tips...027.
A REAL RECORDING SESSION WITH POWERTRACKS.(cont.).
ok..time for final lead vocals.
let me explain a trick.
remember the guide lead vocals we did earlier ??
theres a reason. and a benefit.
sometimes an artist will learn from previous tracking what works and what
doesnt in a particular song.
also..by feeding the artist some of the previous guide vocals,
in lots of cases it can help the artist psychologically.
allow me to explain further.
try this experiment on guitar for example. record any old
guitar trak to a drum beat. it dont sound good mebe on playback,
cos the guitar isnt the greatest or the amp or whatever.
no matter. dont trash the trak.
do another and another with mebe any old settings.
but useing a different setting each time.
if u do this over a few traks youll hear some sorta sound picture emerge.
particularly if u then add a sprinkle of ptw fx on a couple of traks.
then youll find that PSYCHOLOGICALLY cos u have some traks already done suddenly youll
get a surge of creative energy. why is this ??
the answer is you have some sort of trak picture playing back which gives you
a REFERENCE POINT in your mind.
similarly with the lead vocals. if u give the lead vocalist some of the earlier
guide voc trak low down..and i can only speak from experience ...(mebe some will disagree..)
it will help possibly the lead vocalist be energised and get a good final
vocal trak down. cos he is hearing the whole song play back in his cans (phones)..
with some of his own previous guide vocals.
its rather difficult to explain.
but the basic concept is the first trak of any trak type (vocals/guitar/bass or sax..whatever..)
is often the most difficult cos the artist has no reference point
from which to draw. thus .what ive found is sometimes to bring out the BEST
performance in an artist is to let him/her lay down a couple of rough takes
FIRST..which are fed low down to the artist in the cans...THEN ...
often by the third take he or she will nail it.
as i said ....i think a lot of it is just psychology.
(just an idea to try to get the best from an artist.)

so..in this case we will feed a low level of the previous guide vocal traks
(sometimes with fx helps.) to the vocalists cans with of course all the rest of the band traks.
try this trik..cos it often works.
and i hope ive explained it clearly as a trick to try.

in this phase , its very similar in concept to before.
(lets leave tr 29 blank in case we want to add more back up vocs later. )

tr 30...named....lead vocs punch ins.
tr 31............final lead vocs 1.
tr 32............final lead vocs 1 fx.
tr 33............final lead vocs 2.
tr 34............final lead vocs 2 fx.

ie...as before . record final vocal 1 to tr 30.
cut out the bad bits. transfer the good to tr 31.
redo the bad bits until they are correct on tr 30.
then transfer to tr 31...via cut n paste.
repeat process for final lead vocs 2.
recording on tr 30 and transferring to tr 33.
then adding fx sprinkles on tr 32 and 34.
and mixing in levels of wet versus dry etc etc as per past posts,
and trying fx panning triks as per past posts and mebe fx trak shifting triks
as per past posts.
the whole aim being to get a very good final lead vocal.
fx will depend on what the song calls for.
once again if finals are good, traks are cleaned
as per previous posts and consolidated , and a final seq save done and the
seq backed up to othermedia.
although we have doubled the final vocal track in
this instance....we might decide the song calls not for a
double of the final vocs, and ...in places ..for example
just a single final vocal, and in other places a final double.
(mebe when the back up singers are also singing....
it depends on what the song calls for.)
for example mebe its the type of song that starts with
a lonely sounding single vocal with just an acoustic guitar,
and gradually other instrument traks comein at various points to
create an intro crescendo effect, until finally a screaming doubled
lead vocal is introduced...then at the end of the song it tails off again to
a single lone vocal with acoustic guitar.
(a typical arrangement trik.)


(lots more to come.)