The other day I was hasty and said I wasn't really impressed at my iZotope plugins. But it was the first day I was messing wit them. Turns out they are very good in my opinion. And work well with RealBand.

The Bundle is now 549 so I hope you didn't miss the 399.00 Christmas special. But who knows they might have a Valentine Sale!!

I just quickly recorded these the other night. They are not original BiaB backgrounds. Just some Karaoke tracks. My vocals are from of course my mic a Shure SM7B, then going into my TC-Helicon Voice Live Play GTX. The effects on is set to George M Faith 102. So it seems they were thinking about George Michael on this. From there I have two XLR's going to my Roland QuadCapture Audio Interface.

I imported my instrumental tracks into RealBand. And I used these plugins and settings
Nectar 2 setting- Wide Open and Clear under Jazz
Ozone 5 setting- Jazz Master Vocals
Alloy2 setting- under vocals- Warmer Tape Vocals

I know I Love Paris had all three going at once. I forget on the others. I think I went back and turned them on. But I know the Nectar 2 was running. Just listen to them and delete quickly!! I am just getting this all dialed in. I have to keep improving. Take the flaws out and learn to edit more. These plugins can get a person with no experience sounding pretty good right away.

Some guy in here was complaining how we won't know the difference when we change the settings in these plugins. Like we are so amateur we are too stupid to hear any subtle nuance some settings may give us. But he is wrong. I change the presets on all of these plugins and I have all the changes in sound with my headphones. But you do is find the best ones you like then you can make a change from there to fine tune it. So far I am just leaving them as they are. The pros probably took a while on each preset. I hope they really thought about it before they did however. Like Vintage Crooner for a preset. Does it really relate with a crooner from the 40's? Or did they just make some changes and say just call that vintage crooner? Randomly? I am going to write iZotope to ask them how viable are the names. Not sure if viable is the word. But how much truth is there to the name of the setting? Another name like Piano Bar, Warm Whisperer, Big Band, Intimate lounge. Many more of course. Maybe they hire some real pro audio engineers and know what they are doing. At any rate I like having these presets. So check out my rough recordings. I will keep working on my quality with my voice, my recordings. And soon I will be focusing on some BiaB tracks. Maybe do some covers to the songs I love to sing. I won't be putting up originals under they are registered copyrighted. What I will do is try and write maybe 30 to 50 songs and put them in one collection. Registering one collection is the same price as registering one song. So that is what I plan to do. I registered a collection years back of country songs. But this time my genre is Jazz Vocal music.


http://avatarradio.com/SlyRuby_Rough_Takes.zip

Hi Sly

I had a listen. I like your style, phrasing and timing. This really demonstrates that you're really well progressed with some of the techniques.

Nice Karaoke tracks, and the Shure really sounds clean. Good work.

Great job, I especially Baubles Bangles And Beads, but they are all delivered nicely.

Trevor

By the way, were you ever a novelist?

Hey Trevor, thanks a lot for the compliments. I need all the confidence I can get. I have been singing this genre for a year in Second Life a virtual world. Doing shows live. But not too much lately though. I will keep working on getting to a professional level. To be up with Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, might never happen but you keep working on it.

When you can listen to a song you have recorded and it doesn't make you cringe then you know you are improving. You may have felt that pain before when you record something and you just didn't sound good? Once you get to where you can appreciate what you have recorded that is great.

I will start working on some BiaB tracks again soon. I appreciate you taking the time to download those tracks. Let me know where your songs are I will check out a couple.

Sly, I took a listen and you really do have a great voice! You have that genre nailed down pretty well. Glad to hear the tools are starting to pay off for you!

thank you, it all takes time to familiarize yourself with it all. I have to keep working on it all. I don't like hearing any breathing in the recordings so maybe I can do a couple things. Maybe I can think about breathing lighter when I sing? Maybe there is a technique to have quiet breathing. Anyone knows let me know. Someone tried telling me how to lower the volume the other day. I have to ask him exactly how or research that in RealBand.

Your Nectar includes a module called Breath Control! Check it out!

yes I want to use that. I can't find it. Where is it located? I wasn't sure if they just had it for the voice over settings. I want to use it so let me know where it is if you can.

It is installed as a separate plugin separate from the main Nectar plugin. So just look for it in the same place you found the main Nectar plugin. If you do not see it maybe you did not install it yet?

Ok I have it. It starts out with these settings:

Target: -30.0
Sensitivity 60%

Then there is a Breaths Only button. You hover your mouse over it and it says: Solo only the breaths that are being detected.

Do you use this plugin? If so what are your settings? And what is the Breaths Only button all about?

If you use the Breaths Only setting, only the sounds of the detected breaths are processed. This is the opposite of what you probably require, although this can be helpful is ensuring that your settings are capturing 'breaths' and nothing else. In other words, you hear what is being eliminated instead.

nice

i'm thinking you would do well on streetjelly

Very nice!

You would also do well on the User Showcase.
Thanks for sharing.

LLOYD S

Sly,

Re: Cheap and easy ways to eliminate breath sounds:

Work on breath control and phrasing in general. I used to "punctuate" lyric sheets with symbols for emphasis and for when to breathe in order to minimize breath sounds when performing and recording.

Develop the habit of averting your mouth from the microphone when you breathe in. Judicious use of a compressor set up as a gate can help.

A compressor with an EQ in the sidechain can be made to serve as a pop eliminator. You already have the plugins; search online to see how it's done. You can also get a simple passive device from Guitar Center and elsewhere for $50-$100, or make one from a coat hanger and pantyhose if you're not fussy.

HTH,

Richard

learning where and when to breathe is the ticket, as Richard is saying.

Part of the (included with BB/RB) DXi plugin called PGDynamics is the Expander/Gate.
Just as a compressor 'compresses' the levels, the Expander expands them. PGDynamics plugin includes both.

To try to explain this; using an Expander the lower volume sounds are made even lower, and higher volume sounds are made louder.
They add 'Gate' to the name because, if set just right, you can virtually eliminate lower level sound.

The more you know!

SLY, You have spent your money well. I do like your style. Keep on keepin on.------Leon

Nicely done, you got a very nice end result. You really have a grasp on that genre.

I will have to see about setting up a compressor as a gate. I will have to find out more about it. Seems simple enough. I have to see how it is done. Learn about the functionality of a gate. I guess I have all these capabilities within my three iZotope studio plugins. I could probably accomplish this. Once I can suppress some of the breathing my recordings will sound much better. That is just one thing to bring me up to a more quality sounding recording. I will see if I can figure out a gate setup thanks. Not to mention I guess I can only have so many plugins on one track in RealBand right? I don't know how I can hook up this compressor as a gate also. But I will see what I can do. Last night I tried adding that de-breath iZotope plugin to the vocal track. That made it 4 plugins. But when I played it back the vocal track was off. It was somehow starting late. Maybe 2 seconds late. Like all the plugins slowed it down. Some processing. And pushed it all to the left. I think I posted on that. I still have to check and see what anybody said. At any rate this compressor gate situation could be better than this de-breath plugin.

Sounds like a good plugin for this rharv. PGDynamics. I will see if I can find that. I wonder if my iZotope plugins have this also. I have three and I know there is some kind of expander I am sure. I am just learning about these things. And maybe PGDynamics is perfect for this.

the other thing you can do is simply edit your comped/final vocal track and manually remove or lower all the breaths. does not take very long to do and you don't need any plugins to do it!

Yes I don't think I will be using that de-breath plugin. I don't think the pros use that. I will also shut down these plugins until after I recorded. Someone advised me. At least I did get some compliments though lol. I can use those. I just did get a private message critique however. But it wasn't painful because I am sure it is true. I need to keep working on my vocals. I just do the best I can. Sure if I was rich I would get some formal training. I did buy Brett Manning's Singing Success cd's but I quit after 6 cd's thinking ok I will take his advice on what he has said so far but train by just by rehearsing. I should get back to his course.

"Pros" can and will use anything and everything at certain times, as the job may dictate.

Perhaps the better terminology as regards Plugins would be "De-Esser". There's a good one included with PGMusic Plugins, BTW, as a Preset in the Compressor/Expander.

A De-Esser can also be put together by someone in the know, using the Compressor/Expander plugs of choice.

My personal preference, though, is to try to reduce the objectionable Sibilance sounds while in the Tracking phase, to whatever extent possible. This might include use of Pop Screen(s), change of Mic type, distance, Mic direction towards piehole (sometimes turning an overly sensitive mic sideways and singing ACROSS it instead of directly into a sensitive diaphragm can go a long way here), things like that.

Hearing your voice from those demos, this engineer would be reaching for a Cardioid Dynamic mic of good quality rather than one of those cheap imported Large Diaphragm Condenser mics that get way too much attention from noobs.

Electrovoice RE-20 The King. $$$ Time proven, consistent, paired with a good mic preamp the recording results can be amazing. But not a mic that can double in Live Performance for the singer all that much, so read on, I do like being able to get to know and use one mic for all purposes such that one can develop a "signature" sound.


Shure SM-57 with the Shure-designed long foam boot (a terrific mic for the male baritone jazz and pop singer, btw, when paired with a terrific mic preamp - don't sell this mic short just because it is available everywhere and does not break the bank, The Shure Bros employed good physics in those wonderful old tried and true designs.)

Audix OM-5 -- A personal fav that has a bright top end without all that sensitivity on the lip smacks, great choice IMO for Male Baritone and Tenor voice for both home recording and for live performance. Higher output than the good old Shure, too.


--Mac

Thanks Mac,

I am using a Sure SM7B. To me that is a pretty nice mic. They are very good radio mics. So if you are a talk show host there you go. I am not sure if they are the best for singing. But I saw a picture of one on the Cubase website I think it was. Just for looks for some page they made. I believe that is where it was. So I guess it could be pretty popular for the average everyday singer. It is a 350 dollar mic.

I haven't used a De-Esser yet. I should look at that Compressor Expander I think. So I guess you are saying there is a De-Esser on that also. I will check into it. I am sure my S's could be fixed up some. Tonight I wasn't singing much. I was playing around with this Casio WK-3000 Keyboard I bought on Ebay for 130 dollars delivered. I just ordered some new Midi cables for it. I had some but only found one. Looked for a long time for the other one. So I just went to Monoprice and they are only 2 bucks and something cents each. Shipping is cheap so they were 7 dollars for the pair. I will have to work on the piano playing. I am not a pianst yet but taking the thing to my parents house and playing some chords and working on some arpeggio wannabe classical improvisation I fooled them into thinking I actually could play lol. The truth is I can't play any of the Great American songbook or any other song I really want to play. I am just starting out. It's all coming together. By the time I hit 50 I will be a virtuoso!! and the Sinatra's redheaded stepchild!

Sly,

BIAB can take you a long way toward any musical goal you have. It is a serious learning tool for any instrument, but especially piano. If you really want to learn to play there are all kinds of tools available. With piano you get notation, so you can learn to read, too.

I'm mainly a bassist and guitarist so won't say much more except to ask for suggestions (which you are quite good at!). I will say that I made more progress in a year of practicing guitar with BIAB as my backup band than I had in many, many years before that.

Sounds like you're having a bunch of fun, too!

R.

SM7B is a dynamic mic (actually based on the SM57 root technology but just a tad more sensitive and with a better internal isolation system along with built in bass rolloff).

A good choice, IMO, for your voice, I've always viewed the SM7B as Shure's equivalent to the famous Electrovoice EV-20 in a lot of ways, so there ya go.

Don't be hesitant to try placing a good Pop Screen with flexi mount for positioning same between you and that Mic, sometimes I have done that to better iron out Sibilants, lip smacks and the like.

And maybe back off the PAD input a bit, if that's the mic used in your demo recordings. Sometimes a bit less sensitivity sounds much better. Experiment. And if your Mic Preamp does not feature an Input Pad, well, boo.


--Mac

Hi Mac
I think SR is using a Roland QuadCapture, so he should have pre-amp control, but I recall that it also does have an Auto-Sense function to automatically set levels, and if he's using that feature, maybe over-riding it might be beneficial.

Did you mean using an external pad, or through the pre-amp? I think there's no pad on the mic itself.
regards
Trevor

Any good Mic Preamp or Mixer w/Mic preamp inputs on it should have a Pad control at the very input, this is not another volume fader, it is there to adjust the sensitivity at the Input by placing resistive padding across the Mic's generated voltage.

As for "Auto" level adjust, I've never met one that worked very well for anything other than spoken voice.


--Mac

Thanks Mac
Yes, I understand the technique that a pad provides, essentially a passive resistor network in a series / parallel shunt config, but I don't think that pre-amp has one. Good tip about the auto-sense. Thanks.