Vocal Distortion wanted

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 7:56 pm

Hi. I am mixing in Pro Tools. I have the Waves Platinum bundle and the Digi plug ins, that's all. I am using an mbox so I can't send to an outboard box. I'd like to put a light vocal distortion on one song (ie Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Is there a suggestion as to how I can do this using what I've got? Thanks a bunch.-J

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 10:11 pm

You could try the Voxengo Tube Amp...its free. Its a tube preamp simulator. You can dial up the distortion and saturation. I can't remember the link, but it should be on Voxengo's site/ Andy

Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 4:29 am

dont rush to using distortion. Try using some hi-pass filters first for a warmer sound and even try overdrive to distorion ontop of that, i just find its easier to keep alot of good vocal toality that way.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:36 pm

Not sure if this is quite the sound you are looking for, but you can always just crank up the level on your preamp and let it clip like crazy... That'll get you a very interesting distorted sound. Trent Reznor does this type of thing on vocals and everything else quite often.

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:31 pm

Jova wrote:

Not sure if this is quite the sound you are looking for, but you can always just crank up the level on your preamp and let it clip like crazy... That'll get you a very interesting distorted sound. Trent Reznor does this type of thing on vocals and everything else quite often.

This is the same way I record distorted vocals.

I use a Great River.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:14 am

Without hearing the song, it's hard to know what you're after.

Here are some things I use to get different distorted effects on my vox:

1. VST pluggin called North Pole. I think it's free (and it's FANTASTIC!!)

2. Use an overdrive pluggin instead of North Pole

3. If the singer has a really nice strong (loud) voice, I'll get them to sing some parts through a Behringer XM8500 dynamic mic. It's got a very nice sound, but a low SPL, especially in the mid and upper ranges. The distortion from that is pleasing.

If your Waves bundle has Morphoder, you can get some very cool results of of that too. Try the "whisper" preset and mess with it, then mix it back into the original vox.

Hope that helps.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:30 am

You could play just the vocal tracks through your monitors, and mic with a cheap crystal mic, or the Shure "Green Bullet" (I forget what model number it is)...

There's always Chad Blake's trash can sound effect as well (search the Chad Blake threads for details).

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:58 pm

johnnyl wrote:

Hi. I am mixing in Pro Tools. I have the Waves Platinum bundle and the Digi plug ins, that's all. I am using an mbox so I can't send to an outboard box. I'd like to put a light vocal distortion on one song (ie Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Is there a suggestion as to how I can do this using what I've got? Thanks a bunch.-J

Massey THC

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:03 pm

therecordingart wrote:

johnnyl wrote:

Hi. I am mixing in Pro Tools. I have the Waves Platinum bundle and the Digi plug ins, that's all. I am using an mbox so I can't send to an outboard box. I'd like to put a light vocal distortion on one song (ie Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Is there a suggestion as to how I can do this using what I've got? Thanks a bunch.-J

Massey THC

Or sansamp, always works good for me.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:41 pm

Jova wrote:

Not sure if this is quite the sound you are looking for, but you can always just crank up the level on your preamp and let it clip like crazy... That'll get you a very interesting distorted sound. Trent Reznor does this type of thing on vocals and everything else quite often.

This won't always work.

If your preamp is heading straight into your AD converter (or it's built into an interface, such as the MBOX) the only thing you'll be doing is overloading your ADC and causing digital clipping. This isn't exactly pleasant sounding distortion.

Folks like TR overload either a multi-gain-stage preamp - usually a tube based or transformer based pre with an input and output gain where you can crank the input gain and turn down the output gain forcing the tube or transformer to overload and then sending out a reasonable amplitude for the ADC to be able to handle.

Besides, cranking the gain up on a single stage preamp shouldn't cause it to overload. Unless of course it's a POS.

I second the idea of running the voice out of a speaker and recording it. Especially if it's a 2 or 3 way speaker. You can mic only the mid or woofer and get a very cool effect when layered with the original voice! Go through a guitar amp and get even cooler effects!

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