aargh, mne too. i have a ksm32, tracking with a vs840 (roland) and an art tube mic pre. it's thin as paper i swear. im sick of it. maybe it's rolands limiter, maybe it's the mic (though ive read some good reviews about it). i dunno can someone suggest any good settings for tracking vocals with a limiter, etc. maybe eq settings will help?

i dont know, i think its the pre, the sound seems to be ringing or something like that, i am trying with another mic sm58 but it is worse, i dont know

I too have used the roland stuff, and with good results. I have to wonder what you've done with the acoustics in the room you use to record.
One thing you might try is to use one of the vocal multi effects, bypass all of the fx except noisegate, and enhancer. I find the enhancer can add just the right amount of body, if used wisely. If you know your room is good, a little compression could help too.

Originally posted by DrNoiZeZ:
hi, i am using a pre bellari rp520 and a mic cad equitec e200 recorded directly in a layla 24, listening with 03d and roland ds 90a but the voices are too nasal (is the term correct|), am I loosing something|
Thanks

:) Can you tell us more about your monitoring while tracking, are you using a control room monitor system, or headphones?

Also, are there any other processors in the chain like phasing, or flanging, or doublers. Some verbs have very short delay for space imaging. If that area of the processor is too loud, it will cancel some sounds because the delays are less than 20 ms, or around 3 ms to 5 ms on some.

--Rick

This may be too basic of an answer but just in case... Mic placement might have a lot to do with the tonality of the voice. If your signal is a little too chesty point the mic more toward their nose, nasaly, more towards the chest. If you already knew this, than ignore what I just said. Have you tried running other signals through the pre? Do they have the same tone?

My guess would be a combination of preamp and mic placement.For the mic, try singing 'across' the mic in the case of the CAD...the KSM32 should be a deep full sounding mic,perhaps you've got the mic pre settings too hot coming in and too cool going out.

thanks, i will try to change the placement and pointing towards the chest
I have another question the compression when recording is necessary or i can left it to be done by the compressor of the 03d
thanks again

Compression is, as is anything, a judgement call. You must decide if you need it or not by listening to the sound and making a decision. In order to do this you need a thorough understanding of compression, and how it effects your sound. I'll give you some reasons why I might compress the vocals, and if you need a more thorough explaination of compression, I have included a breif one below.

I would compress vocals if:
I was in a dead room, and I wanted to improve the body of the voice.
I had a lot of extremely soft sounds, and extremly loud sounds on the same track
I wanted to increase the attack or definition of the sound
The overall volume level was too low

I would NOT compress if there was any percievable reverb in the track, unless I wanted to hear it a lot more. Compression will really bring that out.

For those who are interested, here is my short length how to, on understanding compression. Hope it helps. ;)

Compression brings dynamics together. It makes quiet sounds louder, and louder sounds quieter. To control the amount, as you probably know, is the ratio control. Many people don't understand this control, so here's what it means. 2:1 means that the input signal(vocal in this case) will need to get 2db louder than the threshold in order for the output to get 1 db louder.
With a 4:1 ratio, the input would have to be 4db louder than the threshold for every output of 1db, and so on up the scale. Think of the threshold control as an arrow that points to the volume level where the compressor needs to kick in. It can be high or low, you will hear the difference.

You may already know that too, but here are some other things to think about.
First, if the room you are tracking in is not acoustically dead, the compressor will increase the presence of the reverb, and may make it hollow sounding. Secondly, if you are in a dead room, and you are using compression to give the sound more body, you may squash it if you have too high a ratio, or too low a threshold. If you are using it to control drastically dynamic sounds, you will have the same problem.

This brings us to attack and release. Let's say you have a nice tone, but it sounds flat. No life. You may find that increasing the attack time allows the sound to come in at a higher level for just a short time, giving it some definition.
For the release control, you will want it to release fast enough to turn the compressor off between sounds, but slow enough that the level doesn't bounce all over the place.
Lastly is the output cintrol. A lot of guys take this for granted, but it is a key part of the compressor. A compressor was originally developed as a "leveling amplifier". It's job was to keep recorded signals within a certain volume range for analog recording. Analog tape has a high noise floor. That is the level of self noise in your recording system. Compressors were needed to hide this noise. So in essence this is the purpose of a compressor, sort of an auto volume control.

Think of a compressor as a "tone shaper" and an amplifier. That's really all that it is. If you think you need to use one, just listen to your sound and you'll know.

Steve