Adam Tal wrote on Sat, 19 February 2005 09:13 |
Hi ... when you record those great vocalists, how many takes does it usually take to get the "right one"? Do you stack up lots of takes, and then spend hours choosing the best parts? or do you only keep 1-2 (or 3-4) takes that you think would be good? Also - do you deal with a lot of bad takes (pitch\rhythm\other problems), or does the vocalist get it right from the first time, and just try to get better takes?
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This will vary greatly from any one vocalist to another. I have worked with some who can sing the song almost perfectly the first time, or any number of times after that. In those cases, I would usually just do 2 or 3 takes, and only make a composite track where an obvious "best" bit occurred on one of the takes.
Others are equally great vocalists, in that although they might not be technically perfect at hitting the notes, or even in timing, they are able to convey the emotion to the listener. In a case like that, there might be several more takes performed, and a more rigorous comping job ahead. Always this would be done with a sense of the "big picture" and the emotional meaning of the song.
Then there are those who really aren't so great, but can be made to appear so (almost, perhaps), by multiple takes and/or punches, and massive comping and tuning. But, do whatever one has to do to get the best recording possible.
WhyKooper wrote on Sat, 19 February 2005 12:16 |
I've run into singers who do outstanding performances ..but only when singing to monitor speakers. They can't nail it with headphones no matter what I try. Which doesn't work most of the time because of the leakage. Have you ever run into this? How do you handle it?
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I agree with Bob...nothing should get in the way of a great performance. If there has to be bleed, then so be it. I mentioned in another post that I have, on occasion, used two small monitor speakers in the studio in front of the vocalist, and had the two wired out of phase. The theory here is that the speakers' sound reaching the mic would roughly cancel itself out, and you could get a fairly low level of bleed along with the vocal. Of course, the sound reaching the vocalists' ears might also be more or less out of phase, so that could possibly affect them adversly.
I work a lot with an artist that I think is a great singer, but we never overdub vocal only. He sings the best when playing his acoustic guitar while singing. Of course, this means there is bleed in both the guitar mic and the vocal mic, and it mitigates the possibility of tuning notes or adding certain effects. BUT, the performance is much better this way, and that's the important thing.
TM