Tracking vocals in the digital realm.

[James Lugo]

I'll start this by saying this not a question this has become a quest.

I'm so close I can taste it. I started tracking vocals on my own record this week. The best chain of what I own is E49>LTD-1>1176. It sounds massive and warm but still sounds a hair like it's being recorded and converted to ones and zeros. I love the vocal sound on 3 Doors Down's song 'When I'm Gone'. That's kinda what I'm after.

We took one of my vocal tracks and added some plug ins, Phoenix, UA1176, UA La 2a and Sony Oxford EQ. I had 3 killer engineers in the studio helping me. It sounded 90% but there was still a touch of the ones and zeros thing happening in the upper mids.

Is it possible to make vocals in protools not sound digital?
Would adding another piece of tube gear in the chain warm it up the last 10%?
If so, what? Tube compressor? Tube pre? And which kind?
What's the chain on the song 'When I'm Gone"? Was that tracked in digital or tape?

I know this is such a broad stroke but it's the best I can do. This post means everything to me right now. This record I'm completing has to be insane, I can't have a woulda shoulda coulda feeling. I need to feel I did the best I could.

Thanks

p.s. the phoenix plug in is incredible sounding. I'm not one for getting a h**d on about plug ins but that thing rocks.

[DirkB]

Hi James,

Kudos to you for striving for perfection, I always enjoy that thumbsup .

Question I have is, how much of the missing 10% is from hearing the vocal in the finished contex. What I mean is you are listening to a finished, mastered mix of the 3 Doors down mix and hearing that vocal in that contex.

Perhaps your vocal is already there? How far towards final are your instrument tracks currently?

Just some thoughts. Otherwise, since a lot of vocals are cut to disk anyway, I guess your chain is as good as it gets. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the room where everything is tracked in and the fact that the mix is probably done by a great mixer on a large format analogue console... That could easily add 5-10% to the perceived quality of the final product, which also means the vocal.

Best of luck!

Greetings,
Dirk

[James Lugo]

Dirk,

It could be there and all it needs is to be mixed and mastered. It really sounds great and maybe I'm just being obsessed. Thanks man.

I'm looking at possibly getting a tube compressor; re-issue La 2a or a CL 1b. Do you have experience with cutting vocals with these puppies? How about the re-issue La 3a?

Thanks

[u b k]

my best guess, based on my own experience with the same exact phenomenon: you need to hit tape first, and you need to eliminate the dsp from the vocal track. that means a hardware comp.

la2a is great if you're after something smoother and bigger, a lush vocal that sits pretty in it's chair with a straight back, hands on knees, legs crossed at the ankles. la3a is great if you want something more grabby and pointy, a vocal that sits but cuts through. and of course, the venerable 1176, for a vocal that says fu*k you i won't be ignored.

you've got nothing but options. what could be better?


gregoire
del ubik

[Eric Greedy]

one word:

Fatso Jr. thumbsup

...at the end of the chain you now have, It would give you that elusive "tape" factor..minus the hiss.
An LA2A would be good as well. But the "digita;" sound your percieving will best be eliminated by "rounding" the signal with the Fatso.

[DirkB]

First of all, I have little experience cutting vocals to tape, so take my advice for what it is.
However, I do think that outboard compression is one of the keys to get that space around a signal and on the other hand, really gel into the track. It's almost like a paradox, but somehow it's there. I agree that plugins, how well they may do there job in some circumstances, only take away from getting that dimensional quality into a vocal or other instrument.
Since a year or two I don't let a plug in touch the vocal (accept when tuning is necessary ) and only use outboard and I'm probably not telling you anything new here, but it does add up.

On the CL1B, I really like it on vocals, graps in a nice way.

Good luck,
Dirk

[blackcatdigi]

James, I gave you my recipe almost two years ago, back here: click

[James Lugo]

This is getting interesting. Everything everyone says is hitting a nerve.

blackcatdigi, you're saying you have all tubes in your chain, am I correct? If I add a single tube compressor to my chain would you think re issue La 2a over CL1b?

I have to get in the shower and start tracking drums in a half an hour.

Fatso?

[wallace]

Hey James,

Yeah, you should try the fatso. I'm sure you can borrow one from someone in LA. Maybe you could do something like process the vocal track twice: once without any compression (with the input/tape coloration all the way up) then again using either the 1176 or buss (la2a) compression. Then mix those two to taste.

And even if you had a vintage la2a (they sound awesome), I think you could warm it up and make it a little more fizzy with the fatso.



I'm not too familiar with that vocal sound though. The fatso is great for coloring anything, be it vocals, bass, whatever.

Out of curiosity, what frequencies are you EQing with the Oxfords?

[Joel_Thomas]

I just finished a Bloo la2a kit and I have to agree with a few posts ago. It (the la2a clone/kit) sounds smooth, big, warm, however you like to describe it. I own a Distressor as well and the Distressor comes nowhere near to the size of the Bloo. I can't say how much I like that box. I am fronting it with a Vintech 473 or a Grace 801 and that into an Aurora 16 AD. Doesn't sound digital at all to my ears or anyone who's paid for my services. If you want big and warm, the la2a fits the bill. To my ears things like Distressors have a bit more of a tendency to cut through a mix. La2a's (...or other equivalent opto's) are definetly "smooth"....

[picksail]

James suffers from severe OCD. Well, so do I but...........

James, have you considered that your proximity to the mic could be contributing to the mid-rangy sound that you are hearing?

I thought the vocal sounded very euphonic. Albeit, I do remember the nasaly midrange that you described, but it could be tamed a bit in the mix. I personally, don't think that it should be a huge concern at this phase. Of course, it's not my music so....you're the ultimate judge here.

[airmate]

We took one of my vocal tracks and added some plug ins, Phoenix, UA1176, UA La 2a and Sony Oxford EQ. I had 3 killer engineers in the studio helping me. It sounded 90% but there was still a touch of the ones and zeros thing happening in the upper mids.

Perhaps you should simply try to use less digital processing with those plugins?
Do you really need *2* software compressors? Can you get rid of one of them? Maybe there's an analog EQ you could use instead of the Sony?

I'd suggest to do as little as possible with the signals once they are recorded digitally.
Every software process is a bottleneck the signal has to pass!

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by airmate

Perhaps you should simply try to use less digital processing with those plugins?

Yeah, seriously...my first instinct was not "what else can he add?" but rather "why does he need any of that stuff?"

It almost seems self-evident, but I find I get the fewest conspicuously "digital" artifacts when I don't use any digital processing! Get my sound in the analog domain, than rely on digital's clean capture ability to immortalize it.

Whether or not there *is* a "sound of ones and zeroes" is probably best left for a different thread!

[James Lugo]

Stew,

It's not really a mid range thing it's a digital sound in the mids. You were there, if I stepped back it lost body. The proximity was the best it could be.

As far as the plug ins go, I've never been a plug in dude but I've been really getting turned on to some plug in tricks. The plug ins actually made the track sound warmer to my ears. But I could be wrong. I think I need a good tube compressor to get what it is I hear in my head. I'm leaning to an La 2a.

[TML]

Get rid of the 200-240 junk in the bottom of the vocal.......before the comp....be careful to get rid of boominess...not the fat part of the vocal.....also get rid of the strident 1.3 crap...be careful with 700-900....they can sound boxy but add smoothness.......I'd try hitting the fatso as well.....it does work....crank up the highs with some nice neve eq into the fatso...use the warmth as a de-esser...... them use maxim and flatten this gorgeous tone to smithereens
Tim

[James Lugo]

OOO that sounds sweet!

[spectacular g]

E49>LA610>fatso>UA2192 then try not to use plugs...also nice on bass.

or just use tape...

as it might be the sound you hear in your head.

next time,
jfg

[blastula]

for a cheap fix that just might surprise you, try Colortone, a plugin by tritone digital....All kinds of Impulse Responses available. the one that i'm tripping on right now is the IR of the Portico tape emulator. Check out the 7.5 ips , but also the 15 ips.

also, i love the tubetech cl1b (not a plugin)


rob

[blackcatdigi]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

blackcatdigi, you're saying you have all tubes in your chain, am I correct?

Not exactly. No tubes in 1176 or STC-8.

If I add a single tube compressor to my chain would you think re issue La 2a over CL1b?

Dunno. Try both. Try to find an original LA2A.

Hell James, why don't you just buy all three (1176, LA2A, CL1B) and forget plugins?

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

What's the chain on the song 'When I'm Gone"? Was that tracked in digital or tape?

Wasn't that song recorded by Johnny Kay at Groovemaster studio?
http://groovemasterstudio.com

They have Studers over there no?

It was also mixed by Andy Wallce which has a lot to do with it.

[picksail]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

Stew,

It's not really a mid range thing it's a digital sound in the mids. You were there, if I stepped back it lost body. The proximity was the best it could be.

As far as the plug ins go, I've never been a plug in dude but I've been really getting turned on to some plug in tricks. The plug ins actually made the track sound warmer to my ears. But I could be wrong. I think I need a good tube compressor to get what it is I hear in my head. I'm leaning to an La 2a.

Yeah, you're right. We had already established that wasn't an issue of proximity. Just trying to narrow it down.

Hmmmmmmmmm, the quest for the perfect vocal. Probably somewhere between Hell and Cleveland. Well, at least we know it's not a performance issue.

I'm here if ya need me. We'll figure it out.

[picksail]

Originally Posted by blackcatdigi

Hell James, why don't you just buy all three (1176, LA2A, CL1B) and forget plugins?

Oh no. You have no idea what you've just done Casey.

[blackcatdigi]

[airmate]

To me it still sounds funny that everybody recommends to buy this or that.
But I still think that it should be possible to get a very good vocal sound out of the setup described.

Personally I would try this before spending a couple grands on new stuff: get rid of all the digital signal processing and see what it sounds like then. Do some gain riding with a fader, perhaps another 3 db of compression, manual de-essing with the track automation and then judge the sound again. Do you still miss soemthing? Perhaps then you could improve the results by taking a different mic/preamp combination?

Recently I was tracking/mixing vocals with a very (!) minimalistic chain:

Neumann CMV563+M7s -> Telefunken V72 -> LA-2A.

That was it. Some fader riding/manual de-essing inside the DAW, but nothing else. Very simple signal path, very few active gain stages, all-tube. No IC-crap at all.

And perhaps this was the best vocal sound that I've reached so far.

To me this is the most important rule: If something does not sound as good as I want it to, firstly get rid of all signal processing suspected to be superfluous - and hear what it sounds like then.

So often one tends to put more and more processing into the signal path just to even out the disadvantages of gear put in the chain before. And the overall sound gets worse and worse.

I also own a FATSO, and I must agree I had some nice results with lots of hi freq EQ and the FATSO's "warmth" function behind that. But to me this isn't "bread and butter processing" at all. It's more like a problemn solving strategy that might work in a particular case, or not.

[monobeat]

i own a tube-tech cl-1a (the old handwired version) and all i can say is wow! on vocals and bass it is the shit! warms things up nicely and you can hit it pretty hard w/o over the top pumping....unless of course you want it...it's all in the release!

once tracks are in the daw i also use the uad-1 comps to death...definitely the best dynamic plugz i own.

good luck!

warner

[thermos]

Colortone is a nice cheap option. Thats smoothed out some vox for me recently.

[Wiggy Neve Slut]

How about plugging the chain into another piece of outboard gear.. just for colouration??

Try different combinations and permutations of gear. You may find that the different loading on some gear can bring out a different tone and sound. They dont even have to be working, sometimes just in bypass they can add an extra flavour.

There are no rules!
Wiggy

[James Lugo]

I just checked out an La 2a today. That was a huge warmer. I hate to say it, because it'll make me look like a lame gearslut but that was the first time I ever used one as a producer/engineer, I've sang into them as a singer. Anyway, I loved it! When I tracked with the La 2a the vocal track seemed to have no digital haggerdness(?)... Sounded like a record.

E49>LTD-1176>La 2a = WARM GOOSHY LOVE!

[Screws]

James, did you try it without the 1176 in the path? Sometimes they can sound "edgy".

[picksail]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

I just checked out an La 2a today. That was a huge warmer. I hate to say it, because it'll make me look like a lame gearslut but that was the first time I ever used one as a producer/engineer, I've sang into them as a singer. Anyway, I loved it! When I tracked with the La 2a the vocal track seemed to have no digital haggerdness(?)... Sounded like a record.

E49>LTD-1176>La 2a = WARM GOOSHY LOVE!

Where'd you try the LA2A?