MistaMayne
10-28-2008, 11:35 AM
Stole this, Lmao.
Ok one of the main problems and focus of audio is getting your vocals to sound just right, and I will list some tips to help you out with this....
1. one of the best tips i would say, but the most simple is to make sure you sound good in the first place.... If you notice that your off key, or your flow isn't on point, or you just don't feel that confident about what you are recording then don't... get down the routine before you record it...practice, practice practice, because you are the musician not your computer or equipment
2. Get some nice equipment...to save you all the headache and hassle of going through all of the filters, and editing, get some nice equipment....
* A Condenser Mic
* A preamp or Mixer to provide 48v phantom power for the mic
* A better soundcard can make a world of difference as it may get rid of interference and hiss giving you a cleaner sound
Arrow noise cancelling headphones...most of the dirty sound that you will get is from your beat that you listen to is being recorded at the same time that you are recording... so the better headphones that will cancel out the noise on the outside of the headphones will make it that much better
3. Make sure you are in a room that doesn't have much noise such as:
* Fans
* Lights <---the less the better
* refrigerators
* make sure your windows are closed
* try to dampin the sound that bounces on your walls (there are foam pads designed to do this)
* no people
* turn off any electric componets that you are not using off (ie. cell phones, tvs, radios, anything electric)
* possition your mic away from electic componets used to record such as mixers, computers, monitors, etc.
4. Adjust your levels so that the loudest that you get will barely reach the yellow bars of your computer and mixer (note...most mixers will have a mark to which you want to adjust the levels to). If you don't have your leves right you will either clip or distort what you record, or you will not get the full sound of the recording
5. Make sure you are recording at least 16 bit, Mono, at 44.1 khz <--- these are standard settings for audio if you increase it to 32 bit you will get a much better sound. However when you are mixing down, you want the audio to be in Stereo, not mono
6. After you have recorded, you will want to run some things to make them sound better here are some tips:
* If you can play back your recording (without the beat) in the 2 track editor and you can hear the beat, do not use Noise Reduction, if you do it will take from your vocals as well giving you a muffled reverb sound that really sounds horrible<this>Noise Reduction>Noise Reduction... and click ok
* Hiss reduction... you will always want to run this because hiss is something that happens that is not that obvious unless you look for it... go Effects>Noise Reduction>Hiss Reduction.. and Adobe has a preset called "high Hiss Reduction" click that and click ok
* Click/Pop reduction.... usually after you go through all the other noise reductions you will find many clicks and pops because the sound waves fluctuate quick because what used to be hiss that helped make a smooth sound wave was cut out making a jump from one side to the other making a popping sound... so to do this go Effects>Noise Reduction>Click/Pop Eliminator then click the button that says "Auto Find All levels" when that is done scanning the audio clip, click ok and it will go through and adjust the clicks and pops.
* Compression... now this is where it starts to become more of an opinion type thing, compression will adjust the levels of your recording and will balance them out, making the quiet parts louder and louder parts quieter so they are relatively at the same levels... now for a good compression in Adobe i would recomend the Classic Soft Knee Preset.. to do this go Effects>Amplitude>Dynamic Processing.. then scroll the presets until you see "Classic Soft Knee" click on that preset and then click ok
* Normalize... this effects makes it so you can adjust the levels to exactly where you want it... it will go by the loudest part of the clip and say if you want it at 95% it will take the loudest part of the clip so it is 95% as loud as you can get before you start to distort/clip... for a good start i would say most verses the main parts of the verse should be normalized to 95%, dubs to about 75-85%, Chorus should be about 85% (note if you make your own beats or are unsure about some beats volume..pan them to about 90-100% to make the voice-beat ratio right)
* Panning... ok now there are questions to as what exactly is panning...pretty much it is asigning a possition for each recording/instument/person....think of it this way, when you listen to people rap or play music they are not playing from the same possition, you have people on the left, the right, the middle front back and all over the place... so here are some good tips... for choruses you want to keep it balanced and wide, by this i mean so it sounds like things are coming from the far left and far right, but no side greater than the other, so panning one recording of the chorus left at about 30 or 40 and one to the right at about 30 or 40 will sound good... for verses i would have your main vocals at 0 being that they are usually at the center of the stage.. have the dubs either on the left or right at about 20-25 so they sound close the person but not trying to overlap him...to do this go to Effects>Amplitude>Pan/Expand... and adjust the settings there or you can just go into mutitrack view and where you see the recording buttons and what not you will see a box that you can change what's inside that says "Pan 0", click on that and drag your mouse up or down if it changes to "R ##" then you are panning right, if it says "L ##" then you are panned left if it says "Pan 0" then you are center
* Reverb... this mostly sounds good on hooks..i don't have a preference or a tip for this because it all depends on the beat and how wide you want your peice to sound.... a light reverb on the verses sounds nice but if you don't know much about reverb then i would just go through the presets of Adobe, but keep one thing in mind, you want to barely hear the reverb, if you can notice the reverb alot then don't use it
mix it down
Ok one of the main problems and focus of audio is getting your vocals to sound just right, and I will list some tips to help you out with this....
1. one of the best tips i would say, but the most simple is to make sure you sound good in the first place.... If you notice that your off key, or your flow isn't on point, or you just don't feel that confident about what you are recording then don't... get down the routine before you record it...practice, practice practice, because you are the musician not your computer or equipment
2. Get some nice equipment...to save you all the headache and hassle of going through all of the filters, and editing, get some nice equipment....
* A Condenser Mic
* A preamp or Mixer to provide 48v phantom power for the mic
* A better soundcard can make a world of difference as it may get rid of interference and hiss giving you a cleaner sound
Arrow noise cancelling headphones...most of the dirty sound that you will get is from your beat that you listen to is being recorded at the same time that you are recording... so the better headphones that will cancel out the noise on the outside of the headphones will make it that much better
3. Make sure you are in a room that doesn't have much noise such as:
* Fans
* Lights <---the less the better
* refrigerators
* make sure your windows are closed
* try to dampin the sound that bounces on your walls (there are foam pads designed to do this)
* no people
* turn off any electric componets that you are not using off (ie. cell phones, tvs, radios, anything electric)
* possition your mic away from electic componets used to record such as mixers, computers, monitors, etc.
4. Adjust your levels so that the loudest that you get will barely reach the yellow bars of your computer and mixer (note...most mixers will have a mark to which you want to adjust the levels to). If you don't have your leves right you will either clip or distort what you record, or you will not get the full sound of the recording
5. Make sure you are recording at least 16 bit, Mono, at 44.1 khz <--- these are standard settings for audio if you increase it to 32 bit you will get a much better sound. However when you are mixing down, you want the audio to be in Stereo, not mono
6. After you have recorded, you will want to run some things to make them sound better here are some tips:
* If you can play back your recording (without the beat) in the 2 track editor and you can hear the beat, do not use Noise Reduction, if you do it will take from your vocals as well giving you a muffled reverb sound that really sounds horrible<this>Noise Reduction>Noise Reduction... and click ok
* Hiss reduction... you will always want to run this because hiss is something that happens that is not that obvious unless you look for it... go Effects>Noise Reduction>Hiss Reduction.. and Adobe has a preset called "high Hiss Reduction" click that and click ok
* Click/Pop reduction.... usually after you go through all the other noise reductions you will find many clicks and pops because the sound waves fluctuate quick because what used to be hiss that helped make a smooth sound wave was cut out making a jump from one side to the other making a popping sound... so to do this go Effects>Noise Reduction>Click/Pop Eliminator then click the button that says "Auto Find All levels" when that is done scanning the audio clip, click ok and it will go through and adjust the clicks and pops.
* Compression... now this is where it starts to become more of an opinion type thing, compression will adjust the levels of your recording and will balance them out, making the quiet parts louder and louder parts quieter so they are relatively at the same levels... now for a good compression in Adobe i would recomend the Classic Soft Knee Preset.. to do this go Effects>Amplitude>Dynamic Processing.. then scroll the presets until you see "Classic Soft Knee" click on that preset and then click ok
* Normalize... this effects makes it so you can adjust the levels to exactly where you want it... it will go by the loudest part of the clip and say if you want it at 95% it will take the loudest part of the clip so it is 95% as loud as you can get before you start to distort/clip... for a good start i would say most verses the main parts of the verse should be normalized to 95%, dubs to about 75-85%, Chorus should be about 85% (note if you make your own beats or are unsure about some beats volume..pan them to about 90-100% to make the voice-beat ratio right)
* Panning... ok now there are questions to as what exactly is panning...pretty much it is asigning a possition for each recording/instument/person....think of it this way, when you listen to people rap or play music they are not playing from the same possition, you have people on the left, the right, the middle front back and all over the place... so here are some good tips... for choruses you want to keep it balanced and wide, by this i mean so it sounds like things are coming from the far left and far right, but no side greater than the other, so panning one recording of the chorus left at about 30 or 40 and one to the right at about 30 or 40 will sound good... for verses i would have your main vocals at 0 being that they are usually at the center of the stage.. have the dubs either on the left or right at about 20-25 so they sound close the person but not trying to overlap him...to do this go to Effects>Amplitude>Pan/Expand... and adjust the settings there or you can just go into mutitrack view and where you see the recording buttons and what not you will see a box that you can change what's inside that says "Pan 0", click on that and drag your mouse up or down if it changes to "R ##" then you are panning right, if it says "L ##" then you are panned left if it says "Pan 0" then you are center
* Reverb... this mostly sounds good on hooks..i don't have a preference or a tip for this because it all depends on the beat and how wide you want your peice to sound.... a light reverb on the verses sounds nice but if you don't know much about reverb then i would just go through the presets of Adobe, but keep one thing in mind, you want to barely hear the reverb, if you can notice the reverb alot then don't use it
mix it down