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blackcoffeeblues

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
Do you all add the effects before or after your vocals? Same with EQ'n before or after. In the past ---(20 yrs. ago)---I EQd everything first--including the delay on my voice---but my friend who has the recording studio takes the RAW vocals and adds the effects and EQ later---Just Asking---or does it even matter???
 
CaptainMoto

CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
I'm spending lots of time trying to educate myself on recording & mixing so, my comments are based upon my current understanding.

Do I understand your question to be.........track vocals with or without effects and add them as needed later?

If I understand the question then the answer is simple:
If you track (record) anything with an effect, it's baked in to the track and you can never change it so, record with no effects and add them later for more control.
However, It's been my experience that having some reverb/delay on the vocal as you sing, helps get a better performance because your voice can sound just too dry to inspire a good performance.

I'm not sure how your recording these days but, if you're using a multi track recorder or tape, the above comment would apply.
If you record through your computer using a DAW, you can turn effects on and off at will.
So you can hear the effect while recording and then decide to change it or remove it later when you're mixing.
That's a huge benefit of digital recording with your computer vs using a multi track recorder.
As a general rule, you want to make any adjustments "in the mix" as apposed to listening to a single track by itself.
 
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J

Jalapeno

Student Of The Blues
I record vocals dry. I route a touch of reverb to the headphones while recording vocals but the recording itself has no effects. It gives you many more options to apply them later.

Eric
 
BigMike

BigMike

Blues Oldie
It's fairly common to add a channel strip to your input channels to add a bit of EQ and/or compression. Depends on the instrument and personal taste. This simulates how a mixing desk in a studio would do it but as others have said, when its on its on and you can't take it off. I found it worthwhile to experiment especially with vocals and I have a different strip for each of my microphones. I spotted that there was quite a bit of nasal tones in my voice so I have just configured an input channel strip to dip slightly at about 1 kHz and I can tell the improvement. Also for guitar I always dip at 2 kHz to get rid of that annoying frequency. I don't think it makes any difference before or after from a quality point of view though. But probably saves a little processor overload if you use a lot of plugins after recording.
 
Cowboy Bob

Cowboy Bob

Horse Player/Guitar Wrangler
CaptainMoto said:
using a DAW, you can turn effects on and off at will.
So you can hear the effect while recording and then decide to change it or remove it later when you're mixing.
That's a huge benefit of digital recording with your computer vs using a multi track recorder.
As a general rule, you want to make any adjustments "in the mix" as apposed to listening to a single track by itself.
Click to expand...

That is true, generally. If you have hardware that adds the FX before going into the DAW then you are tracking "with FX". For example if you are tracking drums, you may wish to send the signal to a bus (using a send) and then send that signal out to the hardware compressor, then return the signal (using a return) to the a track in your DAW. THEN you are actually tracking with FX. Of course then you have to worry about latency and delay compensation and all of that, (unless you are using Pro Tools (HD) Ultimate and some DSP cards). Then the resulting track is forever compressed. That could be good or not so good.

Yes, using a DAW and adding a bit of reverb, or some delay (I typically use more delay than reverb on vocals) typically helps the talent give a better performance, but unless you do some tricky routing in your DAW, the dry, unaffected, signal is what you have actually captured.

Using the lowest possible buffer settings (if you have that capability) while tracking vocals will also help the talent. If they can monitor their performance direct (not what has been recorded) latency isn't an issue typically. That was what I love about 11R, on board DSP. Same with the Apollo series from UA. With both of those, your track is actually recorded with FX applied ( or not as you choose ).

Of course if you are not using a DAW this is all kinda moot.
 
blackcoffeeblues

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
The reason I was asking was--when my friend was going to help me out with "East bound wind" he kept insisting on no effects on the vocals-he could doctor it up later
It sounded terrible---to say the least with no effects. So going back to "adding a little delay on the vocals gives a better performance when doing the vocals" it seems to me that it would be much easier and faster to just get it right the 1st time. I am doing everything on multi track---but it is possible to add effects to each single track but have not tried them out yet but might give it a shot on something. Thanks for the input.
 
J

Jalapeno

Student Of The Blues
blackcoffeeblues said:
It sounded terrible---to say the least with no effects.
Click to expand...
Not surprising. You wouldn't normally use the dry track in the final mix.

With my BOSS BR1600 multitrack recorder it is easy to add the effects to a dry signal when you want to. I would usually bounce the "wet" signal to a separate v-track so I would keep both the dry and as many different versions of the wet track as I thought I needed. That way as I was beginning to mix the vocals in I could try each and mix and match and combine as I went. That's still even easier to do in a DAW but I prefer using a hardware recorder for audio because I can't stand any latency.when recording myself. The minutest latency and it throws me off.

Later on for post processing I can easily upload the tracks to Ableton and take it from there.

Eric
 
MikeS

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
blackcoffeeblues said:
Do you all add the effects before or after your vocals? Same with EQ'n before or after. In the past ---(20 yrs. ago)---I EQd everything first--including the delay on my voice---but my friend who has the recording studio takes the RAW vocals and adds the effects and EQ later---Just Asking---or does it even matter???
Click to expand...

Depends on the reason for the recording.
Mostly I just set the EQ and vocal effect (minimal) on the mixer just like I do for a live show, but If I was going to record something to distribute, I'd probably apply the effects after the fact so that I could get them just right.
 
blackcoffeeblues

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
MikeS said:
Depends on the reason for the recording.
Mostly I just set the EQ and vocal effect (minimal) on the mixer just like I do for a live show, but If I was going to record something to distribute, I'd probably apply the effects after the fact so that I could get them just right.
Click to expand...
That is the way I feel-----in the past I used a P.V. 12 channel mixer into a 900 watt E.V. head----I would set all the EQs: Backing Tracks-Guitars-Vocals-Effects at home practicing--I ran EVERYTHING through the mixer then I would record them onto a cassette, go back listen to them, and adjust from there. Then when I went to play a gig all I had do was flip the power switches. Sometimes I had to cut down on the delay in larger venues otherwise by the time the delay got to the back of the room you could not understand the words clearly. Given the speed of sound.---as for the new stuff I don't know.
 
aleclee

aleclee

Tribe of One
blackcoffeeblues said:
The reason I was asking was--when my friend was going to help me out with "East bound wind" he kept insisting on no effects on the vocals-he could doctor it up later
It sounded terrible---to say the least with no effects. So going back to "adding a little delay on the vocals gives a better performance when doing the vocals" it seems to me that it would be much easier and faster to just get it right the 1st time. I am doing everything on multi track---but it is possible to add effects to each single track but have not tried them out yet but might give it a shot on something. Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...
in general, I’d say what gets recorded should be dry. If you want to add a little ear candy to your monitor mix, that’s cool but you might run into latency issues.
 
blackcoffeeblues

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
aleclee said:
in general, I’d say what gets recorded should be dry. If you want to add a little ear candy to your monitor mix, that’s cool but you might run into latency issues.
Click to expand...
Guess I will give it a try..I got a couple old tracks up there I can expeirement with. I did buy a different P.A. head last week that has individual effects for each channel along with a 8 band equalizer--I all so bought a CD recorder. I like the thought of having a hard copy.
 
CaptainMoto

CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
OK,
So you're having fun.
I'm lost on exactly what your doing.
Can you please explain your signal path?
I know it starts with your vocals...........then what...into what? ....out of what? ....etc.....
 
blackcoffeeblues

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
OK; I am recording the vocals and rythem guitar straight into the Zoom R-24 Digital recorder CLEAN (no nothing in the path just like I always do except on Satified where I used a vocal octave pedal for the sing along. I did one track with high octave and one with low octave and one clean). Then I am running those 2 into my P.A. head---This time I was using #8 of the 9 different delays on the vocals and the 8 band EQ to balance it out.
Then I dubbed in a slide guitar, for some accents on another channel using a different effect and EQ. Then I combine them into one take..
That is about as far as my digital recording mind could handle for the 1st round.--round 2 will be tomorrow. I can see how it would be a huge asset for recording--- but ---I really don't see it as being any real help in public performance, a little maybe but not all that much. Most of it I could probably do with a few pedals and a little practice. ---but again I just started, and it is fun..
 
CaptainMoto

CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
Thanks for the rundown.
If it works, it's good

My recording studio is starting to look like mission control with all the gear,
I'd be scared to death to take more then a guitar, amp and a pedal or two out to a live performance.
I suppose, if not supplied, a PA with basic effects.
 
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