What is vocal production? How do you get the best vocal sound? Check out the biggest and best collection of vocal production tips and tricks from experts. There are tutorials from Grammy-winning producers and some of the leading names in music production.
Synchro Arts, the Emmy award-winning creators of VocAlign, have announced with the launch of Revoice Pro 5, the newest version of their widely praised vocal production software.
Getting contemporary vocal phrases used to be the preserve of hardware or some fancy editing moves in the DAW. With audio plugins out there to design modern vocal phrases entirely in-the-box, here we check out Antares Auto-Tune Slice.
Free On Black Friday Only! - Combining a number of powerful processes for vocals into one place, Waves’ freshly announced Silk Vocal promises much firepower for artists and producing engineers. Hear its adaptive chops for yourself in our first look video.
In this article Grammy winning producer and mixer Dom Morley shares five steps to capturing a really great vocal. When, how, with whom and what, and most importantly, what is ‘the cocoon”? Over to Dom…
Combining a serious quartet of tools for vocals in one window is Sonnox’s Voca. Simple to use, and promising comprehensive processing, here we take a look to see what it is that could make Voca the pros’ new best friend.
Known even among the listening public, Antares’ bootcamp for pitchy vocals might just be the Photoshop of audio. With its newer mode for stealth surgery known to fewer listeners, we check out Auto-Tune Pro X’s Modern mode.
A well-chosen small set of mics for the studio can outlive some of the extravagant ones that can come and go. Here we list our six essential studio mics by type that we think deserve a place in your mic cupboard, and why you need them.
The announcement of Key Detector brings a tool to help producers and composers that adds to Waves’ growing suite of pitch utilities. Here we have the details on their latest, including our first look video showing Key Detector’s AI ears in action.
Synchro Arts RePitch Elements is designed to be a slimmed-down version of RePitch for people that don’t need advanced editing features. Now, more aspiring producers and engineers who want pro-sounding results without much manual work have the coveted Synchro Arts sound within easy reach.
Getting the sound of group vocals or even an entire choir with one voice is possible but the results can vary. We check out a way that brings many voices without using multiple passes or sterile doubling effects. Hear it for yourself…
In this short video, Eli takes a lead vocal with two doubles and uses Repitch to create a vocal arrangement that includes intervals that fit the underlying chords.
In this article Eli Krantzberg demonstrates the way Synchro Arts’ Vocalign Ultra and RePitch products work together, transferring data to quickly provide stellar vocal performances.
One aspect of a great vocal sound that often gets overlooked is unpitched mouth noise. RePitch from Synchro Arts has useful tools to identify and correct these problem areas seamlessly and non-invasively.
If vocals feature heavily in your music, there are plenty of powerful plugins available to speed up your mixing workflow, enhance your recordings and help you to clear various commonly encountered production hurdles. Here are seven of the best.
There’s a lot to think about when you’re recording and mixing vocals, from the preparedness of the singer to the perils of over-processing. Here are some of the slipperiest potential banana skins to keep your eyes peeled for.
Most tools for tuning vocals work pretty well. Aligning vocals, however, is a different story. In this short video, you will see how easily a tuned vocal in Repitch is used to correct a vocal double track; through the magic of Syncro Link technology.
With the arrival of RePitch, many users wonder if Revoice Pro is still viable and necessary in light of all that RePitch does. The short answer is yes. There are still plenty of reasons to use Revoice pro. Here are five of them.
Some studio problem solvers get overlooked simply because they do the job well with zero fuss. A good candidate for this is the humble, ever-consistent de-esser. We discover how one still manages to offer something different.
They are three of the most lauded vocal tuning plugins money can buy, but which is best suited to your particular corrective and/or creative needs? We drill down into the nitty gritty of Melodyne, Auto-Tune and RePitch to help you make the right buying decision.
In this article, Dom Morley considers the importance of a ‘vocal comp’ and who should be making the call when deciding which performance to use.
In this article we’ll take a lead from some of the big name mixers and producers on PureMix to see how you can use gain in all its forms to turn an everyday vocal into something more attention grabbing.
RePitch is a new Synchro Arts plug-in that allows users to automatically and manually modify the pitch, time and level of single-pitch vocals and instruments.
Synchro Arts have today announced the launch of RePitch, a pitch, timing and volume processing plugin, drawing on their 25 years of vocal processing expertise. We have the details.
Vocal channel strip audio plugins promise to consolidate all the ingredients for the best sound into one place. With a number of big name mixers injecting their wisdom into this market, we look at one solution that gives an invaluable glimpse into the mind of its creator.
Few things bring more polish to a production than well produced harmony vocal stacks. Can Waves Harmony bring more vocal magic than it takes away? We find out.
Many of these vocals were recorded at a time when “the take was the take”, meaning the vocalists had few opportunities, if any, to redo a take or drop-in replacement lines. Check them out, you will be amazed.
With EQ choice being highly subjective, what features must a contender have to make it stand out from the crowd? We look at a new product from one of the biggest names in vocal production with some serious heritage.
In this excerpt from F. Reid Shippen Mixing Ingrid Michaelson Reid explains a trick to get a bright pop vocal using a, EQ, a limiter and the polarity invert button. By using a combination of aggressive high pass filtering, limiting and by blending this processed duplicate out of phase with the original Reid shows his technique for adding presence and brightness to a vocal.
Vocalign Ultra and Revoice Pro from Synchro Arts both allow for vocals or dialogue to be time-aligned. In audio post-production, this is great when matching ADR to location dialogue recordings, but what are the differences between these two pieces of software and how can each one be used in post-production?
Double tracking is the simplest of studio tricks but it’s also an inherent part of the sound of records. What can you do if you need to get the sound but don’t have doubled parts available? Here we have 5 alternatives from free to best in class.
During Avid’s Pro Tools Carbon launch event François Quereuil, Avid’s Director of Audio Product Management announced that Antares had produced Auto-Tune Hybrid, a DSP version of their popular tuning software, which took us by surprise. In this article, we share what we now know about Auto-Tune Hybrid from Antares.
In this article we explore four different ways you can use to process the dynamics of your lead vocals. Each of these approaches can be used individually on a lead vocal track, you could also blend several of these together to produce great sounding vocals in your next mix.
In this four part free video tutorial series, brought to you with the support of Waves, we show you four plug-ins that can quickly transform your vocal tracks into radio ready mixes. In this article we will be taking the same vocal performance and working on it four different ways to help you hear the differences in sound and style between the four plug-ins.
Watch in real-time as Jamie Lidell builds up backing vocal harmonies using a special combination of Pro Tools varispeed and Soundtoys’s Little AlterBoy’s Formant control on "Building A Beginning" from his new album by the same name. Jamie is able to sneak extra layers of detail and texture into his vocal harmonies.
The Lindell Audio Channel X brings together the 7X-500 compressor, the PEX-500 EQ and the 6X-500 preamp. In this free video tutorial, brought to you with the support of Plugin Alliance, Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers tries out the Channel X on a vocal from Joel Tavares in his track “Salt in Fresh Cuts”. The FET style compressor, Pultec style passive EQ and the very analogue sounding preamp emulation make this a very flexible channel strip capable of everything from subtle sweetening to aggressive parallel processing.
In part 11 of our Getting To Grips With Pro Tools series, we are going to take a look at how to use playlists, comping and labels. Using playlists gives you the facility to have different edits on the same track. You can also use multiple playlists to hold different takes and then combine the best bits into one master track. This is called comping. Pro Tools also has the option to be able to rate each clip to help you see which is the best take of each segment.
Vocal sibilance can bring a frown to any engineer's face, and although it's a common challenge in the production process, it doesn't need to ruin your day. By using repeatable techniques and simple tools, you can conquer the "S" (and "T") and keep them from derailing the most essential part of any song – the vocal.
Puremix is running a live Q&A session with Grammy-winning Engineer Vance Powell tomorrow (Thursday 28th September 2017 4 pm EST). This event is open to Pro Members only who have the opportunity to submit a question on anything from mixing, mastering, production, business and clients through to beards, hats, etc. Be sure to check out all of Vance's tutorials and come ready for an enlightening time.
In this free video tutorial for Pro Tools Expert, with the support of Universal Audio, Technical Editor James Ivey gets back to an old school way of working using the Universal Audio Apollo Twin MK2 and with the help of Singer-Songwriter Richard James Poll. Our James Ivey tries to record and mix a song in one take committing everything you are hearing to "tape" in just one pass with no overdubs and no mixing. I chose the processing for both the guitar and vocal along with two different reverbs and sticks to those choices, just like recording engineers of old.
Oeksound is a new plug-in developer out of Helsinki in Finland. Their first plug-in release is Soothe which whilst originally designed as vocal processor, has been designed to give you an in control, vocal sound.
The longer I spend using modern recording technology, the more I feel it has the potential to distract us from the things that really matter.
When it comes to creating something that will last there is no silver bullet, no magic wand - the things that have always mattered still matter today - a unique talent, effort, and a killer performance.
In this free tutorial, you will learn how to mix a female lead vocal in a rock/grunge mix using the Butch Vig Vocal channel strip plug-in by Waves. Don't be put off by the busy layout of the controls in the GUI, there's a lot of smart and useful processors built into this plug-in
In this free video tutorial, Pro Tools Expert Team member Julian Rodgers looks at the bx_rooMS from Plugin Alliance. This algorithmic reverb offers infinitely tweakable rooms and plates, its TrueSpace engine means that rather than being restricted to a few distinct algorithms you can adjust to your heart's content with boxes adjusting out into halls without restriction.
Audified have released their latest plugin - the TNT Voice Executor which they describe as a "unique utilitarian plug-in offering no-nonsense processing of vocal and spoken word tracks to sophisticatedly solve any issues instantaneously".
Are you tired of singers who want you to keep adding more compression to their vocals? Rather than trying to accomplish all your “squishing” with just one compressor pureMix's Fab Dupont shows you how to use multiple compressors, in a civilised manner, to get a great compressed tone and level without such a smothered sound.
At NAMM 2017, Audionamix have announced the latest version of their isolation software ADX Trax Pro 3 with improved separation quality, faster processing speeds and enhanced spectral editing features, separating a melody from a mix Audionamix even easier.
In this free video tutorial, Paul Drew looks at the JJP-Vocal plugin from Waves. Paul starts off by changing the sensitivity control so its just lighting up yellow to achieve optimum levels. Paul then looks at the Eq, De-esser and tone controls.
In this video, Paul Drew uses the fantastic Maag EQ2 from Plugin Alliance on a vocal. Not only is this a fantastic sounding 2 band EQ, the input attenuator comes in really handy when adding the 2 bands together.
In this free tutorial video, Paul Drew demonstrates how to use the Lindell Channel X from Plugin Alliance to make a vocal pop out of the mix.
In this free video tutorial from our friends at pureMix, Fab Dupont explains what De-essers are and how to use them on vocals using 6 different plugins and hardware units.
In this free tutorial video, Paul Drew uses the Plugin Alliance SPL De-Esser Dual Band to tame a sibilant vocal.
Waves have just released Tune Real-Time, a plug-in designed to "help vocalists stay in tune while singing, feel confident, and focus on the emotion of their performance, in the studio or live on stage".
Have you wondered what the best pitch correction plug-in is for tuning vocal tracks? Spoiler alert, There’s isn’t one, there are several. Compare 3 tuned vocal examples produced using Melodyne, Antares and ReVoice Pro against the untouched vocal track and see if you agree with the results from the blind shootout.
Here are 4 audio files of a female vocalist. One is untuned the other 3 are tuned with Antares AutoTune, Celemony Melodyne 4 and Synchro Arts Revoice Pro 3.
Which one do you prefer, vote in our listening test and then come back next week to find out which one is which.
Vocal sibilance is a tonal harshness that arise from syllables like S,T and Z. And often have a occur in the frequency range of 5-9kHz.This problem is often caused by the artist vocal formant but can be exaggerated when using “wrong” microphone or a bad microphone placement.
In this free video tutorial with Paul Drew we explore how the Waves Vocal Rider is a plug-in that really holds your vocal in place and lets it keep on top of the music, so the vocal is always heard.
I am going to join the vocal-chain party. To be completely honest, I don´t have a special chain that I pickup every time I am going mix. I have several different templates for mixing rock, pop and hiphop that I have been doing by myself during the years just to get a quick start when opening up a session.
We get to look at a lot of stuff running our blog, but what 5 additions to my studio am I most glad I made in 2015?
We have been talking about the plug-ins we use when mixing vocals, but before we can mix we need a good vocal line to work with. In this tutorial video from our premium video channel. Russ shows some of the tricks used by producers to create the sound heard on a lot of pop and R&B vocals commonly found in the charts.
In this excerpt from F. Reid Shippen Mixing Ingrid Michaelson Reid explains a trick to get a bright pop vocal using a, EQ, a limiter and the polarity invert button. By using a combination of aggressive high pass filtering, limiting and by blending this processed duplicate out of phase with the original Reid shows his technique for adding presence and brightness to a vocal.
I’ve been in music production for around 40 years and in that time I’ve heard some horror stories. A particular favourite was the one about the tape assistant who hit record on a vocal drop in, only to find he had the SMPTE stripe track armed too! Anyway, here’s mine and it has little to do with gear.
Vocal samples are some of the most versatile sounds to work with. They can easily be cut, stretched, and transposed to fit just about any genre or style. In this free tutorial, Daniel Dixon, from iZotope shows you three unconventional ways to use vocal samples in your music.
There are many significant junctures capable of enhancing or undermining the quality of a song’s vocals. In this article, iZotope Contributor Philip Nichols shares some common vocal production practices—some to use and some to avoid. Of course, it’s best to start at the source.
In this excerpt from Episode 6 of “Greg Wells Start to Finish,” Greg shows us his workflow and discusses his strategies for setting Antares Auto-Tune.
Waves have been running a ‘coming soon’ campaign on social media that there was a new something on the way. Now we know it is OVox, a “next-generation voice-controlled synth and vocal effects processor designed to create a limitless palette of vocal morphing, tuning, harmonizing, vocoder & talkbox effects and beyond, with depth, clarity, and intuitive control. Available as a plugin or standalone app”.
In this free extract from Start to Finish: Greg Wells - Episode 3 - Setting Up The Vocal Chain from PureMix, Greg walks us through his preferred settings on his preferred compressor for vocals.
Ducking a track against the vocal is a common technique but have you ever thought about how you can better target what gets dipped in the track to make room for the vocal? Surfer EQ from Sound Radix is the perfect tool for this. Find out more in this free tutorial.
Revoice Pro is known for, among other things, its unique ability to automatically transfer pitch and timing characteristics from one audio file to another. It’s easy to overlook how great a tool it also is for basic vocal tuning. It’s not only accurate and pristine sounding, but it’s also intuitive and straightforward to use. You can fly through a file in no time. And now, with the release of Revoice Pro v. 4.1, it's easier to use than ever.
Need big gang vocals for your track but you only have one vocalist? In this article learn about a trend called the Millennial Whoop, which appears to be taking over pop music and in a video tutorial we explain a production concept we refer to as “The Room Of People Singing Happy Birthday” and show you how to get gang vocal results just like you hear in the charts today, but with a single microphone and one vocalist. This is an especially cool production technique for home studio producers.
Join producer and songwriter Paul Drew as he shows how to create great pop vocals using Waves plug-ins in Studio One. In this final episode Paul uses delays to give some cool effects to the vocal.
This week's tips will be about how you quick and easily can effect the performance of your vocalist in a positive way in just a few seconds. If your vocalist feels comfortable with his or her headphone mix, you probably don’t have to “fix” things later on with pitch correction tools.