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Hi all,

I have been tracking a vocalist who has great range and huge dynamics through my 737, his style is sort of old school operatic power vocals. If I set my pre so it sounds good when he is belting it out I cant capture the depth and presence I'm after on the laid back words, even with the comp engaged, there is too much of a difference dynamicaly between words. Its a pain because its not like the whole verse is sung consistantly even and then the chorus is the loud part, if that was the case it would be easy, its like every second word or so ( due to nature of song and style) is belted out 15db louder. My pre goes straight into my converters so i dont have a fader to ride, I was gonna try riding my output pot on my 737 but it has an indent at 0db, its a bitch to get a smooth ride, not really the way to do it anyway. I try to record as hot as I can so this scenario is killing me. If I set it so its nearly in the red (with room to spare) when he is singing his normal words its cool, but the second he erupts its all over! I can lower threshold on comp, etc, but I dont wanna sqeeze every damn word!

what would most people do in this situation? ( apart from buying a distressor!).

The only thing I can think of is getting him to pull away from the mic, might be hard because he is not used to it. Hmmmm, the distressors looking good.

Thanks,

Sammyg

Comments

pr0gr4m Wed, 09/28/2005 - 09:11

I don't see how a distressor will do anything differently from your 737. Your compression requirement (the singers vocal dynamic) will be the same regardless of what unit you are using.

I often ask singers to back off of a mic when belting out choruses and I think that is really the best place to start. Many singers do this instinctively.

Reggie Wed, 09/28/2005 - 09:29

Yeah, most singers that have been singing live through mics for a while will develop proper mic technique. If it just totally screws up this particular guy, what about recording at a safe level and then riding the faders in the DAW? Probably use some extra compression in the DAW to help out too.

3dchris Wed, 09/28/2005 - 20:18

This may sound weird.. but is your recording environment acoustically treated in a proper way? If the room is too open sounding you get less control of the volume. I had this problem onces when I rented a house to record some stuff... I made the vocal booth out of a walk-in closet... put blankets all around I got much more controlled sound and I didn't even used copression ratio over 2:1 cause I didn't need to. My rig was tlm103 to avalon 737sp to rme converters.

just my 2 cents

chris

sammyg Thu, 09/29/2005 - 02:29

I think im gonna have to get him to improve his technique, its almost impossible to ride any fader on this particular track because nearly every 2 or 3 words will jump out big time. Its up to the singer now, hehehe, gee as if singers arent fussy enough, everything revolves around them! example: " I'm not in the mood to do this track I dont have my favourite underwear on and the light isnt hitting my face at an acute angle and the painting in your room isnt symetrical". Gotta luv em! hehe

Thanks,

Sammyg

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