Tuesday 21 October 2008

PTM 211008

One great thing about technology and in particular software is the power it gives the artist/producer.

We recorded the vocals for Pleasurely That Machine at the weekend, personally I think will be one of the highlights of the new album, anyway as usual the idea given to Sarah was fairly raw although one of the most completed ideas. The process I take once the vocals are recorded is clean the audio files up and composite the various takes together, I also tend to strip silence into the audio files rather than use a gate to cutout any in between the phrases. On this album we have created a dedicated space for vocals and purchased the SE Electronics reflexion filter which deadens the sound around the mic which really helps. A few weeks ago I purchased a piece of software called Melodyne following a couple of recommendations. Not that Sarah's vocals need a great deal of tuning, the main reason for getting this software was the help me fit together the double tracked vocals. Rather than creating a double tracked effect we always record the verses and choruses twice, we find this creates quite a nice vocal sound. The problem with this however is that the phrases sometimes don't always match up. What Melodyne helps me do is fit these takes together perfectly, you can also pitch correct and change the timing of phrases using this software. It's a great tool and I wished I had bought it at the start of recording this album as it would have saved me hours or re-recording Sarah's vocals.

Next week we will be recording the next Podcast, following some of your questions I will be giving you a quick tour of set-up and showing off the tools we use.

Matt

9 comments:

Gary said...

Matt is Melodyne pretty easy to use as I would like something like that as you know my vocals are very limited but from the sounds of it the software would be an excellent addition to my little set up.

Looking forward to the podcast and tour of the studio.

Gary

Northern Kind said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gary said...

Just looked at that video and wow what a plug-in that is, something I will have to consider getting. I use cubase as you mentioned Matt and that for me would be an essential tool for me on the vocal front, as you know i'm not a vocalist my any stretch of the imagination but i do have a go from time to time.

Thanks for the response and for that link.

Cheers

Gary

Anonymous said...

I've got Melodyne Uno (the basic one). It is great and there is no way I'd ever put my "singing" out on the net without every word been processed by this! It's used on all my tracks on myspace.com/circapop
BTW I just bought Sonar 7 (£99 at Digital Village!) it includes Roland Vari Phrase plug in which does the same as Melodyne Uno but with a messier(?) interface. Sonar 7 also gives you the great Z3ta + and Rapture LE synths too. PS I'm suprised Sarah's vocals are double tracked as they sounded like really full I saw you live last October!

Anonymous said...

Hi Matt,

Not sure if you keep up on all new products, but I'd like to know your detailed view on this bunch of reference monitors?

Tapco S8
Mackie MR8
Yamaha HS80M
Mackie HR824 MK2

What other 8" systems would you recommend within the £250-£900 price range and why?

Thanks a lot for the insights.

Northern Kind said...

Hi - I did have a pair of Tapco monitors, not the S8's though. I didn't think too much of those. Am I right in thinking Tapco are made by Mackie? They were quite cheap so that was probably why they weren't that great.

When buying my current monitors I did get to try the HR824 and compare, thought they were pretty good.

I tend to work and mix on my headphones (Sennheiser HD650) and use the monitors to check the mixes for anything that stands out.

Gary said...

Matt

Technical question Matt what VST effects do you use for vocals?

Gary

Northern Kind said...

Hi Gary,

I use the SSL Duende plug-ins for compression and EQ, this is also a piece of Hardware that connects via Firewire. Waves is a package that you can get that also has these types of plug-in with just software. The reason I got the Duende was to offload some of the processing power.

The other plug-ins I use are just the ones built into Logic, I usually insert these as AUX send and returns so they work across multiple channels. The logic Space Designer and Delay Designer plug-ins I find are the best.

I also run the Melodyne plug-in now.

Will be posting our Podcast video very soon, completely lost my voice last week so didn't record my part.

Matt

Gary said...

Thanks very much for that Matt, always interested how you do your recording.

I'm looking forward to the podcast to mate!

Cheers

Gary