Lessons

Lesson Info

Editing Screaming Vocals

Everybody loves screaming under mad uh okay, so this is really this is really similar to editing the other vocals um because it is still vocals however most screams don't have pitch but there's a really cool effect that you make your screams sound bigger and melody line by using let's check it out. All right, so I want to use I just happened okay, that was weird. Just selected everything. Uh all right, here are the screams I could probably get this out of the way here. Wait, we're talking about milady let me actually just do that I'm actually gonna kind of skip, but this is super super easy. Cool effect. Some people do this thing where they pitch shift screams down. Uh however I say that you shouldn't do that you should do this instead of what's he gonna do what? I don't know what's going on. All right, I'm actually on my way over here, so I'm just gonna actually use jeremy's vocal for this reference. Ah, okay, let's, go. Okay, here we are in melody line here's your screams theirs look...

like this, but who cares? Just keep it in the process this is the mode process melodic crisp, just like we've been doing with everything else um we're going to change the form in't so what happens is uh what's really weird is that there's a natural way to change the form of your voice? If you guys know about this, um whenever you have a balloon full of helium and you inhale that, that doesn't change the pitch of your voice. You can't sing higher notes you can't you don't talk, hire the foreman of your voice has gone higher, and then there's some other chemical our gas I remember what it is. If anybody knows you, khun, inhale it, and your voice goes lower. Um, I don't recommend that you do that because it's probably a hazard to your health, but that's the natural way that, like that's an example of for mint change versus pitch, because I know we were talking about earlier, so this is a formal change this's, like, extreme I would never do this extreme, but you can lower the format without lowering the actual pitch of it. So, like, maybe somebody is saying you want to sound a little bit meaner, you just lowered by a little bit just love scrabble. Yeah, you do that with multi tracking, so you're like, layering up, you know, like multiple different textures of screams, and then feel like a really big sort of because what's what's cool about doing this is because each person's voice has a different for men and when you change it like this it was like sound like a different person sometimes so it does sound like a group or somebody that that's another cool little trick that you can use instead of changing the pitch which when you change the pitch like if you lower it for instance you're actually you're shifting the entire frequency spectrum you're not just uh changing the initial pitch of it like all the high end is suddenly different and you can't e q it or treat it the same but if you lower the forman you still have the same high end and stuff it's just that the actual sound in this way is changed so it's a cool quick little tip instead of like pit shifting vocals um I really don't ever I don't even do this but if I have to like I would rather shift the form and instead of the pitch I just think it sounds a little more natural if you do it correctly, okay? So anyway uh I would never do that first, but I just wanted to demonstrate that since we're talking a lot about melody and stuff uh keynote um all right, so this is the work flow of editing screams it's really similar to uh any scene we just don't have melody line unless you're doing the former correction so now you understand not for correction, but for me it changes so you understand what that means? So you're still cutting the silence? Take note of breaths. Where you where you put him where you keep him there, where you take him out the nudging left and right. This this will be a great example to show that the fades and different types you guys are familiar with that by now. Uh, group the tracks if you want and then vocal line and listen, revoke a line if you need to. Okay, so this is gonna be a really good example. Okay, so we have a few minutes here, okay? Good spots to do, um, to do cuts and stuff are unlike, uh, I would say at the beat, but at the very beginning of a word at the very end of a word or during a sound like an s or an s h this looks like an s I don't actually know what this is, but that's what it looks like so that's, where I'm gonna put my yeah isn't s so that's where I'm gonna put my spice um, I mean, even even without across favor can you can't hear that going and that's that's what you want that's the easiest thing here so everything looks pretty cool sometimes just to save time here, no andr which version of melody n are you using you in the full like prague sweet or you on a easy version do you know what levels there's this is uh maledon studio bundle pressure it's the biggest one that you can get okay uh so yeah uh for smaller guys an alternative would just be to get the thie cheaper versions because it still has the same sound which is important but it's like the work flows is what's different so it's still as easy but like getting your vocals in and out of it is just a little bit more difficult and maybe working with complex arrangements maybe a little more difficult but that will still be the best sound like if you don't have the money but you have the time you should you couldn't spend ninety nine bucks and get the cheaper version of melody okay so let's throw these phase in here we got a shortcut well let's just do that come on so we got our fades in there won't like for those phase those phaser too long so this is a cool tip here so if you don't if your faith if you put in a bunch of phase in there too long I don't want these one hundred milliseconds so fifty justus long as you hit adjust existing fades is approachable, specific shortcut you can uh adjust the length of all the fades at once so as you can see there it just adjusted all those for me so I don't have to go back in and and do all those watch sauce jar but the wise like fresh above the jumps just aside I'm struggle that's okay okay cool so all these sound pretty good I may take this cut this little silence out here come on. So let's go zoom in here for nudging so we got this little guy you can easily see is scared of that you could see this little guy is late so are nudging is, uh, control and pretty sure yeah plus or minus on it keypad so you can just do a quick little bam hit it one time and its own beat uh instead of trying to move it over redo your cross fades et cetera if they come undone why? Okay, cool. All right, I just made a copy and has put it up there so we can have that just in case um now I'm going to talk about a cool little thing for vocal line which is creating a template vocal and the fastest way to actually do that need anything on here? Okay, so this is just an extra track will make it pink uh so what I like to do this is going to be our guide track this is where I me and nudging become best friends, so I take I go to a spot I can see that this is behind the beat this is a constant sound here and then this this is a vowel sound so I'm going to do my nudging just move that over there we go I don't have to readjust my head it's over here this is a little bit ahead of the beat that's probably fine this is a little bit ahead of the beat but I was going to change it b is a shortcut to, uh to cut the track so all these all these little edits that I'm doing do not need cross fades sorry when you get when you get quick at nudging and shortcuts this goes a lot faster so all right, so we got all that stuff in that one little section where we want so after that go to vocal line we're already on guide capture and then our other actual vocal tracks eight we're hearing spot spot so that is, uh, template vocal that's what that means and you can also if you have a bunch of different takes and some of the words are on beat, you couldjust actually drag it well, instead of doing that hold down option and you can drag it up and just put it in there as your, uh your guide you don't have to you'll have to cross fate all that stuff um that's a cool little trick another awesome trick that I like to talk about is uh replacing so if something was something was off if you do contracting something is off sometimes I'll just fix the tiny section and then just revoke aligning so basically what I just did if you still hear something off just you can revoke a line I do this all the time I'll revoke line something that's been vocal lined um if it's off a little bit vocal line doesn't like do make anything really sound weird it's like that's why I like it it sounds pretty natural with the changes in the end it's sometimes it sounds better than even if I spent the time to try to edit it right? This will sound betterthan if I took the time which is weird so you would think it's the other way um so the shortcut is actually the better sound in this case just fine by me and I think I met I think I miss when you dumped the plug in onto the tracks where you are you using vocal line and melody line on the individual tracks or you using is on a bus that's actually coming out as beauty sleeps in the chat room okay, yeah that's a good question uh now I just in the way that melody in bridge works is that is a plug in that goes on the track but, uh vocal line at least the way it works in pro tools um I don't use anything else so I don't know how it would work in the other one's it's in the audio sweet section so, uh you just load it up the way I have these organized by manufacturer so you just go back to the manufacturer synchro synchro arts it's like vocal line and it comes up then that's how you use it so whenever you select here audio track there you just loaded in by hitting this little button down here capture uh, to get the one that you want to correct, he had capture again and then spot when you're done. That's it someone a lot of ways. The vocal line is kind of a standalone product kind in here, but your melody line is going to be actually dumped onto your valentine melvin israel time uh, audio suite is like it is in the program, but it's like a it's, a hard edit and it's kind of like a proper processes it okay, that's, your distress hard? Yeah. It's a destructive hard process. Okay, so yeah, good question though if you don't see where that were that plugging is it's right there that's it it's not on a track, okay? Now here's another really cool uh tip whenever you're doing vocals we would just bring this now we're gonna we're gonna edit jeremy's vocals really quick so whenever I after this and this really happened, I didn't really even realize it till after the fact whatever he did the beginning of this the leader his eye one of them he said, I I the other one he said what's why so when you have those together, you can kind of hear it and like no matter what you do in melody vocal line that will still come through so how do you get it that I mean you could just try to fade it out but then you know it's really unnatural but here's where it gets tricky you want you find another so luckily he says, I know you don't always get that lucky what sauce start today's the ways what silas dictum of the tub's cast aside plus travel is so he said, I heard I'm but all we need is the beginning sound of that word come on and what school is? He also leads in with a breath which is awesome just a little cross fan tio no one will ever know that there was a problem there uh you'll get that a lot you'll get that a lot actually something if anybody uh remembers there was a lyric in my chorus now this this kind of thing happens a ton where ah vocalist will do a bunch of tracks and they'll say one word differently the pronunciation will be different or the world won't be as clear let's take this for example the lyric here the word is uh crutch now it sounds like I say crush and the difference between crutch and crush you khun you can physically see it is this little gap so what I did probably yes come on is physically make a gap come on and faded in the crack spots I can see that there's a little bit of the age so there so now and so saying now so saying crush it sounds like a crutch it's clear as day so there's uh I wish there were a lot of weird errors like this that I could get into but there are tons of work arounds to fix things like this so you'll have vote you'll have two different vocalist sometimes maybe want to sing the lead and the other one is saying the harmonies and the harmonies will have something that's pronounced differently. Sometimes I've literally tracked a sound of a word and just put it in for that person when I had absolutely no other options so there's like just one little tiny thing we're like I would try to sing like them and sound like them and I would put my voice in there like if it's some extreme case uh just that tiny little thing something is just the very end of the word of the beginning the next word you just need that to sound natural uh and you can do that you can replace those little things that's how that's kind of how syria works uh they take a bunch of sounds of beginning of words in the end of words in the middle of words and that's how they compile words for stuff like you know, robotic voices and all that uh okay so yeah you can do this with a variety of things you can you can also replace the middle of words if a screamer has a problem and they keep cracking on one spot you khun take the middle of another word with same sound and replace that so aside doubt that there where? Okay, okay, we got two a's here, so but exact sorry germany where was that? Okay, okay, so there's an a so if for whatever reason uh, there was a problem with the middle of that word er in theory this may or may not work I don't know, but usually it doesn't work out, eh? So there's the word today, okay, whatever it's a um so there's um magic for you when you when you're in it when you're in a bind and vocalist is just keeps hitting something over and over and over and voice is cracking and he's losing his voice and it just keeps happening you can literally replace you don't have to replace that big of a chunk sometimes just a the crack is like a few milliseconds and you could just replace those few milliseconds with something else to make that scream sound completely solid. We could probably take some questions from the audience. Actually, anyone in the studio audience have any burning questions for into right now, based on the last segment, um, I'm using a little bit older hotels using nine instead of ten now, um, do you know, offhand if the's plug ins still function within that or actually is nine okay, yeah, look familiar, so don't so yeah, uh, I get so scared upgraded stuff. Yeah, if you if you're a good guy and you've had several set up so you know that sometimes an update is your worst enemy, even if it has awesome features, so yeah, I'm still in nine I might take one day, but yeah, there's still workin night? Okay, yeah, all right, grant mcdonald said, do you mainly use grid mode for editing, or do you ever use a slip at it? No, I usually I'm always in grid mode and I'm faster with my shortcuts on a pc and I always just hit I don't even know if he's here it's apple but when you hit apple you're insolent mode basically so instead of going up here and clicking or finding anything to switch and the switch back it's literally one button so I like being good mode and then I just hold in apple or whatever the button is on windows I have it just a muscle memory so yeah that's a really quick shortcut to switch between switch between slipping grid right do you have any other questions, tony? I sure do susan thank you very much problem one of the you know piece that we haven't talked about in vocals is beatboxing and in a psycho on the chat rooms who said I've heard a couple of bands have a member in the band beatbox andi is recording this similar to recording vocals er no it's more somewhere to recording drums actually I did a beatboxing part in right back at it again like at the end of the bridge or something in a day to remember song and the way that I mix that and approach that was more like the way I approached drums I wouldn't put the same compression and effect settings on that at all it's more similar to the stuff that used for drums so yeah pretty interesting do you mean still with just one source input right I mean you're talking about just one microphone but you you affect it like he would a drum set yeah well uh I'll do separate layers like a drum set one there uh kick from when high hats and stuff so yeah that's a whole different thing but I could talk about that for a while. Okay? I have a question from ciro nineteen sixty eight if you don't have an alternate take on your vocals how bad is it you just double of what you have it's pointless uh yeah makes it just makes it louder you may as well just turn on the volume uh is pointless completely uh if you're looking for the best vocal can't a guy just got to do right I don't know um double your vocal doesn't nothing. Well, I'm glad I asked then yeah, it's a lot of people do that people do do that a lot of people do that and it just sounds like a really bad effect but if you actually do it like this it sounds big and it sounds full it's essentially just doubling as a chorus effect am I correct? I mean, is that no means the worst right literally like a volume boost? I mean, if you want an effect on you put course on it like you literally put course on the same track yeah yeah d to knit or something but even then it's like the weird demon sound that I was sorry about earlier okay because I can imagine that you you know just you know faye's our timeline you know your shift the one has opposed the other to make it sound different but ultimately what you're doing is creating a phase is putting a delay on it. Yeah exactly exactly so like any of the stuff that you could think of is what you could do with like a plug in on one vocal so vocal line seems like a pretty big like production choice like it it has a definite sound to it like super polished do you find yourself not using it for certain productions that want to sound like a little bit more organic? Um I'll use it well if I'm doing like a a large if I want a large group to sound figure I would not use it because when you do lock all those things and it really makes it sound like one voice so like for instance that's why I don't really use it on gru vocals I kind of just added that by hand uh just make sure the beginning and endings are the same you know where people started stop um but yeah whatever it's a huge group the bigger you want sound the more imperfections like kind of are on your side for that so yeah, but I I used most of the time. I really like it. I don't know if it's spoiled me or or what, but I like it. It's, just a click away.