins will meet all your expectations.

Another plugin from Izotope that needs to be highlighted. This time it's a highly specialized audio editor for cleaning and improving recordings. Using graphical tools, you can identify the problem area and fix it as harmlessly as possible. This could be an explosive sound, a car honking in the background, or anything else that is difficult to remove using standard methods. Here you can suppress "internal" sounds and unpleasant artifacts. This plugin is suitable for those who process recorded materials, such as seminars, video reviews and TV shows.

We will reveal the secrets of mastery:

You will be able to perform the vocal part in an original and interesting way. We will find your strengths and make them attractive in the composition. The result of our work will be a harmonious performance and an interesting musical structure in the finished version of the recording. We will beautifully bring your idea to life, making it attractive to audio listeners.

Important points for getting perfect sound:

Come to our studio, and a team of specialists from the Burn Your Records Production Center will record and mix vocals at a professional level. We have an excellent line-up, which includes sound producers.

· know the important points and achieve the perfect sound;
· hear every note and won’t miss bad sound.

After all, vocals are a complex type of performance. Despite this, we will help you believe in your abilities, no matter what performance technique you choose (rock, jazz, pop, classical vocals). Our knowledge will help you gain the attention of the demanding modern public and keep it above the created composition.

We use the technical features of correcting the accumulated material, disassemble it, rebuild it, process it, mix it and record it. But this requires preparation for recording. This important step will allow us to select the right changes and apply the necessary processing. Because we need to carefully work out the performed parts at the arrangement stage, and take into account the type of vocal. And only then edit.

We do not follow rigid patterns, but on the contrary, we give freedom of execution. In this case, a certain degree of impact and processing of the recording will be carried out correctly, preserving the basis of the concept. If there isn’t one, we’ll help you build it.

Preparing to record vocals

A good vocal recording should be based on:

· on performance technique;
· and tone of voice.

In addition, it is important to correctly convert the sound and design the composition. By providing note-taking assistance, we can help you create a great composition and deliver it in a beautiful format to the audience that needs to hear you. And it will turn out to be more multifaceted than initially, gaining its own expressiveness.

Quick work of the Burn Your Records Production Center team:

Processing the recording, editing it, using certain elements of the arrangement, adjusting the rhythm and intonation will allow you to get a high-quality composition that can take the top positions of the songs.

Because:

1. We know the intricacies of sound processing, so there are no unpredictable results, which never lose their originality if we do it.

2. At the same time, we save time by making recording and mixing vocals fun. With the team at the Burn Your Records Production Center, time doesn’t last forever. The speed and quality of our work has already been appreciated by the studio’s clients, especially since there are famous professionals among them.

3. We become assistants to musicians and poets for their memorable entry into the audio world.

4. We quickly connect with you on a creative level and immediately begin searching for ideas. We use our existing creativity and reserves of professionalism, which allows us to perform our work at the highest level. The performance becomes bright and beautiful-sounding, and the composition gains expressiveness.

Professional features of the Burn Your Records Production Center team:

By doing something important in the processing and mixing of the voice, we get music with energy and character, even if it is slow. After all, what is interesting is that it is full of unusual techniques that give excellent results in sound and harmony of the combination of the techniques used and performance.

For this we:

· influence the shape of signals;
· harmoniously synthesize their frequencies;
· we remove the feedback effect by suppression;
· thanks to the correct arrangement, we eliminate conflicts of frequencies that are not audible to normal hearing;
· we bring the signal to a certain range, without allowing distortion and without losing its original state;

Our specialists already have trained professional-level sensitivity and have no difficulty in determining the type of changes that need to be applied to each case.

They can easily determine:

· how to perform the composition;
· what to remove or add to it;
· and how to correct it.

This professional trait of the team of the Burn Your Records Production Center and individual sound engineers allows you to create work with mood. And it will certainly be passed on to audio music lovers. Without this feature, they simply will not perceive it. This is the importance of the arrangement, after which the stylistic coloring of the musical basis can change. The sound will depend on this stage. If necessary, we give the material a bright highlight of some instruments using artistic equalization. And in modern versions we use an unconventional way to make the sound unusual.

Certain arrangement techniques are used. The overall result depends on their use. Thanks to the use of our sound engineers

The intricacies of preparing and adapting the melody for future presentation to the public gives it the unique and recognizable style of the performer. This will set you apart from other works and allow you to get into the hearts of your listeners, leaving pleasant musical memories.

What's important here is:

· choose the right combination of timbres;
· lengthen, shorten or widen the endings of the sound;
· correct the resulting unpleasant effects of double vision;
· find the appropriate richness of the sound of the future work

We can even start with a motive and turn it into a sound composition that conveys your mood.

The performance can be one- or two-voice, using the technique of duplication. Let's record that most vivid performance that happens only once in a lifetime. With our specialists, you don't need to be afraid that you will do something wrong. We will record your voice or the sound of an instrument as many times as necessary to achieve a beautiful result.

You can improvise. We want and allow all the energy to be expressed. This is important to us because we want to know your strengths and amazing sides. We believe that everyone has them. Therefore, we give a chance to everyone who wants it. In no case, we do not scare you, but on the contrary, we push you towards inspiration and a good mood. After all, this is important for people with creative potential. And only then do we begin processing, mastering and mixing the material.

Vocal processing:

What exactly do we do:
· edit and display a harmonious line between parts of melodies or through them;
· synchronize the sound;
· during the mixing process, we correct existing jumps, even if there is at least one note that does not fit very well into the melody;
· we correct not only the melody, but also work on text overload;
· eliminate collisions of different phrases in the text;
· using certain techniques we enrich and smooth out the sound.

Having any sources in front of us, we create compositions with a stunning effect that could not have been imagined at the beginning of considering the presented material. As a result of the complex collaboration of our team at the Burn Your Records Production Center, we obtain synchronous sound and professional results.

We make subtle changes to parts of the melody. We cut off or add something in it, remove bad fragments, eliminate discrepancies, clear the material from noise. We create new effects. We change the dynamics of the sound, leveling it (compressing or compressing). We mix and generalize, mix. But we leave the subtle sound richness of the melody without losing its uniqueness.

The direction of the music and its style determine the audience:

The result of our work is the reward in the form of satisfaction on your part and recognition by the audiophiles for whom it was intended. It is the direction of the music, its style that determines the audience. And this is not the last thing when recording a song or music. Mixing and high-quality arrangement should be based on the principle of relevance of the choice of material concept. We understand this and strictly follow the rules of working with sound, rhythm and tempo, so that the work is harmonious and understandable to a certain audience.

And this is done not at the mixing stage, when the final stage of selecting and editing the original recordings begins, but at the very beginning. To do this, it would be great to get to know you better, find out your strengths, emotionality, involvement in the process, understand the tone of your voice, performance technique, experience, etc. This will reveal to us the information content of the picture about you, and will give scope to our ideas, which will allow us to determine what and how to saturate the material.

Our specialists have a rather picky ear, but this does not mean that for some reason we will refuse to cooperate with you.

· We will make every effort to improve the composition;
· to increase your desire to improve performance.

During the recording process, you will communicate with the creative team represented by:

· sound producer, track author, actively working with stars;
· a music producer with extensive experience in creating popular contemporary musical works;
· a mixing and mastering specialist who won’t miss a single bad note.

How to overcome your fear of recording vocals:

There is no need to be afraid to start. Everyone does something for the first time at some point. And even those stars who visited our studio recorded earlier for the first time. And we worked with some of them. Maybe you are the one with an unusual voice or creative potential that the world of music is so lacking.

Nothing stands still. And what was interesting to the listener yesterday becomes boring. So come and give your creative energy to everyone who craves it. And we will help you make your material better and more interesting. Get over your fear and forget about it. Otherwise, no one will know about you. Don’t hold your emotions inside, come to our studio and throw them out on us. We will be happy to share the joy of the new. And we’ll tell you how to do it and, of course, make the composition surprisingly bright and memorable. And if you want it, then a hit one. Believe in yourself with us!

Vocals

6.5.

Acoustic guitar

6.6.

Arrangements

6.7. General Tips6.4. Vocal mixing In our songs, the most common structure is this: the verse features the main vocal, to which backing vocals or backup vocals can be added. Choruses usually feature a “pack” of voices.

We will process the main, backup and chorus vocals slightly differently (the differences will mainly affect compression and stereo effects), and we will equalize them all together. Let's start by introducing a technique called Vocal Exciter, which will be used on the main vocal and on the vocals in the choruses. Its meaning is to make the voice brighter, but not just by raising the high frequencies with an equalizer, but by compressing them separately and adding them to the main track. Exciter plugins work in a similar way. Vocal Exciter

You can compare this technique to using parallel compression on drums. But here we heavily compress only the high frequencies and, by mixing them with the original signal, we get richer and brighter vocals without excessively loud sibilants.

Main Vocals

After we apply the Vocal Exciter technique, we will process the main vocal in the group gr v main, into which the tracks come v main And v main exciter.

Let's cut off everything below 50-80 Hz with a Low Cut filter, and then compress the vocals. A good compressor can do wonders to make your voice big, full, deep, soft.

To achieve better sound when using computer plug-ins, you can place several compressors in a row, setting each one to a small degree of compression. For example, the first compressor works with the following parameters: ratio 2:1, attack 3, release 200 and gives a soft gain reduction of 3-5 dB. The second compressor acts a little more strongly, for example with the following settings: ratio 2.5:1, attack 0.5, release 30-40, knee soft. We choose Threshold by ear depending on how much we want to compress the sound (how early to start compressing it).

Additional vocals

On the extra vocal track v double We will also cut off frequencies below 50-100 Hz and then compress.

You can select a different compressor for this track than on the main vocal. We will try to make sure that the backup vocal remains behind all the time, and is a support for the main vocal, but not a rival to it. For example, the selected compressor can operate in limit / slow mode with almost maximum peak reduction (90 out of 100).

Let's make these vocals stereo by delaying one of the channels in time. For example, we'll delay the right channel by 17ms and then make it a little louder than the left to maintain a sense of centered balance.

To prevent stereo vocals from mixing with electric guitars placed left and right, you can slightly narrow their panorama. Here's what both vocals sound like with an acoustic guitar.

Vocals in choruses

To reduce the number of tracks in a project, you can save vocals in choruses to one stereo track. It contains four mono vocals arranged in a panorama; they are slightly compressed and noise in pauses is removed from them. This is what the track sounds like:

Let's apply the Vocal Exciter technique discussed above to this track. Then we will cut off the lower frequencies (below 50-80 Hz) with a low cut filter and compress it. You can use the same compressor as on the backup vocal track, but on a softer setting.

During the mixing process, I felt like the choruses lacked a centered vocal. The four vocals in the chorus were panned so that the center was empty. To fill the center, I sent to an additional track vchoirs more, in which I narrowed the panorama to mono and then compressed it. The resulting result was added to the four original vocals, combining them into a group gr v choirs.

Equalization

All three tracks (main vocals gr v main, additional vocals v double and vocals in choruses gr v choirs) come to the same group gr vocals all.

Let's add brightness and air to the vocals using a Hi Shelf filter from 15 kHz and higher. Then we'll add a little sharpness and intelligibility around 3-4 kHz. If you remember, when we EQed the guitar, we cleaned up this area a bit. By adding this frequency to the vocal, we give it a kind of “window” and make it more “readable” in the mix.

In addition, in our case, a narrow filter was used to remove the frequency around 3.3 kHz, which gave a too sharp timbre.

Send effects

To give volume and “flight” to the voice, we use three send effects. Let's create FX tracks voc verb, voc delay short And voc delay long and we will make sends to them, the volume of the send determining the depth of the effect.

For example, you can send quite a bit of delay from the main vocal track, since we don’t need strong delay in verses (except on individual phrases). And in choruses you can do more delay and a little less reverb.

It is convenient to use reverb and delay as send effects. This allows you to use the same effect on multiple tracks and adjust the effect volume independently of the volume of the dry (original) signal.

Reverberation(FX track voc verb)

This track has the reverb set to Bright Hall mode. It is better to select the type of reverb individually for each song. Typically, fast songs use reverb with a short tail and bright character. In slower, calmer songs with few instruments, you can use less bright and longer reverbs.

To prevent vocals from moving too far back when reverb is added to them, and at the same time have a background, you can set the pre-delay parameter of the reverb to 20-30 ms. By adjusting this parameter, you can change the feel of the vocal being close (increasing the pre-delay makes the reverb seem to break away from the vocal) or far away (with zero pre-delay) without changing the volume or type of reverb.

It is better to choose the reverberation volume so that the effect is “invisible” and does not attract attention to itself. The reverb should create a feeling of space, sound natural, and in moderation.

Shortdelay(FX track voc delay short)

It has Stereo Delay with the following settings: delay 1/8 on the left and 1/4 on the right; feedback in the region of 30. Lo cut and hi cut filters are included at 180 Hz and 6.5 kHz.

Longdelay(FX track voc delay long)

This is a delay with a delay of 1/2 - 1/1, with its help you can repeat individual words and phrases. You can automate the send to this track and add a send level on those words that need to be highlighted by meaning, after which there is a convenient pause. In small amounts this delay can be used throughout the vocals.

In some songs you can put mono delay on this track, but in this case we again use stereo delay with the following settings: delay 1/2 on the left and 1/1 on the right, feedback 22 and 12, lo cut 190 Hz (left) and 230 Hz (right), hi cut 5300 Hz and 4400 Hz, pan 100% left and 70% right. Mix - 100% wet.

With these adjustments, we made the right channel (with a longer delay) closer to the center, cutting off more of the bottom and top of it, so that it felt like the echo was coming back from further away and losing more. Let's add a reverb to the same track so that our echo sounds even more distant and voluminous. For example, we use Small Hall with a level of 50% wet (half dry signal and reverb).

Final result

You can put another additional compressor on the entire vocal track with a small ratio (1.8:1), a soft knee, a short attack (1 ms) and a release of 200 ms. Threshold is selected such that GR (Gain Reduction) is no more than 2 dB. Following the compressor is a limiter at -12 dB.

This is what our vocals sound like after all the processing:

Vocals with "telephone effect"

You can put a vocoder on a stereo group track and send vocals to the left channel and synthesizer sounds to the right channel (or vice versa, depending on the vocoder). Some vocoders have a built-in synthesizer, so you can immediately send MIDI to the vocoder - a track with notes that the modulating vocal will “sing”.

Plugins used

The following free VST effects were used to process the vocals:

Equalizers: EngineersFilter, Dual Linkwitz-Riley Filters, NonameEQ, Blue Cat Triple EQ, Nebula 3 Free [115 HD FREE HS]
Compressors: Antress Modern Amplifier, Kjaerhus Classic Compressor, Molot
Di-esser: SpitFish
Stereo processing: Voxengo Sound Delay, Flux::StereoTool
Vocoder: Tal-Vocoder

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Once the vocals are recorded, we move on to mixing the vocals. Voice mixing is a process that will help fit the vocals better into the final mix and make them sound as good as possible.

Well-recorded and properly mixed vocals are a necessary component of modern commercial tracks, so pay special attention to vocal mixing.

We will conditionally divide vocal mixing into several stages: vocal equalization, vocal compression, vocal reverberation. Let's start with equalizing the vocals.

Equalization of vocals (voices)

The first thing we'll start with when mixing vocals is equalizing the vocals. Below is a list of frequencies that are most often subject to correction when equalizing vocals:

• Removing some frequencies from the 150-450Hz range will remove the harsh midrange from your vocals and make them sound sweeter.

• Boosting the frequency around 8kHz+ can add a nice airy tone and more legibility to the sound. However, keep an eye on the 's' and 't' as raising them in this area will inevitably cause them to stand out.

When EQing vocals, try to make as few adjustments as possible, otherwise the vocals will sound unnatural. If tough adjustments are needed, consider a change.

Vocal (voice) compression

This is a very important part of vocal mixing and is necessary to accomplish two tasks. First, the compressor equalizes the dynamics of the vocal track, making loud parts quieter and quiet parts louder.

The second purpose of vocal compression is to add energy and dynamics to the sound of your vocal track. Vocal compression is the most important part of vocal mixing.

A gain reduction of 6-9 dB and a Ratio of between 2:1 and 7:1 for the loud parts of the track should be a good starting point.

Reverberation of vocals (voices)

Another important component of vocal mixing is reverb. How much reverb should there be on vocals? This point is a matter of taste, but you can still identify several components that are used more often than others.

Plate Reverb or plate reverb will work well for your vocals with the following parameters:

• Length 2.3 seconds;
• High chat filter;
• Attack time 0.24 sec;
• Delay time 2.10 sec;
• Pre-Delay 6 ms.

Double track

To make the vocal line tighter when mixing, you can duplicate the main vocal line again. It is to sing again over what has already been sung. Try to sing accurately enough, but don’t be afraid of small inaccuracies, they will only add “fat.”
You can also simply copy the main track and make it 10-20 ms behind the main track; this also sometimes works well as a tool for thickening vocals. Listen to all the early Beatles records, all the vocals are double-tracked.

Vocal mixing plugins

Since when mixing vocals we perform equalization, compression and reverberation of the voice, then accordingly for mixing we will need a compressor and reverb. At the initial stage, you can choose absolutely any plugins, because in the beginning you need to understand how it all works. Then, as your skills develop, you will improve the tools you work with, in this case plugins.

But these three plugins do not limit the range of vocal mixing tools. There are also: de-essers, gates, multi-band compressors, saturators, harmonizers, choruses, etc. But all this should be added after you have mastered the basics: equalization, compression and reverb.

This is the minimum set of information you should know about vocal mixing, we will touch upon this topic further in the future.

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