How to make vocal takes sound similar when recording?

[character]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

Really? Do you record vocals much? All singers I know of their vocal tone changes over the course of a session ... if you want soft, sweet stuff, get it early. If you want harder, edgier stuff, let them break in their voice for a bit and catch it just before they lose their voice ...

I've never heard a singer's vocal tone change that much during a session, even an 8 or 10 hour session. They tend to get better after warming up and doing a few takes, but they don't lose their voice or even close to it. Maybe if you had someone who was screaming, and they were trying to do all the vocals for an entire album in one day. But I don't work that way, so I wouldn't know.

Originally Posted by chris carter

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of comping. I would only do it if I had to. I would prefer to just punch - that way you know what you have. And if you are a good producer, you don't need comping. While comping CAN be a good technique, far far far too many people do it instead of committing because they just don't know what to commit to.

Not sure I agree. I guess it depends on your definition of comping. If I record a single take and then need the singer to punch in parts of it, then I splice it all together and label that as the "comp" track. To me, punch ins are comping, after being put together with the original "keeper" track. The result of two or more takes/punch-ins edited together is the comp track.

I do tend to punch in using entire verses or from the beginning of the song to maintain the integrity of a single performance, rather than punching in just individual words and lines. But then I just cut the words and lines I need and comp them into the original track. So to me, comping and punching in go hand in hand. But that's probably because I keep close track of what has been done and what needs done, so there's never a question of not committing. I keep the workflow fairly linear. And that may be why I don't remember running into a situation where a vocalist lost their voice or saw a decrease in vocal quality during this process.

[decocco]

Originally Posted by DavidStarz

Do you guys ever have it where you recorded an artist (or yourself) and they don't need ANY pitch correction or something of that matter after comping/punching the takes? Like it sounded perfectly fine just the way it was?

Yep.

The key is to record good singers.