Vocal Challenge

[Retronut]

I am working on a project which is my first attempt for someone outside my group. The challenge I am having is with some high male vocal parts. The singer can hit the notes, pitch is good, in fact the dude can sing great but admittedly he is at the current limits of his range. So, I am trying to find the best way to deal with these areas where the song is flowing along nicely and then there is this vocal transition to the high note. Sometimes there is no problem but then others you can hear this tonal shift (I wouldn't say shrillness but the high note lyric will sort of jump out of the mix). It's so darn hard to describe but I am hoping that some of you have dealt with something similar and have a couple of ideas from the tool box to assist me. I just don?t have the luxury of saying hey come back in 6 weeks after exercising your vocals and you can nail these parts without any effort. Should I be dealing with something like this while tracking or in the mix? Hopefully you can give me some ideas so I don't look like a total dumb ass to these guys.

[richiebee]

Change the key of the song? Singers do that all the time (its really annoying).

If you can't do that because all the backing has been tracked, something I have done in the past is to make a quick mix down of the backing, pitch shift it down, get the singer to sing the new lower high notes, then pitch shift the vocal up to get back to the original pitch. Don't work with the entire song this way, just the section that's giving trouble. In fact, the smaller the section you work with the better, since your pitch shift algorithm will work more accurately.

Now having said this, I've always found Cubase's pitch shift to be pretty bad... ProTools is better in this regard to my ears.

This is all cheating of course, but singers do it all the time, and whatever gets the right result is the right thing to do. I've just finished a week long run of a live show which starred some guy called Michael Burgess... apparently a big name in Canadian theatre (even though I'd never heard of him before). We had to transpose one or two of the songs he was performing to make it more comfortable for him to sing.

[brandondrury]

Is the problem in the singers performance or in your method for capturing it?

Are you trying to fix the singer or trying to deal with a vocal sound that has a drastic change in tonality?

Brandon

[Retronut]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Is the problem in the singers performance or in your method for capturing it?

Are you trying to fix the singer or trying to deal with a vocal sound that has a drastic change in tonality?

Brandon

Well, 95%+ sounds good so I guess my answer would be singer performance in as much as the note(s) are stretching the upper limits of vocal range. I am really not trying to fix the singer because I don?t have the luxury of saying man keep doing your vocal exercises and practicing this song and come back in 6 weeks when you can nail this section just like you are the rest of the song. I am trying to fix a couple of performance issues (yes, "vocal sound" best describes it) in the mix. It is a slight tonal change and lyric phrasing/emphasis that is occurring because of the mental effort the singer is using to hit the note. I can see as he gets to the bar where the note is there is this split second shift from ?just letting it happen to making it happen? if that makes any sense.

I am going to try a couple of cheat suggestions (yea, like that really means that much today) that richiebee offered. In fact I was just thinking maybe a little fattening with compression would reign these areas in. Even as I say that I can just imagine this will open up a whole other set of problems. Where do I buy that friggin magic wand that everyone is using???

[brandondrury]

In fact I was just thinking maybe a little fattening with compression would reign these areas in.

Hmm. I'm not exactly sure how compression is going to make up for performance issues. I've never seen it happen. Of course, I've always got compression on the vocal, so it's not like I ever hear the vocal without it.

I think this illustrates why producing is so important. You would have known immediatley that this note if pushing it and would have either lowed the key of the song or changed the part. In this setting you are fighting with one hand behind your back. You are trying to make a recording that is as moving as the best major label cds but you are asked to do it without being able to really produce.

I'm not sure how you are going to fix a sub-par performance. I guess I wouldn't settle for a subpar performance.

In a lot of ways this whole producing vs just engineering thing is a lot like the liberal concepts of the American economy. They always talk about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. By recording in a situation where you have no control over the key of the song, you've penalized yourself. There is no way that talented people are going to work with a guy who cranks our records that don't sound pro (even if the lack of "proness" is caused exclusively by the talent). I guess I'm saying that the more recordings you do like this, the less likely you are to record the type of musicians that will really make you sound great.

Brandon

[DT Chris]

Personally, if I can't hit that note, I'd rather try something different, then use software to correct it. If it means take 6 weeks and work on extending my range (if it's even possible) to be able to record the song, then so be it.

For me, live performance > recorded performance in importance. What I mean is that perfecting the live performance, and being able to reproduce live what the record sounds like is important to me. I don't want to stress about hitting that high note, or important passage, that was 'tweaked' in the studio to mask a weakness in my singing ability. I'd rather improve the singing ability and come through, rather than mask the faults with software.

Or change the key. If that is what the singer requires, I don't know what the problem with that would be. The voice is an organic instrument, if the singer does not have the ability to do something, after training and practice, it's never going to happen.

[brandondrury]

Well said...just like a true singer!

Focusing on the source of the problem is the answer.

Making sure the entire band understands that the vocals are limited just like the frets on a guitar is important. If a band refuses to change a key for the singer...well...let's just say I don't want to work with those types of bands. T

Brandon