Lessons

Lesson Info

Recording Digital Audio: Vocals Set Up

We're back again my all star band in studio class here today um gotten through just I mean again so amazing to me when I think about the way I came up recording, you know, having to go to the big rials studio save up your money knew your rehearsals, work out the songs, go in, then mike up the drum kit, mike up the instruments, get in and start playing stuff where you can see that here we are we've been using it here for a day now we jump in, we've got a professional riel sounding drum tracks playing multiple parts to our songs arrangement on we have the guys come up and in record multiple guitar takes through different guitar amps spanning decades of of sounds of different instrument amplifiers and stuff we're really throwing this thing together here, I love it, so we're going to go on with that and talk about something that not just me, but I know a lot of you out there our student michael ross here, who I work with in the studio a lot back in san francisco. This is one of his favorit...

e things to talk about and to do, um talk about recording vocals, okay? So I know that's so important people that I'm gonna stop and talk about a little bit we've talked about in the last segment we talked about you know, the process of digitizing our audio and getting it in talked about the apogee converter that we're using here with the quartet setting up our tracks, but I want to take it a little time here to talk against we're doing a lot of conversation about recording, and this is huge. I think when talking about some of the features that we have in logic pro ten and that I think are meant for the way that I like to work with vocalist I know again our student in class here, michael ross, might as well get your microphone in case I ask you to make some comments about this because things on because you got so many opinions I know about doing it, but, um one thing they were going to show with this, once we get set up and get the microphone and we'll talk you through how we're going to do that over here to the side, which formerly was our guitar station here, creative live studios were going to change into our vocal booth here and show you how we would set stuff up and how you should set up if you're at home if you're looking for some advice on getting things going well, when talked about some different options that we have with doing this. So you guys noticed in the last segment when we did our guitar tracks for the rhythm and then the lead guitar are the overdub guitar and guitar to that I had a new full takes andi we're going to talk a little bit here this maze span into the next second because it kind of goes along with something else but there's some other ways that we can drop in and korda's well and I know some people go through and they like tio just do a little bit of what we call puncheon's our punch recording where we can drop in and replace a little bit of a mistake on that's what we used to do it, you know, for sure back when we're limited teo twenty four tracks on two inch analog tape you just didn't have that much space to work with that tracks and we're talking about with the question about all the tracks that we have now so we could just stack stuff over and over. But before we were limited to twenty four tracks, so if you had something that wasn't quite perfect, what we had to do was make a decision right, then go in and do think all the punch we're basically would listen back to your taken right when we're about to approach the problem spot we drop in with a little bit of record, you basically erased the old one put the new part in and go back out again it was a necessity didn't have the tracks that we had to do it and people got good at it and you know this is efficient enough to be able to get a perfect take out of it the reason why we're doing the folder takes is that is that I can show you a different way to do that so I just want to point out that you know there are some ways that we can still do it the other sound I want you point out how we would go about doing that on our control bar up here we've gone we've added some new buttons taking some stuff away but I'm gonna control click right up in there again and take a look at what some of our modes and functions are here on dh one in particular we wouldn't talk about this one here that's called the auto input monitoring a zloty a cz well is one that we're going to talk about this ah punch in and punch out type recording or to allow auto punch as we have appear so again this is talking about the idea of being able to set up a place where we can go through and record um just one little spot we're gonna have us necessarily do it you're going a little demonstration tomorrow that will tie into another thing we're gonna be talking about but I still, since we're on this one to show just a little bit of where we talked before about using the marquis tool and how we can make some different zones, this is one that now if I go in sari for the screen resolution slide service against khun, see the buttons when we go in, we have this button right here when it does is it shows you this little red spot of auto punch, and it also put up in our rulers, this little area that we can go in and we can move and adjust, we could say, ok, this is a little spot where I want to go in and just record this, but I'm actually gonna clear my marky mark is the way that I could absolutely just highlight that area, go in, hit record it actually go, and you see, it puts a rape before, and now it goes in and we could see this would be a spot we could record any problems that we had, and then it goes right back to what it was doing before leaving that little blank spot. I'm gonna undo it will see that what was there? They're so again the process turn on your auto punch select by zooming in, finding the spot was save just one of these little cord's here was what we were so too happy with when I highlight that hit record, even though I've got this other one set up here, it jumps right in there and we played in the pre roll before I just did a little bit wrong with jump back, but you see jumps right in there and what it's going to do when I have that other setting that we went to their, which was called the auto input? What is it switched from playing the track that was previously records? He could tell where you are, too, when it dropped into recorder punched in, it changed the input to the input that's, where we get automatically going to auto input so we can hear what you're playing during that little section, which is now blank and then back out to hearing what we had before me undo that we'll get another sense of that one happening here, and I had are you? So you heard his guitar, then we're at the spot where we could have gone in and fixed it it pun trade in and go back out again. So if you're recording yourself and that's what you want to do, you did a perfect pass and you just want to fix that one spot you don't wanna have to go back and do it again. That's great that's. The way to do it again makes your reason that marquis tool lower half select your problem basically, or something you're not happy with. And then make sure the auto punches on backup your cursor hit record. It's going to go right through there and switch as long as we have the auto input on is going to go back through there and switch those for us meaning from playback of the track to the input, and then automatically switch back to play in what we had before. Okay, like I said, that's great. If that's what you want to do, I think that you will be very successful with it. I'm gonna tell you what I think about when I work on that stuff, whether it's me or what we do, a lot of that our robot recording is working with other people working with artists that, like us, just want to do the best music, you know, their music, the best quality, the most meaning behind it. Music should be special to you sometimes, it's, just fun said before working with groups of friends or family getting together, make music the fun thing, but to a lot of people, no matter what level there at a music is important it's special, it's personal and when I have those artists that come in with their two vocalists, you know, that writes stories about their life, write stories about, you know, things that have happened in their life that made them sad or change them or make them really happy, silly songs, sad songs, depressing songs, all those songs are little stories that this artist came up with and have the responsibility of capturing them and then the opportunity teo, be there to record them when they're doing this special documentation of, you know, these stories that are so important, their life, I've always felt from back in those tape days that every single time I had to say to somebody because maybe a pitch, maybe they didn't have enough breath, maybe just, you know, their voice cracked a little bit every time that I had to look at them and say, great, we're going to go in and we're going to do a punch, I want to go in, and I'm going heavy replace something, I know that in the back of their mind what they're really thinking is I'm telling them, you suck, you made a mistake, you're wrong, you're bad and your story's not important because I didn't think that it met up to some standards, you know, as faras audio quality or something like that. On dh what I'd normally find it no matter how nice I'd be and how sweet I'd try to be when I'm telling them hey, you made a mistake, I was still saying you made a mistake so what? I'm gonna encourage you guys to do with yourselves and if you're recording other people you're working with other people is go ahead if you've got a good report, you're doing yourself, you're not gonna be too sense of about it do the punches when you have little mistakes, but what I've found is number one when I tell people that we're going to record the way we did with the good tars and we're going to do it again so I can show you what I'm talking about a little bit more when we use this idea of takes folders going in and seen documenting these other ones when I get to tell a vocalist now, hey, um, you know whether I thought there was a problem or not, I'm not gonna bring it up, I'm going to say that was great, why don't we do it again? Now we've changed this so with logic pro and the tools that we have instead of me having to look at an artisan because of whatever the whatever reason having to say that wasn't good enough, I want you to think about your performance and not about your song instead of doing that and getting them in the mindset we're now they're gonna look at the microphone as something they're challenging something that they've got to beat, something they've got to get through now when I tell them hate do that again, what I'm telling him this you are awesome, you are great, your story's important to me and what I want is more of it give me more of it, and I haven't do another take on always when those takes, they seem to get better and better and better than if there's some reason why you know their voices failing or something, whatever you've gotten a lot of those takes in there, it just mentally gets us in a state where you know, everything is good and you're happy to do more takes another thing that can happen with that auto punch and again, it's it's, this isn't this isn't india w problem it's definitely not an apple logic pro problem, but just the recording sort of method that you're using whenever you get too much into listening to take and then ready to jump right back in and pick it apart and punch some stuff in there, other problems come up, remember if you're getting good with logic pro or you're not or you have a different singer or you're sitting here and you're supposed to think about the vocals every time we go to do that punch, we have to go on we have to find that problem we've gotta highlight it. We've got to say okay, this was a problem we then have to get set up in c okay, they're gonna play beforehand is my auto input on again in the d a w n glad that we can do it and they made it really easy for us to set up, but by the end of the day, by the time if I'm working with somebody else and I've found that mistake, I've highlighted it. I've set my stuff up, I've put it back, I may be played at once so they know exactly where we're at in the song by the time we get that all sorted and they'd sing the one or two words we need, I could have done a whole another take of it least that verse or that course if not the whole song so long story short when I'm trying to tell you guys is capture all this stuff do multiple takes I want to show you guys at the end of the segment, hopefully we'll get all the way through it if not will be in a little bit of the next one I'm going to be able to show you guys a really easy and natural and sort of, you know, fluid way of taking the best of your best takes not just trying to get rid of the worst stuff but getting all the really great stuff in it so that's the little speech undoing vocals try to stay positive when you're recording this stuff is just so much more fun I mean it's great to be challenged it's great, you know, to feel like we've succeeded or beaten something but there's a couple steps we can take on when it comes to teaching, you know, showing everybody here our first uh, glimpse of logic pro in our first experience with making now this original song in it it's important remember that we have features that they've made for us to do just this to be able to stay positive, we'll be able to keep moving and say, yeah, we're doing good let's do more of that we're bad we have to fix that they'll be time for doing that kind of stuff later, but when it comes to capture in this stuff let's throw it all down gonna be bringing the guys back up here again daniel spencer become back up because we're going to throw some vocals on this so not only were gonna have our drummer in here or rhythm guitar lead guitar over the top two guitar parts were going to then go into vocal so let's jump right back into it this is another one where I'm gonna let us look at a couple different things. Um, I'm going to build for us a new track and open up that library to, well, I'm here, let me show you the way that I normally said some of these things up. Two little reorganizing I don't like to keep my drums in the top third don't I'll keep him up there and start working down so that always the next track that's going to be made will be the last time the bottom. So you saw how easy I did that any time you want to reorganize stuff, it doesn't change anything with the sound or anything by importance of the tracks or anything like that, just go and move them around so we can shuffle that stuff here in the tracks list tracks area, but we're gonna be going, uh, now, onto the vocals, so I'm gonna do a new track and finally, we're going to take a look at that last track that we haven't worked with yet, and that is with a standard on your track with this, give us a couple different options, you see that? I've got a number of different mano and stereo options for inputs whenever you see this list there but it's like you pre decide what our input audio input is going to be here, I should have done this with a guitar as well, but it defaulted to the one that we were plugged into whenever we see this list, what we're talking about here is our different options with our audio in her face. So this is what we're looking at with the quartet with being able to do different combinations of one's this is both analog and digital inputs that we have here, but we're gonna be using to him today input one is what we had the guitar plugged into here on the desk and input that was input one input two is where we put the microphone, so we'll make sure down a little bit here and we'll jump right into that. So I've created now on audio track with an imported to output of one two minutes just coming out the same speakers behind me, the feed that you guys were getting their also lets me pick, you know right away do I want to go in and do the input monitoring toe I wantto have record enable turned on? Are we sure that our input device is going to be that quartet the out book device still our quartet in little tabs where we go in and check on that well also if we know we're going to do in a few different tracks I can make them all at once had them same have the same sort of set up to them um how many tracks do we think about doing this travoltas do we have a melody and harmony is going yet okay we're going to three original a double and then maybe a harmony is well right just in this thing okay uh dispenser and they will throw mikey up on their tips no thinks we should double it we're going to do it all right so I'm gonna put three in the number of tracks these guys are great I wish all of you were here with us as well and there we go brings in these audio tracks for us I've got some that are focused on so we're going to see that's gonna be the one that it's ready to start getting my signal it's coming through but to sew a microphone in the room little clap stuff like that I should be able to see some sound going through not just yet we're going to get a couple things up now have you come around let me just check a couple since we did a restart on the break we'll go through we'll check to make sure that everything we have set the way we want so that audio it auto input monitoring by the way the no show before she brought that back up for us. There we go. Uh, we've got a record, but make sure that that's in there are records settings, taking a look to see where those air said as well, so we're good with accounting of no, no, because we have our thing. I'm going to switch to a different one here. Um, all auto colorized takes because we'll be doing some takes here as well with those folded takes, but I only have this one turned on. Turn on, and we'll take a look at what that doesn't a little bit. So I created this audio track. I said that one thing we always want to do is be able to get a name on it. It's gonna be our first vocal, so get that named just to put another point on that bunch of guys check out what happened with those guitar takes right up here. Guitar one my regions there are named guitar one. I look inside the folder, which will be doing more of the dark specifically called guitar one take for take three take to take one. When it comes time to maybe sort through these things, look through an audio file folder, these all makes sense to us. I look a gtr one known from the way that I'm labeled stuff I know that's the first guitar so normally a rhythm guitar gtr too. And it was either double or lead guitar. We're going to be doing things like vocal. Some people do. Fox put the person's name whatever you do, make sure you named the track before you record that's. The way that you're gonna get the name tag to every way. Course, they made it that we can always go in there. They give us different tools which will start looking at more. We could go in here. I could pick a text tool. I could go right into there and start changing the names afterwards. I like to do it at a time. Let's, make sure that we have, uh, exactly the name we want to show up on that file. All right. Coming back in, looking into the inspector and looking at the library, I bring up the inspector here and click on that vocal one to show you that what we put in here was a just standard audio track. So it comes in with nothing. This is help. You better understand the idea of patches or channel strip settings where we can go in and have all those things on it. This is what it looks like when you have nothing so the settings where I could pick some those channel strip settings, the hughes blank input section, the audio effects, nothing in there yet no sends but it's telling us the stereo out still already fed. They're so this would just be a dry basic track. I want to show you the input box we looked at the input box on the stereo instrument track and on the drummer track on those remember that that's where we had the instruments themselves, whether it be the drummer or else sorry, not drummer, but the trump kit designer or ah, like a yes to any of the synthesizers we looked at on an audio track and also on these guitar tracks here there's its input up there. We see that this is a place where if we didn't do it in that new tracks dialog box this is a place where I can go in and say, yeah, this is where I'm going to get my input again. It's talking about all those things, it's basically a link to the physical device that you have that you're plugging your stuff in. So we had our guitars and one if I click on this guitar right here above my vocal, we should see sure enough input one was what that one was using, okay, vocal here are two might also notice in here and this is important to talk about for people that aren't just gonna be recording voices are guitars that with some of them will see a different combination what I'm gonna do right there see right next to my input one there's a circle when I click on it it changed to a little sort of double circle and my meter also changed kind of hard to cnn on the screen but when I go single skinny gets a little bit bigger right there what it's doing is doubling up showing us left what I'm talking about here stereo recording stereo versus mano a mano one input stereo too you know if I go to my inputs now look they're all doubled up instead of having one through twelve I've got one two, three, four five six this is for on audio track when we don't want a single input source type thing so the guitar one cable means that it is a mano thing just mono sound it's just one cable one source one wave form coming through uh the microphone that we'll be using here on the vocal same thing even if it was two singers or three singers singing in round one microphone that's just one microphone capturing the sound sending it on into the converter and then into the computer however some people like when I go on I've required I've recorded groups like choirs and I'll use at least two microphones I'll put him out in front you some kind of a stereo miking techniques whether being next wire like something where it's a parent out you know, three to one or something like that, I'll use two microphones whenever I go over the top of an operator a grand piano I used some kind of stereo mic ing technique to put him so that yeah, there, you know it's gonna be capturing two different areas, but they're meant to be together and make it sound like a stereo field. We had that concept with the with the drummer track where it had a stereo overheads, so I'm supposed to be overhead the left side of the kit right side of the kit, they go together it's good to control them with one fader and like one e q and one processing was not that we need two tracks, but it is actually two inputs a left field, right field type of thing. So if you're going to be plugging in two microphones to record the same thing, meaning that you know it's, just one source really are my stereo source something that has with and you want to have the two microphones on it and have them controlled together that's what I'm going to switch this from amano ah input to a stereo and have the two inputs but I want to make clear that if what you have is two vocalists that preferred to sing at the same time or maybe ah vocalists that has an acoustic guitar that needs a microphone that can't be plugged in and a voice and they want to sing both of those at the same time sure it's two microphones like I was just talking about but those are two totally different sources right two singers that maybe you're going to be seeing different pitches or harmony of each other ah guitar in a voice which ultimately we're going to want to control each of them separately so if the thing is that you want to do is record one big source that the stereo field like the group of singers all singing the same thing or you know like a choir where they're meant to be in a group or like over the top of a piano or something you can use the stereo track with the dual input plug the two microphones of the two sources into your convertible come in and can control it then with one fader one set of inserts like any cure some of that but if what you have are two sources that are going to be at the same time but you're gonna want control of them differently different effects for them different volume settings then what you do is something like down here where I've got these two other audio tracks and what we do is click between those keep them mono and give them instead of the same input maybe this one would get input number three and this one would get input number four now again they could record at the exact same time something that uh we called multi tracking simultaneously where we're gonna be able to go in and record enable both of them and record them both at the same time but they'll have their own track ultimately we can edit them differently we can control them with the effects and everything else differently as well. So all right you want to make that clear extent it will be some people out there then I'm going to be doing stuff exactly like we are they want to record multiple things that once that's help us out now let's hope I remember to go back and change all that routing when we get to the tracks all right, here we go um our microphone is in and put too because we have the guitar still plugged in to number one and we're going to sell further set up this track here from so we've also talked about the library but she knows I have that open in the library which for a long time what I always just thought of it a cz you know, bringing in sounds for the software instruments when we saw also for audio now with the guitars how will we brought in that library? It let us pick through all the categories here of electric guitar through the clean into the exact ample we wanted, but also with the vocals vocalist I want to be left out so they have some options to we're going to take a look at him and bring someone so they've got a few options under voice, so we see things like bright vocal and what that's going to do for us, it's the same thing it's got just the same track, but populated it's inserts and it sends with a bunch of different things for us and e q all kinds of stuff like that we go and we look, we're gonna have smart controls for it. This is one with the smart controls for vocalist I think that's so perfect you can sit right here, not have to go back and forth to the other ones in the last segment, maybe saw me pull it up a compressor. I just want to show with the window open this time will definitely be going in if we need changes. It's alright here, the basic stuff with the vocalist as faras compression d s in which gets really sibilant if you haven't really essi sound in your voice when you're recording from the basic components of the queue. On echo mountain we can turn on and off and then also the two sends that we had on that track here going to bust nine and bus ten for ambience and for the river so just like we had with all of our other great incidents we bring in from the library we have patches here is now set for these audio tracks is well which I'm a big fan of so we look att just some different stuff will happen with each of them sometimes they have different components in different orders or just completely stuff like the fuzz here it's got the pedal board on it I had a great question from someone on the crew here assumes we got out they looked at me they said no can you put the paddleboard on you know, other instruments and I said yeah I'd like to put him on sometimes singers liketo have a little grit in their voice like sound different in their headphones on the speaker's well there's singing I was sure enough here's one that they've set up wow I didn't expect it to be the double dragon deluxe overdrive though you know at some time in your life vocalist don't we all want to be the double dragon? I think so so you know here we go just another great setup even down to more natural things slam vogel's where it's slam vocals just check that one out mikey, what do we got here? You're my go to guy on this question yeah, but what's what's different about that vocal compressor eternal know how about taking a look at the tracks list again? It slammed it's track stack oh, it's truck stuck that's another one I don't even like it now we've got it from vocals as well. So not just for the software incidents like we've seen and not just for the drums but even for the vocals being going here look att how responsible is it? Not the compressor turn that what we're looking at now, there's, some stuff going on with that. We're getting a little bit of signal from the microphone over here it is slammed this lives colin slammed. Good job. I want to tell him what what that means. What? What? Having that compressor we're gonna do talk away into the compresses about with the, uh mixing thank you, michael. Um all right, vintage vocal on and on more stacks stuff here, so we're just going to go with the really classic one here of the bright focal see if that's cool for spencer, can I turn up a little bit of the river? All right, let's, get you out of here, man time to rock guys we did have a couple questions is a good good place to ask. I think it is. Yes. Okay, so let me find this comment that came in from rui, who has been rui who's been joining us from portugal this whole time and they ask, ah, there's also, this is a little ways back. There's also a neat feature to name regions after the track name it's pretty useful for people like me who constantly forget to name the tracks before recording and then joe rogan experience said I'm wondering if travis can offer any good tips such as the tip that rui mentioned for keeping things organized. Automatic clea yes, I've got a whole little segment for who we're having tomorrow, so I'm gonna give you guys were going over that thing, so but I have a lot of the conversation you guys were having. Please keep those coming. I check him out afterwards and you feed it to me and I'm coming. Pilot quiting big list of clean up things to go over where khun scatter around but that's definitely coming. Well, I know these two will definitely be here tomorrow, so excellent. Um, yeah, and you guys keep share with each other to your tips and how you do stuff is well, all right, you know what? Those things I end up learning stuff all the time you know, you can learn something inside. Now, you can know the function of something, but when I hear about how other people use it, it's, the coolest thing. That's. Part of the reason why I love showing people stuff is to learn from them. So you guys please everyone out there and run in the room. You know, I'm getting just much from you guys as you are from me.