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Hey everyone, in recording vocals for my more previous songs, I always had the problem where they sounded very far off and didn't sit in the mix. I think I have corrected this problem!

My question is, is it cheating when you edit vocals with various filters? I have been trying to keep it simple and add the things that you would get with a proper recording setting.

So far I have:

Added some reverb

Used a graphic equalizer to take a little bass out

Used a graphic phase shifter (whatever it is) on the left channel

And used a dynamics processing filter which seems like it equals out the lows and highs and gets a nice equal mix

But I feel like this is cheating! Do you pros use such things when you record vocals? Are professional singers EQ'd when performing live?

On a side note, how excited are you to hear my new song. Pretty excited huh? You don't even have to say anything, I know you are!

Comments

EricIndecisive Fri, 08/31/2007 - 20:32

Thanks guys! I'm glad that's how it is. The vocals just sound so much more... THERE! And DAMN I need to reduce the bass to shit for the ipod to be happy. My friends sister has my speakers in Israel, so I think I will get some monitors in place of them! Then I can tell what the bass is really like. Is there a reason the ipod does this?

natural Fri, 08/31/2007 - 21:01

Some pearls of wisdom:

- Sometimes you have to do some un-Natural things to make things sound Natural.
- All mics suck. None are as good as you're ears. If they were, we wouldn't have to put them inche's away from the source.
- The whole recording process is a cheat. We know it's a cheat, they know it's a cheat, no one cares that it's a cheat.
It's like David Copperfield. Everyone knows it's a trick.
- Did Picasso cheat because his paintings didn't look anything like the original source?
- No one is really more excited about someone else's product as they are about their own. (If they are, then their medication needs adjusting)

HansAm Sat, 09/01/2007 - 06:23

The vocal has the biggest dynamic specter than any other instrument out there. That will often requier some compression. For Rock and Pop you need heavy vocal compression to get it out in the audio image-land. Reverb push the vocal futher back in the audio image. You can try to increase the pre-delay or change the reverb for a delay to still get the reverb effect but preserving the clearity.