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I'm going to show you 10 vocal
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production tips that are almost
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guaranteed going to make your music
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sound better let's do it number one you
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need to make sure that you're actually
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using the right mic for the room that
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you are in see a lot of home studio
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producers see these nice fancy condenser
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microphones like this and they're
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thinking well shoot if I'm gonna do the
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real music producing thing I gotta get
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one of these but the thing is if you're
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in a room like this that has absolutely
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no acoustic treatment or even if you
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just have foam acoustic treatment and
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you're using microphones like this which
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are super sensitive it's gonna sound
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like crap so instead you want to make
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sure that you are using a mic that will
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actually sound pretty good in a room
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like that which would be microphones
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like these the shore sm58 a Shore sm7b
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which are Dynamic microphones or if you
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want to go with the condenser microphone
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the Loudon ls208 is by far the best
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option that's going to work in a room
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that's not very well treated if you're
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using the wrong mic for the wrong room
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it's going to sound like garbage number
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two if you're recording a song that is
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really Dynamic like the verse is really
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quiet the chorus is loud then the verse
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is really quiet and then the bridge is
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super loud and all the different dynamic
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levels then what you need to make sure
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you actually do is adjust the gain on
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your interface or preamp so instead of
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just recording something really soft and
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then having to crank the volume or crank
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the gain within your Daw afterwards so
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what you want to do instead is increase
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the actual gain on your preamp so if
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you're just using an interface you would
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just crank it up on the interface itself
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but if you're using a preamp like me
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then you're going to just increase or
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decrease the actual output gain the main
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thing is that you don't want to be doing
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this all after the fact you want to get
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it done right away which is getting
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really good source so adjust the verses
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in the choruses based on volume for that
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particular song it's going to make your
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life so much easier number three don't
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ever delete your take folders so in
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logic if we record a vocal and we have
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all of our different takes here you
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never want to delete this so I'm going
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to show you a really good alternative
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you can do this in other Daws Pro Tools
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has this option as well but if you're
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using logic this is a little bit more
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relevant go down to track header
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components track Alternatives and what
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you can do is you can duplicate this so
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let's go ahead and say this is the comp
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that I actually want to use which is a
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combination of different takes but when
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we want to actually take care of our
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pitch correction tuning in some of the
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other things that we got to do on this
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we don't want to be doing that within an
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actual take folder we want to be doing
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that on a flat flattened track but you
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don't want to delete this take folder
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because there are circumstances where
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you might actually get into this delete
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the take folder then realize oh crap I
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wanted to use a different take for
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something and you deleted it don't ever
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delete it so option one is to create
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track Alternatives like this so we now
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have track alternative A and B and so
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what I would do is rename this track B
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to edits and I would rename track
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alternative a to comp so now I can go
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between these edits and the comp so if I
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go to edits here I can go in here
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flatten this and now deletes the actual
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take folder but if we ever need to go
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back we can open this up and go back to
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the comp if you're not using logic and
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this particular thing is not possible
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within your dock here's what you would
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do instead you duplicate this track so
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you have two copies of it copy down your
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trick take folder into one and then just
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simply mute and hide and then you can go
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ahead and flatten that out so if you
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ever need to go back to the other comp
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you can go to your hidden tracks you can
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unhide that and then now you can grab
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whatever you need to grab from that and
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you're good to go number four make sure
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you are the proper distance from the mic
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also based on the specific mic that you
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are using so this is the Loudoun la-220
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which for this microphone if I'm
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standing about six inches to a foot away
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from the microphone it's going to
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capture really really well however if
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I'm using something like the shore sm58
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or the Loudon ls208 these handle audio
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vary differently if I am this far away
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from the Loudon ls208 which is still a
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large diaphragm condenser microphone
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it's not going to sound very good I'm
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going to have to get about this close to
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the microphone in order for this to
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sound the way it really should the same
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thing for a dynamic mic like a Shore
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sm58 or short sm7b you need to get right
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on this microphone in order for it to
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capture properly so pretty much the rule
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of thumb is if you're using a large
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diaphragm microphone like this you're
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going to want to be 6 to 12 inches away
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from the microphone however like I said
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the Loudon ls208 this is a large
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diaphragm condenser microphone but you
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need to get a lot closer to it so you
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need to actually experiment with your
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microphone what I recommend doing is
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test recording close a little bit
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further away a little bit further away
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and really pay attention to the tonal
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quality of the vocal there are so many
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vocals that I've heard from some of my
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students where I can just tell you're
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standing too far away from the
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microphone you're losing using all the
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low mids number five if you're recording
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a vocal in the dynamic range is really
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consistent all the way through one
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section but then all of a sudden it'll
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be the end of a versa going into a
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course it gets really loud you're not in
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a position where you can simply just
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change the gain on the interface like we
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talked about earlier a lot of vocalists
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are going to do this
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they're gonna back up from the
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microphone well the problem with that is
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similar to what we just talked about
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before that's going to change the tonal
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quality of the vocal so if you have this
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really nice low mid-range sounding vocal
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it's nice and meaty and then you step
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away from the microphone because you got
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super loud you're going to lose all of
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that low mid-range what's going to sound
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super weird because it's going to just
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thin out as you go further away from the
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microphone so here is what you should do
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instead there's actually two tips in
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this one tip tip number one is you would
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simply turn your head at about a 45
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degree angle you sing about this way
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that way you stay the same distance from
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the microphone but the amount of volume
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that is actually going into the
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microphone is not quite as much that's
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the number one number two is you would
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simply raise the microphone up angle it
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downward like this actually this is
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still a little bit too high right about
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here and so you'd make it so that when
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you're singing the main vocals you can
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kind of tilt your head upward a little
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bit so you're singing straight into it
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but then when you sing those loud Parts
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you would actually sing straight and
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this is accomplishing the exact same
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thing as the first one some singers are
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just not going to want to turn their
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head at a 45 degree angle so it might be
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a little bit easier for you to just
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angle your mic like this you're welcome
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also make sure you use a pop filter I
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wasn't using top filter use a pop filter
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number six try using non-lyrical vocals
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within your music it can make such a
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huge difference there's something about
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a human voice if you use it in your
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music in ways that is not just like
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singing the lead melody or harmonies if
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you incorporate non-leerical vocals into
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music it can just be it's awesome okay
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and this works in virtually every single
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genre the way I'm using it in this
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particular track here is in gang vocal
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form which means I've got layers of
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these vocals so it sounds like a bigger
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group of people singing but this is what
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it sounds like with no gang vocals
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[Music]
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foreign
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but let's go ahead and check out what it
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sounds like when I take those gang
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vocals and I have those vocals doing the
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same thing that the strings are doing to
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add just a completely different vibe to
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it check this out
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[Music]
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so as you can see here I have multiple
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layers I think we did eight different
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layers of that same vocal we just panned
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them all over the place we put a ton of
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Reverb on them and compressed them and
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kind of distorted them a little bit and
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this helps make it so that it sounds one
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really big but then two it just adds
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such a great vibe to the track so next
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time you're working on a production see
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if there's some cool ways of working in
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non-lyrical vocals tip number seven once
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you have actually recorded your vocals
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you are most likely going to need to
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automate those vocals and I know a lot
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of people don't like that but it's true
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you're mostly going to have to automate
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your vocals but when most people
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actually reach for the fader to do
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volume automation I'm instead going to
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tell you what you should do is put the
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game plugin at the very beginning of
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your chain you can see here I have gain
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right here at the very beginning and I'm
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actually going to automate the gain
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instead of the actual fader and here is
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why we look at this so you can see all
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the automation that we have I'm actually
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automating the gain tool itself so if we
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were to play this
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you can see the actual gain
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it's changing
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and here is why because now if ever I
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need to change the volume down the road
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instead of having to now grab all of
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this Automation and dropping it down or
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boosting it up or whatever I have a
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single fader that I can grab I can move
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that around and it's literally just
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going to take the entirety of that and
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change the global volume we don't have
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to do it with automation anymore this is
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going to save you so much time it's
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going to save you a lot of frustration
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because so often what happens is you
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automate your vocals at the very
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beginning of the process and as you get
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further along in the mix process you
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have to turn things down and so instead
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of having to grab all this Automation
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and turn all the automation down like
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you would normally have to do all we
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have to do is grab the single volume
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fader push it down 3db 5 DB whatever the
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case it is and we're done it doesn't
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actually change the global automation on
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that vocal tip number eight instead of
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using a single compressor on a vocal I
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almost always am going to use a
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technique called serial compression and
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what this means is we are running a
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single vocal through multiple layers of
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compression through a vocal chains you
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can see right here I have two separate
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compressors and the vocal is going
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through both of them the reason that you
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want to do this is because if you are
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compressing one single vocal a single
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time and you want say 10 DB of gain
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reduction using 10 DB of gain reduction
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on a single compressor is going to sound
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a lot more aggressive than doing 5 DB on
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one compressor and then 5 DB on a second
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compressor in the grand scheme of things
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I'm usually using three maybe even four
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compressors on a vocal it's just on the
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actual vocal chain itself I'm using two
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so the main concept is is that when you
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are working with a vocal if you want a
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vocal that is really nicely compressed
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without making it sound over the top
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you'd want to use multiple layers of
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compression to basically ease into it so
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if we were to actually listen to this
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vocal you'll see how each of these are
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working
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[Music]
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so this one's doing a little bit and
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this one's also doing a little bit
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and so as a result we're getting a nice
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little bit of compression but no one
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compressor is having to work too hard
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number nine when you're working with the
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vocal another really great way of having
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more creative vocals is to find creative
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places to automate Reverb and DeLay So
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on this particular vocal here in the
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chorus let's just go ahead and listen to
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it
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[Music]
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so what I'm doing is between each of
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these little phrases that she sings I am
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actually automating this Reverb to go up
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over time so if we actually look at this
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bus itself this right here is where the
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Reverb is on and you can see that I've
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automated the vocal to be swelling along
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with her actual vocal as she's singing
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it so when she's in between these
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phrases this is a really good place to
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put either vocal throws or delay throws
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where you're doing something like this
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where you're automating it up you could
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use a delay you could use a Reverb in
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this particular case a Reverb made a
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little bit more sense since it's
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supposed to sound a little more flowy
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and ethereal but if we listen to this
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and actually look at how this automation
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curve happens so I'm using round with an
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almost five second Decay on this and
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let's go and listen and now that you can
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see the actual automation happening use
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your ears to see how this sounds
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[Music]
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so when she's actually singing I push it
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down so that Reverb isn't just drowning
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over her voice but then when she's
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saying that to tail end of that phrase
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it goes up so it just kind of sprays out
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that Reverb and this is such a useful
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technique I use this all over if you
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want reverbs and delays to sound more
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interesting trust me this is one of the
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best ways of doing it and number 10 if
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you want your vocals to have some punch
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you want to cut through a lot of people
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are just going to reach for EQ but one
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of the best things you can do is
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actually use saturation Distortion tape
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plugins or using preamp emulations like
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sound toys radiators so let's go and
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take a look at this vocal and see if we
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can make it sound even more amped up
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oh
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now there's already a lot of aggression
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on here because I've already processed
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this but if I really want this to cut
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even more the very first thing that I
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would do is be going to something like
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effect rack within sound toys and I'll
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be grabbing decapitator now check out
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this sounds on this vocal it's a solo
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the vocal out put a little bit of drive
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and then we're going to adjust the mix
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and one of the things I like I like this
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end style and so I'm going to bypass
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this first and then we're going to play
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it back and listen
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all right that's with it on
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[Music]
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no
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[Music]
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no way Let It Go
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under your skin obviously as I start
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pushing up the wetness and as I start
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pushing up the drive on this it's going
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to get even more aggressive but in the
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context of this whole track it really
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fits the style that I'm going for and
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again this isn't something that's going
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to work on every single genre but listen
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[Music]
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so here's some of the go-to plugins that
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I would use obviously you've got
00:12:10
decapitator that's probably the best one
00:12:12
that's the one I use the most you could
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also use double lock devilock is really
00:12:15
good that's going to add a lot more
00:12:17
aggression to it but if you want to go a
00:12:18
little bit more subtle you could use
00:12:19
something like radiator which I actually
00:12:21
already did on this track earlier in the
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chain you can see here I'm using some
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radiator to push some treble this is
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going to be a little bit more on the
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subtle side and then another one that is
00:12:29
fantastic to use for this type of stuff
00:12:31
is the baby audio tape plugin and this
00:12:33
is going to give you that reel to reel
00:12:35
type tape sound which this can really
00:12:37
work well if you want your vocals to
00:12:39
have some more character to it but when
00:12:41
it's all said and done if you want your
00:12:42
vocals to have more character sound a
00:12:44
little more edgy EQ is great for
00:12:46
bringing up some brightness and Shimmer
00:12:48
but if you want to be making it more
00:12:49
edgy Distortion saturation preamp
00:12:51
emulations and tape style plug-ins those
00:12:53
are what's going to make the biggest
00:12:55
difference let me know down in the
00:12:56
comments below what your favorite one of
00:12:58
these tips was and if you like this
00:12:59
video I can pretty much guarantee you'll
00:13:00
like this one as well we'll see you in
00:13:02
the next one
