What on earth to do about guitar pick scraping that's been recorded on the vocal mic

[ftngrave]

I recorded a bunch of songs with a band I'm in at a studio that offered a special deal for a 10 hour session in one day.

A vocal condenser mic was sang into in an isolation booth. But to save time myself and the other vocalist played our electric guitars (at separate times, we never sang together) in the booth while we sang. The amps of course were mic'ed elsewhere.

So all the vocal tracks have the pick scraping sounds of playing on an electric guitar. I can't believe neither myself or the tracking engineer didn't hear this or think to mention it, I mean I sang on about half of the songs with headphones on.

To my understanding pick scraping sounds are kind of like noise, in that all frequencies across the spectrum are quite equally present in the sound. I tried EQing at various points from low to high to see what would happen and of course the pick sounds are there regardless. They sound best with bringing around 7300 Hz down, but they definitely still sound horrible.

I've often wondered about EQ questions like this. Basically, my question is, are there engineers out there with really high end EQ plugins and filters that can actually address an issue such as this? Is it even possible? Are there high end plugins where one can actually erase out the noisy picking sounds from the waveform?

I really need to know simply if it's possible. If so, I imagine I'll send the tracks to someone who thinks they could do this.

Also, if anyone who reads this post can do this, let me know. I'm willing to pay for it. I can't stand the pick scraping sounds on the vocal tracks within the mix. The music style, most simply put, is noise rock.

Thanks to anyone in advance who might know about these things.

[payne104]

How does it sound with everything mixed in? If you give the songs a nice full mix then it might not be so noticeable and maybe even kind of cool.

Trying to eliminate it is probably a lost cause

[PhilDW]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering something, but think I've heard of people using de-essers for this kind of thing, even though that doesn't fit very well with your comment about all frequencies across the spectrum.

[Kiwi]

Since at least Buddy Holly's day engineers have mic'd up electric guitar strings to mix with the amp sound, to give it something more real. When a guitarist is playing in a room, a large part of what he hears is the direct acoustic sound of the pick and strings.

In the mix, the sound should blend with the guitars and become part of the sound.

I guess you are hearing the solo vocal tracks and freaking out, and I agree it's not ideal - but it's probably not that bad, and might even add something.

Noise rock you say? ... what's a bit more noise? Could be the next big thing ...

Have you automated your vocal levels yet? I would chop out all unwanted noise between sung phrases by automating a gain plug (or the fader, but I like to keep noise editing seperate from the main level fader.

You could use a gate, but automating levels is more controlled and preferable.

I would do this before compressing, because why make your compressor react to stuff you are going to remove anyway. Automate as much as you can, and then the compressor won't have to work too hard and overcompress parts.

I wouldn't try any fancy eq to try to remove it ... this is your main vocal mic, concentrate of getting your vocal sound right, and then when your vocal isn't required, remove it totally.

If you are using reverb, maybe work a little harder on the Send only to remove unwanted pick transients. Maybe compress the reverb send more and remove some high end so the unwanted picks don't trigger the reverb excessively. But not on the main dry vocal - you end up just damaging the vocal.

[apdv1]

You could try de essing with something like the Sony Suppressor or Stephen Masseys deesser plugs or try an expander to quieten the pick noise.

[jtaylor27]

I read an article on "Mix Online" which talked about recording The Talking Heads' 1985 album "Little Creatures". David Byrne recorded that album, doing the vocals and guitar at the same time live. There were pick scrapes on all the vocal tracks on the original takes, so if anything needed overdubbing, they just made him go out and play guitar around the mic again. Not sure if that's helpful in your scenario, but it does happen alot.

[Ol' Betsey]

That's not noise. That's texture.

Especially if you've used the guide Vox/GT in the mix. Context is all.

I've recorded quite a few bands live all in one room and in isolation/solo you can hear strings being plucked, strummed and smacked all over the place but once everything is in full swing it's a non-issue.

And if it was a "special" 10 hour session such shortcuts sometimes have to be accepted.

You gotta save time/money somewhere and if you got the performances that's the main thing.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

R.

[BudgetMC]

Embrace the pic noise. It's there for a reason.

[joeq]

The music style, most simply put, is noise rock.

well there you go, there's some more noise for you

I wonder how 'committed' you are to your genre if you suddenly turn fastidious with respect to the vocal track.

Seriously, I think anything you could do to effectively get it out would have such drastic side effects on the vocal as to make it not worthwhile.

The acoustic string sound of an electric would be picked up the vocal mic at a live gig too. Unless you overdubbed new electrics and the performances didn't match, I don't see why couldn't make it work as part of the guitar sound.

I agree with those who say to use it. I have deliberately miced up the strings of an electric plenty of times. It's a cool sound. A real sound. If it was me I would, work with it, maybe use it in some creative way.

If not, you will probably have to retrack the vocals entirely.

[ftngrave]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I wasn't able to check back here for awhile.

So it seems no one thinks it's possible to completely remove the pick scraping via high end processing of some sort. I will try some de-essers, though I've never used them before.

To me, the last "style" of music you'd want to hear pick scraping on is ""noise rock"", though I understand the ambiguous nature of that term. Also, the pick scraping is quite present in the overall mix; I can't see anyone freaking out over some kind of noise when soloing a track without applying its context to the whole mix.

And yes, with this particular brand of noise rock, vocals are important.

But to explain noise rock being the last thing you'd want to hear pick scraping:

The sounds created by the electric guitars are not only noisy and frequently employ feedback, but they're also unique, unconventional, and ultimately, really "electric" sounding. Hearing any pick scraping with such guitar sounds is like seeing the puppet master behind the curtain. It sonically makes no sense. Punk rock, makes sense. Metal, makes sense. But noise rock, more than any other genre, doesn't ask for any natural or acoustic sound from its guitars. The sounds are so processed, basically.

Anyway, that's my thoughts. It's been informative. I was really curious to see if someone might talk about EQing out such a thing in a way that I had no knowledge of. But I do understand sound very well so I guess I was hoping for magic.

If anyone still reads this and has any other ideas, let me know. I still wonder about in depth high resolution editing of the waveform itself. I've never done that kind of precise work on waveforms. Like soundforge or something? (never used it).

[muziekschuur]

Just edit the vocal tracks. Delete every part where there is no vocal. Or use a noisegate. Problem solved.

[NYCruiser]

You could try to work on the noise with Izotope Rx or something similar. The most reliable and quickest way would be to re-record the vocal, obviously. The problem with having any noise on a lead vocal part is that the vocal processing will be processing the noise also. The tracking engineer in the control room didn't listen to what he was tracking? I would complain to the studio about it and just ask them to let you come in for an hour and re-record the vox tracks clean.

[Alrod]

I used to rack my brain soloing guitar and vocal parts to get rid of "noise". I took the similar advice of what many here are posting. Put the "noise" in the context of the entire mix. What I found is that the noise is not only more bearable in that context, but also more natural sounding. The biggest benefit is that I no longer waste hours upon hours of my time.

If you have ever soloed professional tracks, you would realize that they too think about the big picture which is the entire mix. Lots of "noise" is left in because it actually enhances the song. Sure use EQ and de-essers, to lessen the noise if you really need to, but trying to completely eliminate the noise is a waste of time and can lead to unnatural sounding mixes. Just my .02

[NYCruiser]

Originally Posted by joeq

well there you go, there's some more noise for you

I wonder how 'committed' you are to your genre if you suddenly turn fastidious with respect to the vocal track.

Seriously, I think anything you could do to effectively get it out would have such drastic side effects on the vocal as to make it not worthwhile.

The acoustic string sound of an electric would be picked up the vocal mic at a live gig too. Unless you overdubbed new electrics and the performances didn't match, I don't see why couldn't make it work as part of the guitar sound.

I agree with those who say to use it. I have deliberately miced up the strings of an electric plenty of times. It's a cool sound. A real sound. If it was me I would, work with it, maybe use it in some creative way.

If not, you will probably have to retrack the vocals entirely.

I agree that the electric string noise could be a "cool" sound if you deliberately track it and can control it in the mix on a separate track, but I disagree that it's a "real" sound. It is not something I'm used to hearing, and definitely not something that I've ever noticed at a live gig. How many live gigs have an ultra-sensitive LDC on vocals. I can only imagine that locked in a vocal booth with an electric guitar, the pick noise is probably just as loud as the vocal in that mic. I would keep the "noisy" track and want to re-record the vocal cleanly. You can always use the noise from the original vocal track if you think it is "cool" during mixing.

[kennybro]

The de esser won't do it. It would have to be set at too low a frequency and threshold to grab the pick noise, and that would be a deal buster for the vocals.

Either kill everything on the track where there's no singing and hope the vocal provides enough cover, or discuss it with the studio. I suspect that you were recording takes and then listening and approving, so you probably don't have a leg to stand on, but they might give you a discount to re-cut the vocal if you're cool and reasonable.

I'm surprised the engineer didn't point it out. That kind of stuff drives me crazy when I'm tracking, unless I'm doing it on purpose. And then, I'd be more likely to minimize it in the vocal mic with pattern, placement and some kind of isolation, and then close mic the strings with a different mic. The possibility that you're going to get what you want via serendipity is a gamble.

But also, as other have said, consider the possibility that it won't hurt the big picture enough to really matter, and roll with it. You recorded fast at a low budget, which requires total pre production planning for max results. This is just one detail that got looked over in pre pro. Next time will be that much better with this now added to the book.