I have been doing some recording for a rap duo in Pro Tools and have some questions about proper panning techniques..
The vocals currently sound pretty decent, but I feel they can be much better and I think that it's in the panning or compression..
I currently use between 4-5 stacks and center two and pan hard L/R the other two and it sounds pretty good. However, I have been told that I shouldn't hard pan my verses, only my hooks..
In addition, I also have never found that "perfect" software compressor for the vocals.. I am using T-Racks & Waves right now..
Any suggestions would be MUCH appriciated!
Comments
ok i mainly produce and mix rap artist here in atlanta.. as for
ok i mainly produce and mix rap artist here in atlanta.. as for panning.. it all depends on the sound you or the artist is looking for.. some artist just have a lead vox with a adlib.. while others have a lead, stack, and 2 adlibs..
my artist usually have a stack and atleast 1 adlib and this is how i do in nuendo.
Lead vox center
stack panned to the left, with nuendo i usually never go past L24
adlib, if only one.. i pan from R12 the R32 if 2 i usually place them both around L24-R24
o and for compressors... Waves Rvox or Rcomp shoudl give you a great sound.
also check out the Nomad factory blue tube 2.0 bundle, i just got it and every plug sounds great but the deesser.. i stick with a waves deesser.
if none of those work for you.. the next best thing is to get a UAD-1 Dsp card and use one of its compressors, though Rcomp can be just as smooth imo...
Tracks plugins take a lot of tweaking to get them to sound right. the rcomp shouldn't take much tweaking.. and the Rvox is simple
I learned alot about mixing rap from recording Young BloodZ yest
I learned alot about mixing rap from recording Young BloodZ yesterday. It's true that you usually only hard pan the hook/chorus, to make it very distinct from the verses.
In the case of the verses, it can vary, but in many cases you have the verse doubled and panned VERY slightly left and right, and then the ad libs panned a little more left and right.
Regarding compression, you should be able to get something good happening with the Waves Rennaisance Compressor, if you have that one. I use Cubase SX myself, and some of the plugins I would recommend are VST only. You could always rent a good hard compressor...
Good Luck!