One technique that I have learned to remove the resonant frequencies from vocals is to find the mic sweet spot. Most times it’s not the mic in front of the mouth but it could be the mic on side of the mouth, or under the mouth or even the mic by the stomach. There are no rules, move the mic around while the singer is singing and you will hear it. I’ve even pointed a mic to the back of a singer.
yeah, slightly off axis is a big tip that you dont hear about right away. it also helps mitigate those plosives that the pop filter and windscreen arent defeating
Love the info! Just have a comment about the "pro vocals aren't timid." I've recorded in a pro studio for years and my engineer observed that I'd start off too strong, or he'd catch my energy expand far too quickly in certain places.. His catch phrase was "Don't wake the baby." What he taught me is magical because now when I record at home, I sound much better if I sing as if I were singing to a baby, in a sweet little voice with a smile. You may think you sound too timid, but it's not the case at all. It sounds far less harsh, and way more professional. But if you're singing in an acid rock band, you can disregard this tip.
I think you are both right.I mean you and Joe.The key to be a good singer is to know when to sing soft when to sing with energy.Sometimes like a rain drop sometimes like a thunder.
Just wanted to say I've learned a lot from your videos. And I think the most important lesson is to simply balance the basic sounds without any effects or compression. Mixing and mastering is a seriously complicated thing, and while I may make the excuse of old tired ears, all we have to do is compare our mix with other properly mixed songs. I used to think sound engineers have a limited shelf-life. Now I think there is no excuse for old tired ears.
literally found you last night while working and i’ve just been binging your videos since. So awesome what you’re doing! Maybe you could analyze a professional vocal from a popular song and talk through what’s going on with the vocal in relation to the mix and all of that. could be cool
I found him at 2am in my kitchen rummaging through my fridge wearing only flip flops and fruit of the looms. When i asked what in tarnation he was doing, he turned, looked at me and said: “Im trying to remember where I buried Graham Cochrane!”
I found him storming the southern border with 14 other people, all carrying various pieces of musical equipment while he yelled at them about their recording process
Hey Joe. I am so grateful for those videos. I learned so much from you. I think I learned more from you than from my school. You are a great teacher. ❤
Another excellent video! I finally heard the dreaded whistling, thanks to the clear careful way you walked through the "problem frequency" issue. Thank you!
I have just found you as I re-enter home audio recording after a long layoff - great vids, man. I appreciate your forthright and easily understandable tips. Happy New Year from New Zealand!
I've been actually doing this for the last few years and it took me way too long to figure this stuff out. But this is truly the 3 single most important things to get a vocal that doesn't cause Pain and ear fatigue, I mean seriously! Coloring, leveling, creative compression, saturation all become less important when you figure these techniques out.
the 3 songs I chose to listen to are "Another Life" by Motionless In White, "All Time Low" by Jon Bellion, and "Babylon" by Normadie. all three very different styles and genres but those three songs have great vocals and have always stood out to me vocally, and after watching this video listening to them Im noticing a lot of things that I definitely can apply to my own production style and I would love a video where you go more in depth on mixing techniques you would use to achieve professional full sounding vocals. Thanks Joe! love your videos.
Great video. I am really impressed you are mainly using stock Studio One plugins. Bravo. For the final compressor, I would have chosen to clip gain it so the compressor works less but I guess either option works.
Great tips! Woofy vocs also are contribute to room/booth/mic to close to voc res filters or diff surfaces, low mud sound buildup Proximity effct can affect, ie: singing directly in mic, distance, under or over mic, etc..great help again! Filters, pop filers, diff pop filters, old school nylon over metal filters. Compressers, eq's, sat, dstrt, harmonics, de-ess, limiters, right mic or pre for voice help as a good start source on & on etc... Great voice or performance is def a +++ as a lot of this is mentioned! Good Voice!
Just found out about your channel and love the information! I have a pretty inexpensive Maono PM320 series condenser microphone that came with a pop filter, shock arm, shock mount, and that black foam cover that goes over the condenser mic like you have on yours. Do you recommend that I put that black foam cover over the mic to record my lyrics to the song I produced or just record into the condenser mic as is without the black foam cover?
I’ve learned so much about vocal mixing from your videos lately. Wondering if there isn’t a reason to use a vocal rider to automatically tame peaks vs using a compressor?
any chance that I could hear this full production once it's done? This is one of my favorite Christmas carols of all times, and I'd love to hear it. I'm already loving just a little bit I am Hearing.
I really appreciate your mentorship and I have learned so much from you Joe. Thanks for putting this channel together. I noticed on this video and the other one about "Why your vocals sound bad" there is no mention of whether or not you are tracking the vocals (these particular vocals in the video and/or in general) whether or not you are using a highpass (from hardware or software, including a mic switch, EQ etc.) or a compressor (hardware or software). Perhaps you should explain if you have done this or not so we know what the deal is. My guess is you do, as you are keen on getting the best initial recording possible, which I totally get. Are the recommendations here on top of compression (and HP/EQ) embedded in the recording? If you using hardware, what is it and what order? If a vocal gets a bit neutered by highpassing before compression (as the compressor won't be responding to low end as much -- see "Why your vocals sound bad) should I not highpass on the way in? I know everyone has a different take to some degree but I was under the impression that subtractive comes before compression and additive after, but I can see how this can cause some loss if mojo. I understand it may "depend", but what do you typically do? In this video you do highpass before compression, so this is one area where I am confused. I think you can see what I am getting at here, please help me by filling in the gaps...from the moment you hit record what is the order of moves, both hardware and soft? I know it varies, but please share the typical order for vox Audio input > hardware comp > hardware EQ > ...? Thanks again man
Ben, just going to my monitors and listening to vocals recently. One thing I’ve noticed, is that music and vocals is not as bright as we think it is. While yes, it is important to have brightness on ear project, mixes are as bright as our brains remember them. That is to say, if we get a custom listening to music on consumer, playback systems, aware, the base is turned up, and the high-end is cranked, that is the response we’re going to subconsciously look for when mixing ourselves. The reality is The, if you listen to your studio monitors, You’ll find, that lots of mixes are actually more mid forward than base or high-end.
Sorry I didn't make that clear. The ringing makes the vocal sound too loud in those spots, so when the vocal sits on top of the mix, that ringing jumps out HIGHER, making you feel like you need to turn it down.
curious how that keyboards stand is working, backwards? would bang my knees in that position, just sayin', and it would rock forward in between chords, lol!!! (why I need to design a new keyboards stand, but it would cost $1000+ ;) truly, have a learned alot from ya, and I'm prob wrong about the stand, haha.
stay in life and if you jump up too high I 'am going to smack you downs 🤣 But seriously joe ,you explain in a very simple ,easy to understand fashion. Whenever a something new comes up to me to mix ,I just open UA-cam search how to mix _____ Joe Gilder and in 10 to 20 min ,I am can go like a pro for it.
Great video Joe as always can you help me out as I’m a bit confused!! I have a mic pre but I want to know coming out of it to my Presonus interface should I add more gain or should it only be set from the mic pre thanks !!
Joe, question for you: If I use an equalizer plug in like Pro EQ to boost frequencies, but then turn the overall gain on the equalizer down, is that the same as subtractive eq? Or am I still adding distortion with the boosted frequencies and then just turning the over gain down including any added distortion?
A@@HomeStudioCorner If you're consistently in the same mic position that can be another issue - I get a weird frequency anomaly on different cardoid mics when going straight to mouth. If I tip off-axis, for my voice anyway, that resonance is gone or massively reduced.
hi joe, just a quick question. Could you give a tip on how to print or bounce my vocals with my reverb+delay bus channels? my reverb and delay Bus have a compressor to duck them a lil bit when the vocal kicks in.
Not sure how you would do this. You could print the reverb and/or delay bus, but these would include the sends from any other tracks you have routed to them as well. If you solo the vocal before printing these busses, then the sidechain compressor you have on that bus might not react the same way.
Joe, I don't know if you'll see this but if you do... can you please make a Christmas production / session that we can see how it was arranged, mixed, and mastered. I think that would be great.
How have I gone this long without hearing of a de-esser? The amount of time I've spent manually trimming sibilance is embarrassing. Anyone have some de-esser recommendations?
But you didnt explain how to get rid of the woofiness… like i see what you did on the vintage eq and the light compression but i feel like you should have explained that part. It seems like you purposely left that out. You spent the bulk of the time speaking about 1 notch for the whistle. Which, dont get me wrong, was great information, but i just would have liked to have seen you explain that “dewoofing” process. Other than that, great vid!
Thanks for the comment. If you go back, you can see the settings on the screen. High-pass filter at 136, -7.06 dB cut at 220Hz (shelf), -6.88 dB at 360 Hz. Of course, these settings only apply to this vocal in this mix, so you'll have to figure out what settings work for your mix.
You were every so slightly off with your whistling resonance in the word 'all', which is why you had to turn down so much, it was actually at 2897Hz, you were attentuating 2780Hz.
What about that ugly " F " ? fftthtththtth-F ? Bad vocal transients in general ! You'll never hear those bad things in a pro studio with pro producers and studio ingenieurs. They would never let it happen or go through the production ! Dou you think Andrew Schepps or Chris Lord Alge would let transients like yours here be there when the song is finished ? I do not ! In my opinion there aren't any s'es to use a deesser on. All of them are harsh !
Big Fat subscribe! Great vid easy to follow, consice with examples. I can actually understand what you're doing and why. Which means I'll be able to apply what you're showing to my work. Thanks & keep going!🫶🏾
▶︎▶︎ FREE 5-Step Mix Guide: www.5stepmix.com
🎙mic from this video: sweetwater.sjv.io/9gBoXy
Link is broken?
Joe I can't thank you enough! You're the reason I am a Studio One user. Keep up the great work, you are the true inspiration.
you whistling that 2,7k and allowing me to actually hear it is nuts
One technique that I have learned to remove the resonant frequencies from vocals is to find the mic sweet spot. Most times it’s not the mic in front of the mouth but it could be the mic on side of the mouth, or under the mouth or even the mic by the stomach.
There are no rules, move the mic around while the singer is singing and you will hear it.
I’ve even pointed a mic to the back of a singer.
yeah, slightly off axis is a big tip that you dont hear about right away. it also helps mitigate those plosives that the pop filter and windscreen arent defeating
when tuning engines and carburettors sometimes easier to actually make it worse - then you can highlight exactly where the problem is.
Thanks for the education Joe
Love the info! Just have a comment about the "pro vocals aren't timid." I've recorded in a pro studio for years and my engineer observed that I'd start off too strong, or he'd catch my energy expand far too quickly in certain places.. His catch phrase was "Don't wake the baby." What he taught me is magical because now when I record at home, I sound much better if I sing as if I were singing to a baby, in a sweet little voice with a smile. You may think you sound too timid, but it's not the case at all. It sounds far less harsh, and way more professional. But if you're singing in an acid rock band, you can disregard this tip.
I think you are both right.I mean you and Joe.The key to be a good singer is to know when to sing soft when to sing with energy.Sometimes like a rain drop sometimes like a thunder.
Dude, that vocal whistle stuff is nuts!
Just wanted to say I've learned a lot from your videos. And I think the most important lesson is to simply balance the basic sounds without any effects or compression. Mixing and mastering is a seriously complicated thing, and while I may make the excuse of old tired ears, all we have to do is compare our mix with other properly mixed songs. I used to think sound engineers have a limited shelf-life. Now I think there is no excuse for old tired ears.
I need to learn more about mixing and mastering
You're the man Joe!!
you're just amazing
Thanks for the teaching man!
Awesome
Excellent tips. The tip about ringing frequencies was a real eye opener for me! Thank you so much!
Great Great tip...I'm a fan now
straight forward .. thank you
VEry clear explanations with good examples.Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
literally found you last night while working and i’ve just been binging your videos since. So awesome what you’re doing! Maybe you could analyze a professional vocal from a popular song and talk through what’s going on with the vocal in relation to the mix and all of that. could be cool
I found him while walking in the forest…just last week. He was naked and running from a bear. 🐻
I found him at 2am in my kitchen rummaging through my fridge wearing only flip flops and fruit of the looms. When i asked what in tarnation he was doing, he turned, looked at me and said: “Im trying to remember where I buried Graham Cochrane!”
I found him storming the southern border with 14 other people, all carrying various pieces of musical equipment while he yelled at them about their recording process
This was awesome, cheers!!!
Hey Joe. I am so grateful for those videos. I learned so much from you. I think I learned more from you than from my school. You are a great teacher. ❤
Excellent information sir!
very good lesson Sir
Another excellent video! I finally heard the dreaded whistling, thanks to the clear careful way you walked through the "problem frequency" issue. Thank you!
Bro you're a life saver! Thy a lot!
Excellent, easy to understand Video.Thanks again Joe.
Nailed it AGAIN!!
I have just found you as I re-enter home audio recording after a long layoff - great vids, man. I appreciate your forthright and easily understandable tips. Happy New Year from New Zealand!
I've been actually doing this for the last few years and it took me way too long to figure this stuff out. But this is truly the 3 single most important things to get a vocal that doesn't cause Pain and ear fatigue, I mean seriously! Coloring, leveling, creative compression, saturation all become less important when you figure these techniques out.
Very informative video. You taught me how to hear ringing. Thankyou!
the 3 songs I chose to listen to are "Another Life" by Motionless In White, "All Time Low" by Jon Bellion, and "Babylon" by Normadie. all three very different styles and genres but those three songs have great vocals and have always stood out to me vocally, and after watching this video listening to them Im noticing a lot of things that I definitely can apply to my own production style and I would love a video where you go more in depth on mixing techniques you would use to achieve professional full sounding vocals. Thanks Joe! love your videos.
release the full version of the songs it sounds amazing✨️
Great video. I am really impressed you are mainly using stock Studio One plugins. Bravo. For the final compressor, I would have chosen to clip gain it so the compressor works less but I guess either option works.
Thanks for the valuable info. I like to use an envelope tool to tame wild transients or spikes in the waveform.
Great tips! Woofy vocs also are contribute to room/booth/mic to close to voc res filters or diff surfaces, low mud sound buildup Proximity effct can affect, ie: singing directly in mic, distance, under or over mic, etc..great help again! Filters, pop filers, diff pop filters, old school nylon over metal filters. Compressers, eq's, sat, dstrt, harmonics, de-ess, limiters, right mic or pre for voice help as a good start source on & on etc... Great voice or performance is def a +++ as a lot of this is mentioned! Good Voice!
Just discovered your channel Joe - thanks for all the content!!!
Thank you so very much!!
Thanks for the helpful tips Joe!
Great video! Thanks for the help!
Thanks for helpful video.
It Work! Thanks!
Thanks for another great video! Have learned some great things from you, Joe!
Your new lighting scheme looks much better now.
Thanks Joe, great tips as always!
Been mixing my own music for 7+ years. Everytime I watch a video like this I'm like damn I been doing this, just in a different way.
AWESOME!
Man, thanks for sharing this
Another idea to add up,ty sir👌🏿👌🏿😊
Pro vocals are not timid. Thank you
Just found out about your channel and love the information! I have a pretty inexpensive Maono PM320 series condenser microphone that came with a pop filter, shock arm, shock mount, and that black foam cover that goes over the condenser mic like you have on yours.
Do you recommend that I put that black foam cover over the mic to record my lyrics to the song I produced or just record into the condenser mic as is without the black foam cover?
Subscribed
I’ve learned so much about vocal mixing from your videos lately. Wondering if there isn’t a reason to use a vocal rider to automatically tame peaks vs using a compressor?
any chance that I could hear this full production once it's done? This is one of my favorite Christmas carols of all times, and I'd love to hear it. I'm already loving just a little bit I am Hearing.
Hark the Herald Angels Sing (ft. Lyla, Owen, and Maggie)
ua-cam.com/video/y0vuWOWFZLs/v-deo.html
Cool
I really appreciate your mentorship and I have learned so much from you Joe. Thanks for putting this channel together.
I noticed on this video and the other one about "Why your vocals sound bad" there is no mention of whether or not you are tracking the vocals (these particular vocals in the video and/or in general) whether or not you are using a highpass (from hardware or software, including a mic switch, EQ etc.) or a compressor (hardware or software). Perhaps you should explain if you have done this or not so we know what the deal is. My guess is you do, as you are keen on getting the best initial recording possible, which I totally get.
Are the recommendations here on top of compression (and HP/EQ) embedded in the recording? If you using hardware, what is it and what order?
If a vocal gets a bit neutered by highpassing before compression (as the compressor won't be responding to low end as much -- see "Why your vocals sound bad) should I not highpass on the way in? I know everyone has a different take to some degree but I was under the impression that subtractive comes before compression and additive after, but I can see how this can cause some loss if mojo. I understand it may "depend", but what do you typically do?
In this video you do highpass before compression, so this is one area where I am confused.
I think you can see what I am getting at here, please help me by filling in the gaps...from the moment you hit record what is the order of moves, both hardware and soft?
I know it varies, but please share the typical order for vox
Audio input > hardware comp > hardware EQ > ...?
Thanks again man
Most of the time I don't do anything to the vocal before recording. Just mic into preamp.
@@HomeStudioCorner Got it. Thanks!
Just wondering how you "dock" you three effects together?
Ben, just going to my monitors and listening to vocals recently. One thing I’ve noticed, is that music and vocals is not as bright as we think it is. While yes, it is important to have brightness on ear project, mixes are as bright as our brains remember them. That is to say, if we get a custom listening to music on consumer, playback systems, aware, the base is turned up, and the high-end is cranked, that is the response we’re going to subconsciously look for when mixing ourselves. The reality is The, if you listen to your studio monitors, You’ll find, that lots of mixes are actually more mid forward than base or high-end.
You are speaking of what I always experience😂😂✌️🔥
Agreed 100%.
Great video. A little confusing on how finding ringing puts the vocal on top? All in all, great advice as usual.
Sorry I didn't make that clear. The ringing makes the vocal sound too loud in those spots, so when the vocal sits on top of the mix, that ringing jumps out HIGHER, making you feel like you need to turn it down.
Thanks Joe, there's some courses that would've taken 30 hours to explain this
💪🏼
great explanation
How can you control the intensity of frequencies in the voice, for example when there is a long, high note that is usually in the chorus of the song?
curious how that keyboards stand is working, backwards? would bang my knees in that position, just sayin', and it would rock forward in between chords, lol!!! (why I need to design a new keyboards stand, but it would cost $1000+ ;) truly, have a learned alot from ya, and I'm prob wrong about the stand, haha.
stay in life and if you jump up too high I 'am going to smack you downs 🤣
But seriously joe ,you explain in a very simple ,easy to understand fashion.
Whenever a something new comes up to me to mix ,I just open UA-cam search how to mix _____ Joe Gilder and in 10 to 20 min ,I am can go like a pro for it.
Great video Joe as always can you help me out as I’m a bit confused!! I have a mic pre but I want to know coming out of it to my Presonus interface should I add more gain or should it only be set from the mic pre thanks !!
Gain from the mic pre. Interface should be at 0 dB.
@@HomeStudioCorner thank you for your time PS love your videos help me out a lot 👍
"Sounds Like A Tuuuuuuube" LOL 🤣🤣
@homestudiocorner what would be the best way to remove that woof?
EQ.
My dog likes woofy vocals :)
The woofy part is what I've been trying to remove, can you describe how to remove it?
Joe, question for you: If I use an equalizer plug in like Pro EQ to boost frequencies, but then turn the overall gain on the equalizer down, is that the same as subtractive eq? Or am I still adding distortion with the boosted frequencies and then just turning the over gain down including any added distortion?
Yep mostly the same thing, but it's two moves instead of one. I don't like making extra work for myself.
That ringing freaked me out, can you please explain where it came from?
Honestly not entirely sure. It's just a thing that happens.
totally could be wrong but the ringing around 2k could be the mic capsule resonating , what do you think?
I had the exact same thought when I first saw this video a few weeks ago! (and I have less than an hour of recording experience!)
It's certainly possible. I've had it across different microphones entirely, which makes it a head-scratcher.
A@@HomeStudioCorner If you're consistently in the same mic position that can be another issue - I get a weird frequency anomaly on different cardoid mics when going straight to mouth. If I tip off-axis, for my voice anyway, that resonance is gone or massively reduced.
hi joe, just a quick question. Could you give a tip on how to print or bounce my vocals with my reverb+delay bus channels? my reverb and delay Bus have a compressor to duck them a lil bit when the vocal kicks in.
Not sure how you would do this. You could print the reverb and/or delay bus, but these would include the sends from any other tracks you have routed to them as well. If you solo the vocal before printing these busses, then the sidechain compressor you have on that bus might not react the same way.
Joe, I don't know if you'll see this but if you do... can you please make a Christmas production / session that we can see how it was arranged, mixed, and mastered. I think that would be great.
Yeah I'm thinking about creating that as a bonus for my Gold VIP members.
@@HomeStudioCorner would be a really great Christmas gift to all 😉haha
Thanks for the video!
How have I gone this long without hearing of a de-esser? The amount of time I've spent manually trimming sibilance is embarrassing. Anyone have some de-esser recommendations?
Please share your new template 😊
😂 It's actually just a blank session. I forgot to start from my template. 😊
The most important thing is a great singer who knows what they are doing…..
That's crazy, I didn't even hear that 2.7KHz the first time.
beer confidence counts? lol drinking at my home studio Na i did for my first songs then i get used to and now i dont need to drink lol
🙂👍
But you didnt explain how to get rid of the woofiness… like i see what you did on the vintage eq and the light compression but i feel like you should have explained that part. It seems like you purposely left that out. You spent the bulk of the time speaking about 1 notch for the whistle. Which, dont get me wrong, was great information, but i just would have liked to have seen you explain that “dewoofing” process. Other than that, great vid!
Thanks for the comment. If you go back, you can see the settings on the screen. High-pass filter at 136, -7.06 dB cut at 220Hz (shelf), -6.88 dB at 360 Hz. Of course, these settings only apply to this vocal in this mix, so you'll have to figure out what settings work for your mix.
You were every so slightly off with your whistling resonance in the word 'all', which is why you had to turn down so much, it was actually at 2897Hz, you were attentuating 2780Hz.
Ya. Not a good look….
Even spot on it still takes that much attenuation, in my experience.
@@HomeStudioCorner Lol, demonstrably not true.
Not "woofy"; "muffled".
Uhmm... Since when do we call a (gentle) limiter a "kind of a bouncer"...? Don't teach your kids words, that aren't correct, people.
Step 1: Record a professional singer.
Yeah, it’s like that liberal chick you picked up at the bar.
90 percent of vocals I hear are weak and flat
What about that ugly " F " ? fftthtththtth-F ? Bad vocal transients in general ! You'll never hear those bad things in a pro studio with pro producers and studio ingenieurs. They would never let it happen or go through the production ! Dou you think Andrew Schepps or Chris Lord Alge would let transients like yours here be there when the song is finished ? I do not ! In my opinion there aren't any s'es to use a deesser on. All of them are harsh !
I don't care for your new mic. Your voice lacks fullness. sorry buddy...
Big Fat subscribe! Great vid easy to follow, consice with examples. I can actually understand what you're doing and why. Which means I'll be able to apply what you're showing to my work. Thanks & keep going!🫶🏾
And YES, the whistling really did help. Once you did it and played it again 😮. Preciate you broo.
Thanks for the great video!