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I've spent a few weeks following up with music professionals that I met in Amsterdam at the ADE conference. I have been asked to write over tracks from Flashover Recordings which is a well-established electronic music label. Imagem, who are a major publisher forwarded my tracks out to their writers and producers. I must have sent my music out to 200 music professionals. Overall the reaction to my music was pretty mixed. For the first time ever I followed up pretty aggressively because I thought my project was decent and contained an interesting blend of current genres. Hearing what these major players had to say was amazingly insightful. Most of the negative feedback regarded my vocals. I decided to sit through more tutorials to improve the sound of my vocals in my mixes. After sitting through several tutorials I want to mention two tutorials that gave me tips which noticeably improved the sound of my vocals once applied.
Here are 2 great tutorials regarding vocal treatments:
I've spent a few weeks following up with music professionals that I met in Amsterdam at the ADE conference. I have been asked to write over tracks from Flashover Recordings which is a well-established electronic music label. Imagem, who are a major publisher forwarded my tracks out to their writers and producers. I must have sent my music out to 200 music professionals. Overall the reaction to my music was pretty mixed. For the first time ever I followed up pretty aggressively because I thought my project was decent and contained an interesting blend of current genres. Hearing what these major players had to say was amazingly insightful. Most of the negative feedback regarded my vocals. I decided to sit through more tutorials to improve the sound of my vocals in my mixes. After sitting through several tutorials I want to mention two tutorials that gave me tips which noticeably improved the sound of my vocals once applied.
Here are 2 great tutorials regarding vocal treatments:
The first tutorial is from a producer called Jupiter Ace. He works in Ableton so all of the audio
effects he uses here are built into Ableton's interface.
Here is the tutorial. It's worth watching all the way through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VV-UVvrbGw
These are his steps. I tried them all on my own vocals so I have added my thoughts:
1. Adjust the volume of the vocal visually first using automation.
2. Use Ableton’s gate on its soft reducer setting and move the threshold so there is complete silence during the gaps in the vocals.
3. Use Ableton’s compressor as a de-esser by removing a few DBs at around 10.6 Hz. He explains how. This is great.
4. Find the "boom" in your voice around 80 Hz and remove it with the EQ. Loved this too!
5. Compress
6. Saturate (I did not like particularly this so I switched it off.)
7. EQ (whether you choose to do this really depends on your type of voice, I did not use i.t)
8. Limiter (this really thickens the vocal in the mix, I definitely recommend doing this.)
9. Add delay and reverb to taste.
10. Adjust the vocal’s volume to fit it nicely into the mix.
The second tutorial was done by Morgan Page. I simply threw Waves Maserati onto my vocals like he suggested and heard a big the difference.
2. Use Ableton’s gate on its soft reducer setting and move the threshold so there is complete silence during the gaps in the vocals.
3. Use Ableton’s compressor as a de-esser by removing a few DBs at around 10.6 Hz. He explains how. This is great.
4. Find the "boom" in your voice around 80 Hz and remove it with the EQ. Loved this too!
5. Compress
6. Saturate (I did not like particularly this so I switched it off.)
7. EQ (whether you choose to do this really depends on your type of voice, I did not use i.t)
8. Limiter (this really thickens the vocal in the mix, I definitely recommend doing this.)
9. Add delay and reverb to taste.
10. Adjust the vocal’s volume to fit it nicely into the mix.
The second tutorial was done by Morgan Page. I simply threw Waves Maserati onto my vocals like he suggested and heard a big the difference.
Here's the tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3aG6JLfH_sIn my next blog post I am going to address vocal performance and introduce you to one of the best singing training websites I have found on the web.
I'll be back soon and in the meantime feel free to check out new content on my website www.mackiemusic.com and subscribe to my blog! Enjoy! xo
