Recording a Great Vocal without Editing

Recording Tips and Tricks

Submitted by Brian Smith

Web Site URL: www.lpmedia.com/site3/Recording.html
Country: United States
Business Phone: 410-466-2250
Name of Recording Studio: LpMedia, Inc
Studio Location: 3603Fairview AveBaltimore, MD 21216

(Recording Tips and Tricks)

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Recording Tip or Tutorial (250 - 600 words):

Recording a Great Vocal without Editing.

If your room is not well isolated or has a window air conditioner, you canstill get great vocals without extensive editing by removing noise real-timeusing a dynamic noise filter. While gates only clean up pauses, dynamic noisefilters can actually remove noise in the presence of signal. Dynamic filterunits simply filter out the higher frequencies when the signal level is low,and though they have no audible effects when the treated signal is strong, theydo tend to affect the tail end of long reverbs. For this reason, it helps toroute the reverb via one subgroup and the channels to be de-noised via another,so that the reverb escapes treatment. Better still, place the filter betweenyour mic pre-amp and the console. Also, be careful not to over filter andintroduce audible side-effects such as a muffled vocals. Most sounds have thebulk of their energy in one section of the audio spectrum, but there will also

be small amounts of high and low frequency energy outside this band. Vocals areno different. By using high and low EQ cut to 'trim' away these extremes, itmay be possible to remove additional mechanical noise. Lead vocals, or vocalsthat are very exposed in the mix, should be treated most cautiously. The humanear is vary sensitive to the human voice so it only takes a little cut or boostto reveal spectral processing which is bad unless that is your intention. Sowhile you could add back some highs in the mix, it is better to record the bestsignal possible from the start. Remember, junk in,... crap out!!!

Recording studio tips submitted by Brian Smith of LpMedia, Inc.

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