Tracking vocals: Making a phrase-by-phrase approach work
If you are planning a phrase-by-phrase approach to tracking vocals in a studio, here are some tips to help make your experience a success. Read the post
vocals
Tracking vocals one phrase at a time
It’s great when a vocal performance can be recorded in one cohesive take, but not every session will succeed with this approach. Sometimes, a modular strategy is required when tracking vocals. Read the post.
Vocal recording advice for the experimental at heart
Want to launch a counterattack against homogenous music? This vocal recording advice can be the place to start, as the lead vocal is usually the lynchpin of the song. Read More.
Meet the Vocoder: Make your synth speak and sing
In a musical context, the vocoder often starts with an analog sound and crossbreeds it, in real time, with synthesized textures to create some powerful and versatile musical elements. Read More.
Recording vocals in a home studio
These simple tips will help you get the best results when you’re recording vocals in your home studio. Read More.
Six examples of the Talk Box done right
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to integrate this inventive effects pedal into your own work, check out the following performances of the Talk Box done right. Read More.
Meet the Talk Box: Shape sounds and open new creative doors
The Talk Box lets you use your mouth to shape sounds, in real time, in crazy and creative ways. Here are tips on how to use the effect to amplify your own creative efforts. Read More.
Choosing a signature vocal mic for your studio
We take a look at the University of the Pacific’s efforts to find a signature vocal mic for the campus recording studio. What they learned might help you choose your next great studio mic. Read More.
Mixing vocals in your home studio
Mixing vocals in your home studio can be one of the more exciting stages in the recording process, and it can also be a complex challenge. Work to construct the instruments around the vocal so that everything gets to shine. Read More.
Producing Background Vocals
For any given song, the specific approach to producing background vocals is dependent on the production style and genre, but when listening to any modern song on the charts, you can quickly pick up that there is a lot going on. Serious thought has been put in to the arrangement and presentation of these parts, which usually means quite a bit of editing work. Luckily for us, this type of work and associated workflow is what Pro Tools does best. Read more.
The Ultimate Podcasting Mic Shootout
Anyone shopping for a new podcasting microphone, or a voiceover microphone, or even a studio vocal microphone should know that the broadcast industry has relied on a very small handful of mics for the past 30 years. Broadcasters know something that you might not: how to get a great vocal sound. Read more…
Basic Tracks: Where the Magic Is Made
Basic tracks are the initial recordings of the rhythm section that are done prior to any overdubbing. Basics are the foundation for the music being recorded and for any other parts that come afterward. If there’s something faulty in the foundation, it will either be impossible or very costly in time and money to fix things later. That’s why it’s essential to make each basic track the best it can be.
Regardless of whether you spend a little or a lot of time in preproduction, recording basic tracks is where you either make the project or break it. Even if you had a great preproduction, you never really know how things will record or what unforeseen circumstances will pop up until you get there. Read more…
Recording vocals to a computer with Shure’s X2u
There’s been no shortage of products designed to help musicians get their musical ideas into their computers. While at the Winter 2010 NAMM show in Anaheim, I saw the then-new Shure X2u XLR-to-USB signal adapter. It’s a compact, affordable single channel palm-sized adapter that promises to help solve the problem of how to interface a recording mic with your home computer. Read more…
In the studio with Michael Jackson
No one was closer to Michael Jackson at the height of his creative powers than Bruce Swedien, the five-time Grammy winner who, with Jackson and producer Quincy Jones, formed the trio responsible for the sound of Jackson’s records. Excerpted from Swedien’s book, In The Studio With Michael Jackson, published by Hal Leonard. Read more.
The Zen of Ear Training – Part 2
In the last lesson we covered a few different strategies for starting to train your ears. This included singing with your instrument, singing over a drone, and singing intervals in all the keys. Now we’re going to take it a few steps further and work to really develop our ears ability to pick out notes and relationships. Remember that these exercises take time – developing your ears is a long process. I would practice the exercises from the first lesson and this lesson over the next several months and you’ll start to see development. It’s not a forced thing, more of a gradual opening of your ears. Read more…