Vocalist monitoring

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2002 3:23 am

Hi guys,

I am currently tracking a vocalist who is having problems with headphones and intonation. We have set up two monitor speakers in the recording room right behind the back of the mic (which is a cardoid)and I am suprised that bleed is quite okayish. Still mixing time is yet to come and I don't know if the bleed will be a problem. I may edit the vocal tracks, gate them or whatever...but are their any secret tips or tricks how to manage that? I am sure a couple of you track the same way....Thanks for your tips....

Best,

Markus

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2002 4:11 am

We just did a buch of vocals in the control room for the same pitching reasons..

verses were ok in the live room, but on loud choruses, we did em in the CR.

My assistant suggested recording a pass of the mic in the CR - same level, but with no singing, he flipped the phase and as we balanced it up with a vocal track - the bleed was greatly reduced (say by 70%) and the vocal remained unchainged tonally.
Bleed was a worry for us because we wanted to use a litle Auto Tune later and it doesnt like 'chords' or any spill at all..

We had the monitors up REAL LOUD (Genelec overload lights blinking Surprised

we had earplugs in ) and were using a very sensitive mic with plenty of compresion (M149 / Neve 1073 / UA1176)

So thats why I am calling my assistant "my engineer" from now on!

Jules

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2002 8:13 am

Another similar way, still playing with phase.
Place the two monitors ( you may want to use " small" speakers as NS10's ) in a way to form an equilateral triangle with the microphone, eventually, try to raise them a little, to singer
ears level. Reverse the polarity of one speaker and send a mono cue send to speakers. These signals will cancel each other when reaching the mike. You'll have to sort of finding the sweet spot for the singer but once is ok the cue is heard but not recorded. Should work...Jo

Respected Past Moderator Joined: Mar 13, 2001 Posts: 1256

Auratones work even better @ this. You can put little flanges on the Auratones...then they can be mounted on mic stands. If the mic standa are those three leg type it's very easy to set-up a triangle between all three mic stands.

The Metallica "Black" record was recorded this way. Rage Against the Machines foirst album: all of Zac's vocals cut in the control room infront of the NS10's with a beta57,no phase flip on the ns10's...or any other tricks. The direct to leakege ration of a dynamic with their lips on it is about close to the leakege of a condenser out in the room with cans.

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