Ok, i'm a hog when it comes to learning. So after all your help on my Punk Drums post, I have a few questions.

I had to re-record tracks. Your help with the overheads and Kick made a huge difference.

Here is the question. I understand using a compressor will also raise the noise floor. If you need more volume from a track, what do you do.

As I am recording Vocals, I find the vocalist goes from soft to yelling on every song. Its a bitch. I tried Dubbing the tracks multiple times, then adding a limiter to raise the volume of the soft vocals.

This leads to a shit load of added noise, and if you try to compression, don't bother. You have to crank the shit.

This is my first full length album experience. And damn am I learning a shit load. You Guys are a huge help to me.

I want more volume from the track, but I also do not want to kill the dynamics of soft to loud.....

Any advice?

Thanks.

sonicdeath wrote:I want more volume from the track, but I also do not want to kill the dynamics of soft to loud.....

To do that, just push the fader a little further. But I assume you want more perceived volume in which case you are doing this with compression (which will always reduce dynamic range).

There is not really any way around raising the noise floor if you apply gain reduction and then pull the level back up again other than using a gate or fancy audio processing. What you really want is to record with little noise in the first place which I'm sure you probably know. If you do gate, remember to do it pre-compression.

If you are having trouble compressing the vocals due to the range, you could see if running two compressors in series helps - this means you can set different ratios at different thresholds which can be handy. I think I've only done that a couple of times though so can't guarantee it'll be much use.

Wait, we're talking about just a vocal track, right? You can't hear when he whispers and it's too loud when he shouts? It sounds to me you do want to kill the dynamic between soft to loud. Just don't overdo it. The differences in how we say things while whispering and shouting are great. If two vocal lines are adjusted to play at the same level in a mix, one with a shouting delivery and one whispering; you'd perceive them very differently.

Keeping this in mind when I mix, I won't be afraid to compress heavier. Give it a fighting chance against the instruments and keeping some intelligibility during the soft parts. Not a license to go around killing dynamic ranges... but when differences in phrasing and delivery are so great, I've found a small dB drop can go a long way.

I'd reach for the compressor.

If you're getting too much hiss, you can try re-recording the vocals. Bring up the pre so you have a healthy level on the quite spots. He'll peak when he yells, but that's fine. Go back and do a pass with your pre set for his yelling and then splice them together. It will be more natural if he sings all the words on the passes, not just the part you're trying to get the take of.

I see. Well I guess im just going to go back and recut the vocals for the soft and loud parts separately.

I also need a better place to record vocals.

Maybe the bathroom, with a shit load of blankets will work better.

Any suggestions on how to make a bathroom as dead as possible, other than blankets?

thanks.

There has got to be a better place than your bathroom (unless you want the bathroom sound).

I was watching MTV Cribs the other day and saw some house where the fellas had set up a vocal booth made out of 2 mattresses propped up against each other and a wall.

If it's good enough for the dirty south, it may work for you too.

I could try something like that....any other suggestions.... And If I do that This week I will post Photos... He he he....

maybe you can have two mics set up, one closer with higher preamp gain as the whisper mic and the other a little further with lower gain as the screaming mic. set the levels appropriately and then maybe play with the faders when mixing.

also, the singer could maybe pull away from the mic(s) a little when screaming. this is a habit he may want to have live, so the soundman turns up his whispering and then singer backs off for the scream so as to not blow everyone out and make the soundman turn him down.

The pulling away from the mic trick helps little. Two mics... 3 feet apart?
could work. I could also play with a bit of compression on the quiet mic to make the distance seem similar...

Cool idea...

Rodabod touched on the gating idea, and I'd agree with him.
If the singer has a whole lot of dynamic range, analyze what the lowest dB he's coming in at is and set the threshold a couple of hairs below that (by "hair", I guess you could say I mean ".5dB"). When he sings, you'll have the noise coming back in, and unfortunately there's not a whole lot of options in the wonderful world of notch filters to suck out that noise, but when every thing's mixed together, how noticeable the perceived noise floor is may be negligible.
Rodabod also touched on using two compressors in series, and I've had varying results with this method. (I've also tried to compressors in parallel. That one experiment produced really ugly results, but, you know, give it a try for yourself and see what you think.) Think of the first compressor as keeping the quietest parts up, and use the second compressor to keep the loud parts from getting unmanageable.
The best solution though, may be rerecording the vocal. Unless the guy really gave everything he had into this one performance or is adamant about "first take / best take" methods, yeah, just rerecord them.
I'd actually come up with some better ideas, but I've got a headache from wearing my old prescription after snapping my glasses last night. Once the glue dries, I may be compelled to putting more effort into sharing some ideas, but you're in far better hands with the rest of these guys, anyhow.