Best Vocal recording you've ever heard

[MWP]

What do you consider the best recording of vocals you have ever heard?
My choice is the Beatles Because. Besides being the Beatles and having Sir George Martin as a producer, I'm still trying to figure out how they got this sound.

MWP

[EgyptionRing]

Don't have a favorite song but my favorite album mix is Bowie's Heathen. I think Tony Visconti used a manley gold through an avalon on most of the vocal tracks.

[markk]

Nat King Cole Unforgetable comes to mind

[Thumper]

Aimee Mann. Opening scene of the movie "Magnolia." "One" is the song name.

The most realistic sounding vocals I have ever heard. And a damn good performance as well!!!

[newnes]

Originally Posted by MWP

What do you consider the best recording of vocals you have ever heard?
My choice is the Beatles Because. Besides being the Beatles and having Sir George Martin as a producer, I'm still trying to figure out how they got this sound.

MWP

It's hard to argue with that choice! I don't know the mic/pre combos on that (the usual suspects I'm sure) but I believe the song was done with three part harmony (John, Paul, and George) overdubbed three times each so there are nine tracks of vocals. The pitch and phrasing are impeccable and I'm sure the blend of the three different voices had a lot to do with it. Also I think the sparse instrumentation helps the vocals stand out a bit. The vocal-only version from the Anthology is pretty cool as well. thumbsup

Craig.

[AmekGuy]

Ed Cherney's vocal mixes on Bonnie Raitt's album, Longing in their Heart's, including some other songs he mixed for her.

[Djembe]

Chet Baker Sings!

Love that vocal sound. Don't want to hijack the thread but does anyone know what the recording chain was? I am guessing it was a U47.

[not_so_new]

Vocal "performance" would be many many things but vocal "recording" I think I would take Ben Harpers Fight For Your Mind. Just a great sounding recording all the way around. Anyone have any idea what they used on this album?

Honorable mention would be Seal's 2nd album. WOW.... and yes both of these have allot to do with the singers as much as or more than the gear used.

[vixapphire]

hmmmm... a couple of things straight off the top of mind for vocal recordings:

1. Streisand singing "Woman in Love" on the Guilty album. headphones = wow.

2. Vanessa Daou "Sunday Afternoon"; particularly in the first verse there's one point where she slightly and apparently accidentally sort of whistles a sibilant; it's exceeding short but it gets picked up and carried across the cosmos by the perfect plate reverb that's (often) on her vocals. not the greatest singer, but one who really knows how to use what she's got to great effect.

3. "Hats off to Harper" off Zep III. C'mon, that's a no-brainer!!! the question isn't "why"; the question is "who else would've had the balls". indeed.

v

[Kenny Gioia]

Nat King Cole is pretty amazing for me. His voice still sounds like it was recorded yesterday and it's in your face and beautiful.

I can't separate recording from performance so my list is mostly performance.

"Man In The Mirror" Michael Jackson
Nat King Cole
Aimee Mann
Jack Johnson
Brad (Shawn Smith)
James Taylor
Al Green
"I'm Not Myself" Amos Lee
Bonnie Raitt (Not my favorite voice but I can't find a flaw)
India Arie
Macy Gray
Joan Osbourne
Marvin Gaye
Natalie Merchant
Pink
Ray LaMontagne
Shawn Colvin
Van Morrison
"Kiss From A Rose" Seal
Cyndi Lauper (Most underrated singer of all time)
Daryl Hall (2nd most underrated)

[stevep]

Just of the top of my head...... Peter Gabriel's Father Son
his voice is well recorded very natural sounding

Lots of others but i had to pick one

[Reag1502]

Nice thread. I really don't think about stuff like that to often, but one guy that comes to mind, for just about everything he sings is Roy Orbison.

[willythekid]

"Wuthering Heights" with Kate Bush is an amazing vocal recording (alongside with most of her recordings). Not only does she have an amazing voice, but her ability to express different emotions through her voice is INSANE. There is more drama in that 3 minute song than there was in the 300 page novel.

Another performance/recording that always gives me goose bumps is Bowies "Lady Grinning Soul" from Alladin Sane. And "Saviour Machine" (from "The man...") where he changes to opera voice when he sings the parts of the bored saviour machine... How does he come up with those ideas anyway?? ?

[vernier]

McCartney/Beatles: "Yesterday".

[ScumBum]

Darby Crash - The Germs

[amrz]

Herbie Hancock - Summertime

[thenoiseflower]

off the top of my head I get a 5 way tie beetween The Cardigans - "Lovefool", Ammie Mann - "Momentum" , Fiona Apple's - "Limp", or Portishead's - "Roads" (more for performance but I always love her vocal treatments), and The Animals - "House of the Rising Sun"

Hon. Men. (perfs or sonics or both)
Norah Jones - "Come Away with Me"
Radiohead - "Been Thinking About You"
The Pixies - "Where is My Mind"
The Beatles - "Get Back"
Madonna - "Vouge"
Massive Attack - "A Prayer for England" (What A FVCKING performance!)
Metric - "Dead Disco"


I just know I'm gonna want to come back and drop a Dire Straits track...

[Mark Gifford]

On the CD "Deadicated" Lyle Lovett does "Friend of the Devil," and I just can't believe how good it sounds...

One of my all-time references for vocal sound.

MG

[George Necola]

Aimee Mann. Opening scene of the movie "Magnolia." "One" is the song name.

The most realistic sounding vocals I have ever heard. And a damn good performance as well!!!

but the only good song on her album.


I like all the nick cave stuff very much. also Tom Waits (mule variations) has a very intersting production.

[Dot]

A stand out to me is Rickie Lee Jones' vocal sound on her album, "Flying Cowboys"

Others that come to mind...

Maurice White on "After the Love is Gone"

Imogen Heap on "Hide and Seek"

Peter Gabriel on "More Than This" from UP

Todd Rundgren on "Pretending To Care" from Acappella

[vernier]

As for harmony vocals: Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Paul & Mary, Alan-Ward Trio, and Byrds ...all through tube consoles. Tubes make the biggest and most natural sounding vocals.

[illiummusic]

Jeff Buckely, Pretty much the whole album of "Grace".

[bcgood]

Babylon Sisters - Steely Dan

bcgood


Good call on the band Metric Noise Flower.
"New World Underground, Where are You Now?" Is one of the better alternative albums to come out in a long time.

[Meriphew]

'What's going on' Marvin Gaye
'Hey Jude' The Beatles

[WEAPON_X]

seal : "crazy" , and "kiss from a rose". stellar performance and stellar engineering.
however, best vocal recoding starts with a really really good singer, and as long as you have that you can put up a shady sm57 and a average preamp and still pull of an above average recording. obviously, wen you have a real gra singer in the booth, you want to captúre every little detail and then you need to start to think about vocal recording techniques and equipment.

[Justynfromnz]

neil finn (via tchad blake) anytime

[The dman]

I've always loved the vocal sound on Lyle Lovetts " Joshua Judges Ruth". It sounds like lyle is standing right next to you. You almost expect him to walk out of the speaker.

Oh wait a second that's for the "ghosts in the studio" thread

[jockrocks]

Sam Cooke's 'Only Sixteen' popped up on my ipod yesterday, sounded f***in' amazing, not only the vocal but the band as well.
I second Tom Waits 'Mule Variations'
Stevie's 'Songs In The Key Of Life'
D'angelo 'Voodoo'
Erykah Badu 'Mama's Gun'
All the Gillian Welch Stuff

Pure class.......

[ToneRanger]

My focus seems almost always to be on the vocals, so I could maybe list all my favourite tracks here... But a couple of honorable mentions.

1. Colin Blunstone (earlier of The Zombies) - Her Song (what a singer, what a sound!)

2. Paul McCartney - She's Leaving Home (the intimacy)

3. David Crosby - Almost Cut My Hair (very rough, almost brutal, but very powerful)

4. John Lennon (and Macca too) - A Day In The Life (two PERFECT and totally different vocal sounds and singers ofcourse, no wonder the Beatles were and are the best)...

5. Bill Withers - Let Me In Your Life, well about anything on Still Bill (one of the greatest singers to me)

About Because... It's perfect.. I've also read that it was tracked three times. But do you know if they all sang into the same mic or was it tracked individually? Usually you seem them all standing around one microphone..

[thenoiseflower]

[QUOTE=George Necola] but the only good song on her album.
[QUOTE]



WHAT


thats just crazy.


"Wise Up"