first post Rnb club mix please critique

[butterfly]

I'm yet another lurker who has been on the site practically every day since I first joined a few months ago. I would be really happy if some of you could take a listen to this track which I have written and am hoping to put out as a white label. We are in the final stages of mixing at the moment but seem to be unable to get a decent sound on the female vocal. probably going to rerecord it since for me there are issues with the phrasing as much as the sound, she's only a kid (16) and the rapper is 17. we recorded the vocal with a u87 going into a TLA 5051 voice channel, i was even thinking about hiring a nicer preamp. I think we did about 3 0r 4 takes on her vocal and decided not to harmonise her however now I'm thinking to maybe put a couple of other vocalists on it just to back her up. Any suggestions about how to give the vocal some impact and bloom would be much appreciated.

[NeoVXR]

with 16, learning and development is fast, and a redo is always a good idea, if there is time and it is affordable.

this voice might need a different approach for effect structure.
at the moment, I think it sounds too much like flanging/chorus effect. you might also experiment with early reflections, and gated/reverse reverbs (very short, very low in mix, low-passed)...

for the EQ, you could try the "bathtub upside down"
___/TTTT\-----
enhancing from about 1kHz and backing down again after maybe 5 kHz
(this is only for the current recording, as I don't know how a re-tracking would be like)

[butterfly]

Neo, cheers for the reply. There aren't really any effects on the vox apart from I think some reverb and an exciter.Forgive my ignorance but what would gated or reversed reverb do to the vocal in terms of overall effect?

[NeoVXR]

ok, it's a sudden, experimental idea..
it should fill something in the mid-range, make it fatter, less child-like(=clean), and more resonant without becoming cheesy. adds some "growling" and kind of doubling effect, but it should be almost inaudible in its low intensity. tune it to tightly melt into the voice, perhaps with a mult channel.
I estimate time constants about and within 100msec if this is within parameter range..
not sure if it works..

did you study the threads about multing and autotune in RnB vocals? this would be the first advice.

[butterfly]

Hey Neo,
Yeah been through all the relevant threads I can find on rnb vocals. Unfortunatly a recurring theme here seem to be the involvment of esoteric outboard gear. Of which we have none. Maybe in order to get a "competitive" commercial sound on the vocals we might have to get hold of decent preamp,compression and eq. We also have a limited number of tracks at our disposal, so 48 tracks for the backgrounds aint an option.

[NeoVXR]

ok, so you can be innovative
my approach to this would be, also constructing a freehand EQ filter (often looks like a sharp moon landscape, but result sounds clearer and smoother), that compensates for some flaws in the mic preamps, and A/D. some of this is totally visible in the spectrum.
IMHO mic and pre should not be your first issue in this project.
I think, it is the (current) reverb and the doubling (+how much autotune or not). but the singer was only so good at that day...
you could turn around and go for the live, natural, fresh sound of a young girl.
ah.. I seem to hear also some hard limiting in the upper mids, that can take away quite some power.

I like the song and the overall sound, except the very low end might have a little issue. (HF can't be discussed with a 128kbit compression, but seems not too bad, otherwise the mp3 would sound spitty)

[butterfly]

sounds kinda bland...

Yeah absolutely, which is unfortunately not reflective of the words of the chorus, which should be the high point of the song, which is what is distressing me so much.

my approach to this would be, also constructing a freehand EQ filter

How would one go about doing this?

some of this is totally visible in the spectrum

Have you analsed the track on some sort of spectral analysis software?

how much autotune or not)

Yes she has been autotuned a bit on certain phrases,is it noticable in a negative way or do you think it has taken some life out of the vocal?

Anyway Neo thanks for your help and Randy for your comments.

Mark

[NeoVXR]

>>my approach to this would be, also constructing a freehand EQ filter
>How would one go about doing this?
takes much experience and engineering skills, which I have not enough, actually.
simply said, you need to judge which bumps and needles in the spectrum are by nature of the source, and which are from technical impact of the recording chain.

>>some of this is totally visible in the spectrum
>Have you analsed the track on some sort of spectral analysis software?
in the mix, it is hardly possible to tell anything about the voc track, by the analyzer.
the point is, _some_ problems are visible in the raw track, others you need to listen and guess.

autotune and then summing of double-recordings can give a flanging sound, sometimes too much.
alas, I'm no expert in these details.

-
another topc: ducking
programmed, or manual
e.g. the voc part at at 2.24 - you could cut some mid-range from certain instrumental tracks (sub-grouped). suddenly the voice would stand out in a nicer way.

[butterfly]

Thanks again Neo for your reply.

takes much experience and engineering skills, which I have not enough, actually

Me neither I'm a songwriter first, producer second. I wish I could afford the skills of a proper mix engineer. However at the moment guess I'll have to do with what is practical. so will probably re-record the vox and pay attention to the tracking and then experiment with a few of your suggestions. Will post up the track when it's done.


Mark.

[NeoVXR]

good luck!
I am very optimistic. as a producer, you seem to know what is important and what not. you'll get the girl sing it right, and it will be complete and good.

[butterfly]

Thanks Neo.

[nikthegrik]

Hey,

nice Song, i really like it. What Equpment did you use? There is a cool Synth Sound in 1:14-1:16, which I also heard in many RnB Production. What kind of Sample is this and where did you get it from?

All in all, very nice! respect !

Greetz
Nik

[butterfly]

Hey Nik, thanks for taking the time to listen to the song, glad you liked it. The synth sound is from an old analogue monophonic synth. Other sounds are emagic rhodes, live electric guitar(we took riff we liked and looped it) live bass(but looped) some live ac. guitar riffs, some juno 106 and strings from Vienna symphonic library. At the moment the plan is to go back in a re-do the vocal as it's not really "swinging" properly over the chorus and add some background vocals from a more experienced singer(the girl on the hook is only 16) and obviously get a more polished sound. also I think we are going to replace the acc. guitar in the chorus. so will be posting a revised version soon hopefully. Thanks again. Look forward to hearing some of your stuff when you post.

Mark.