Canadian Musician September / October 2019

When it comes to adding background vocal layers, I gen- erally enjoy a bit of room sound and will often have vocalists take one or two steps back from the microphone to help create space around the lead vocal. This might not be possible if you are in a noisy room with lots of HVAC sound, street noise, or the room is simply not flattering. Worth mentioning is the importance of a great-look- ing space. Singers are creative people who love creative environments. Good lighting, nice décor, and comfortable seating will affect performances. Processing While Tracking The culture and history of hardware and software that treat vocal recordings is extensive. I’ll touch on a few key treatments and focus more on the tracking side vs. mixing. The workhorse of equipment chains for most top-tier producers is a Neve 1073 preamp into a Universal Audio 1176 compressor. These units have been emulated by many hardware and software designers and versions of them are available at most price points. The Neve preamp is loved for its ability to saturate a signal with a pleasing and subtle amount of distortion and the 1176 has a vari- able attack and release time that can suit most genres at most tempos. When it comes to mic preamps for vocal recording, there are two schools of thought: clean or dirty. Knowing how much saturation (dirt) a vocal recording calls for of- ten comes down to genre and taste. Playing it safe and aiming for a clean sound while tracking is a wise decision. The downside to having a clean vocal sound coming back at an artist while tracking can be a lacklustre headphone mix and a less emotive performance. The downside to cranking up your preamp and having a dirty vocal sound is committing to it can be destructive and removing dis- tortion is less feasible than adding it later. A good solution is to add saturation or distortion via a software plug-in instead of hardware. I tend to use Waves’ Scheps Omni Channel for this job. It is zero-latency and has three flavors of distortion that vary from subtle to fuzzy. Other great plug-ins for this job are FabFilter’s Saturn and Soundtoys’ Devil Loc. Another option is to set up two vocal chains: one dirty and one clean. I will sometimes take a cheap dynamic microphone through a guitar dis- tortion pedal and set it up next to my main vocal mic and record both tracks. If the phase relationship is perfect, these microphones can be blended. The cheap micro- phone will get more distortion and bring out mids, allow- ing the vocal to push through a dense track. At our studio, I tend to aim for a clean signal path on vo- cals. We track through an API 512c into a Rupert Neve com- pressor, then an SSL EQ. If I want a dirty sound, I will patch in a Standard Audio Level-Or or go for a plug-in for distortion. Using reverbs and delays while tracking is a matter of taste. I find that more experienced vocalists tend to desire a dryer sound, as the added clarity can help with 52 C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N pitch articulation. My go-to setup for tracking vocals is a plate reverb and two separate delays, all via separate auxiliary sends. The plate reverb’s length is often determined by the tem- po and genre while the delays end up being pretty consis- tent. The first delay is an extremely short stereo delay that widens the mono vocal signal to spread across the stereo spectrum. I put the left side at 1/64 th of a beat and the right side at 1/32 nd of a beat and use very sparing amounts – just enough to help the singer live above the track. For the sec- ond delay, I use a long feedback and an 1/8 th note delay to give a sense of depth and excitement. Again, very little goes a long way; vocalists have a lot to focus on, so if these appli- cations are at all distracting, they are not worth introducing. Another classic treatment for vocalists is a subtle pitched delay via an Eventide H3000. This behaves much like the short delay described above, but with an added tier of chorusing that gives a classic widening sound. If you are working entirely in the box, note that some DAWs and plug-ins will add latency to a vocalist’s mix; this is to be avoided at all costs. A lot of interfaces have latency-free routing and a lot of plug-ins have zero-laten- cy versions. It’s important to look at your DAW’s hardware buffer size and mitigate latency. If I am deep into a mix on a session and a vocalist needs to come in for overdubs, I will often bounce the track down and start a new session from scratch to take the processing needs down (as they add latency). Then I can turn down my hardware buffer as low as possible. I recommend setting everything up before the client enters the room and getting your own headphone mix dialed in. Troubleshoot anything and everything so when the tracking begins there are absolutely no hiccups. Getting the Best Possible Performance Singing is an expression of emotion and with that comes a certain amount of vulnerability. Treat vocalists like royalt Have tea, water, coffee, beer, whiskey – basically anything they might have the slightest desire for on-hand. Light- ing options are important as well; it’s not uncommon for me to be sitting in a dark room at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday for three hours while cutting vocals. Before a vocal session, I set up a stool as well as a standing pad and will ask the vocalist if they prefer to sit or stand. There are no rules here – whatever the artist needs for comfort is key. Need to strap on your guitar and randomly clack along while singing? Great! I might switch to a dynamic mic to reduce the noise and I will likely do some repairing with iZotope RX, but whatever the vocalist needs, I will cater to. The goal here is to put the technical side of things as far away from our minds as possible and narrow in on making the performer feel spoiled and sup- ported. In terms of workflow for recording a conventional song, I have great success taking three full takes of a song without offering critique unless asked. Once these three takes are done, if the artist or I feel more takes are needed, I will focus in on troublesome sections and offer feedback if it feels welcome. I like to create a seamless recording

Canadian Musician September / October 2019 | Page 52