Absaloot
Tape Op
Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Posts: 21
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Im new to mixing and was wondering if the vocals should be panned center or is it bad to make 3 tracks of the same take, then pan hard right on one and hard left on the other and keep on center. im trying to make my music sound as professional as possible as one can without taking it to the pros. Also when mastering should a rule of thumb be to limit, compress, remove dc offset and then eq? any help would be greatly appreciated.
below is a link to some of my work.
www.myspace.com/dudurrtymusik |
Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:43 pm |
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ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
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Hi,
As a rule the lead vocal part is panned central - additional vocals are panned to taste.
You will not achieve much by making 3 tracks of the same take unless you either time and/or pitch modulate the 2 'non central' tracks. This in itself can cause problems.
If you do want to try this then keep the 'lead' (i.e. panned central) track intact. Move one of the other takes slightly back or forward in time (less than 10ms) and the other track slightly back or forward in time (again less than 10ms but a different value to other one) On top of this you can then pitch shift each of the non-lead vocals by a few cents, again one a little flat and the other a little sharp. This can give a pseudo triple tracked feel.
A lot of contemporary Hip Hop/R'nB has tracked lead vocals, meaning the lead vocal is recorded 2 or 3 times. However this can sound sloppy if the vocalist is not too consistent with the performance.
Software like
Vocalign
is very good for this type of thing as it takes care of the time alignment for you creating a tight sound yet still giving the impression of multiple voices. There is a very good audio demo on their site using Hip Hop vocal takes -
click here
As for mastering there are no hard and fast rules, although limiting and dithering should come last in the chain unless you have a good reason to do otherwise. I'd also remove DC offset first, the order of EQ and compression is up to you.
Hope this helps. |
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Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:30 pm |
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Absaloot
Tape Op
Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Posts: 21
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thanks for the help Ben m. what probelms could panning the other 2 takes cause? would that be volume issues? does any of the tracks on my website pose any of these problems? You say dithering should come last in the chain but I read in this forum that whenever you go down in bits you should dither. when i record the vocals are 32 bits when i mix down to one track they are 24 bits. So should i not dither in the sub mixing and wait till i export it for mastering? |
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Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:10 pm |
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ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
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quote:
Originally posted by Absaloot
what probelms could panning the other 2 takes cause? would that be volume issues? does any of the tracks on my website pose any of these problems? You say dithering should come last in the chain but I read in this forum that whenever you go down in bits you should dither. when i record the vocals are 32 bits when i mix down to one track they are 24 bits. So should i not dither in the sub mixing and wait till i export it for mastering?
Hi again,
yes, having multiple versions of the same track will result in increased volume. Also, if you apply different EQ/dynamics processing to the parts then you can run into phase problems.
Bear in mind that with a stereo speaker system, a sound panned 'centre' is actually coming out of L and R with equal amplitude. Therefore to add 2 more tracks, this time panned hard left and right, all you're doing is making the centre track louder.
In 5.1 systems you have a dedicated centre speaker so it may make more sense but in a stereo system there is little advantage to be gained.
Strictly speaking you should dither everytime bit rate is changed. However this can be hard to follow if some plugins are upping the bitrate for processing. In practice most people only dither during post production/mastering.
I'm presuming that you are recording your vocals at 32 bit
float
- to be honest I'd probably just stick to 24 bit throughout the project and dither down when going to 16/44.1 for CD
I'll have a listen to your tracks tonight. |
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Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:57 pm |
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Absaloot
Tape Op
Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Posts: 21
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thanks for the advice about dithering. Be brutal when listening to my tracks because its the only way ill learn. Yes i record in 32 bit float using cubase sx I dont know how to change it to record in 24 so if you happen to know how that would be cool too. |
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Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:06 pm |
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ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
quote:
Originally posted by Absaloot
Yes i record in 32 bit float using cubase sx I dont know how to change it to record in 24 so if you happen to know how that would be cool too.
You can find this by going
Project->Project Setup->Record Format
and changing that to the bit depth you want to use. |
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Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:00 pm |
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