PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic EQ Splitting of Vocal Tracks

I have been trying to learn the arcane art of mixing, and have been following the excellent current thread started by Josie. My question is also about vocal track splitting, but is a different type of splitting than "comping" so i started a new thread.

An old friend ran a studio in the 70s and 80s, and he recently wrote me the following advice and method: "The goal here is to take your single, unaltered, raw (no FX or enhancements applied) voice-only track and make (In this example) four copies of it. Then filter each track into EQ groups, the more tracks, the more impact you can have per frequency range. Let's say you use four tracks; on one track filter out all other frequencies leaving behind the 30-60Hz range, the next 120-500Hz, the next 1k-4khz, and finally 8K-16KHz. Then deal with each track like it was the only track you had. Obviously in the lower or higher ranges there will be little-to-nothing to work with, but that is exactly why you are doing this. Enhance amplitude, filter out noise... Now, you can apply EQ boast or reduction (In that range.), along with various processors (aural exciter, reverb, chorus, mild delay,) tailored against that track. Take your time, find that sweet spot for that range, and that range only. In the final blend you can adjust amplitude as needed."

I haven't had the time or gumption to try it yet, and it seems like a lot of work, although once you establish algorithms and settings individualized for your voice, you should be able to use them routinely. What do you experienced mixers think? Is this something you use, or maybe a waste of time? I know there are many paths to Nirvana, but I have never run across this method elsewhere.

Thanks, (maybe this should have gone on the RB forum)
Daisy.

I have done this, to an extent.

Ran a 2nd vocal track thru EQ and then reverb to get a reverb effect I wanted.
Not done on regular basis though; seems like an interesting idea.

If a vocal needs THAT much eq work, I maintain it was recorded like crap in the first place. Outside of an effect purpose, and even then I question it, I would sooner re-record an obviously badly recorded vocal. The ONLY time I'd go through that much trouble is if I were IN trouble and couldn't do a retake. I have used a modified version of this a couple of times for an exciter effect, whereby you eq out everything but extreme high freq's on one and then blend it with the original and it worked well. But that's an occasional thing and there's plugins that can do that just as effectively these days. For your example, you can also use a multiband compressor and get the same result- using it as an eq shaper. You can also use a four or six band parametric eq and notch or boost whatever you need. It's not that the technique you mention is a bad one. As always, anything can be the perfect thing to do at the time. But generally speaking, that kind of technique is rather heavy handed for eq'ing a vocal. I'd reserve it for an extreme fix for a badly recorded vocal, not a go-to way to eq a vocal all the time.

If there's one rule that good to live by it's record well going in. Outside of effects maybe, you should not be spending all your time and resources try to fix things that were badly recorded in the first place. If you need five plugins to get the sound right or extreme measures, something was done poorly during recording. Simple is almost always better than complicated.

Dan

Layering sounds (vocal tracks in this case) and treating these tracks in a different matter can certainly give some interesting results. I haven't done eq-ing a vocal track the way you described, but I can see what benefits could be had. Like Dan I wouldn't see it as the way to do every (vocal) track every time; only when absolutely needed.

Some songs just ask for a certain kind of extra sound to them. A thickened vocal can give you that extra bite where needed. So layering tracks can be very useful. And above all; it is fun to experiment with these kind of things

Yes it is an interesting idea. If you have the time to experiment like that have fun and try all kinds of ideas.
If it is your own stuff, it *is* fun to experiment with.
I see it as an EQ ducking method. You could have a long tail reverb on the 's' sound and not so much on the open vowels at lower pitch, etc. Would be fun to experiment with for a 'unique' sound. Non-typical type stuff.

If it is someone else's tracks and you have to account for that time (cause you're spending their money every hour you work on it) and then try to convince them it was worth it, it may be better to work in a little more conventional way.

There are all kinds of ideas out there to try though.

Yes, thanks so much guys for the thoughtful answers. You have said pretty much what I expected. I would bet that my old pal may have used this method as a "billing technique" in his demo studio, as hinted at by Rharv. And it may be simply that Roger was recording and mixing in an era when he didn't have access to simple and effective exciters, compressors, etc.

So I may play around with it, among other techniques, as I learn about mixing.... first thing will be to figure out what "ducking" means.

But several of you have focused on what I usually preach about to others... that is, practice, do many takes, work, work, work. I think that is a major failing of many of the tracks that appear here. Unless you are a gigging musician, it's just damned hard to sit (or stand) and sing take after take, but the payoff is very clear.

And Dan, I am glad to see that you are in full agreement with Silvertones on the other thread, that is: "Do it right the first time."

Thanks again,
Daisy

I see it as having great potential as an effects technique. I'm thinking in terms of putting a harmonizer on a couple of tracks, an octave up and an octave down, maybe one at +5 for a robot-like effect, plus the frequency-specific reverbs mentioned above. Way different from doubling. Thanks for posting the suggestion.

R.

Daisy,

I don't think Dan is in full agreement with Silvertones from the other thread. Here, there's a whole lot of work on EQing, without an intended goal in mind. What effect or tendency is the outcome of doing all the different EQ work?

Of course the goal should be to nail a track in one take. That is always the goal. But what exactly does 'nailing it' mean?

I like to have a little menu to pick from with my vox. If time allows, I KEEP 3 keeper takes around if I know I'm going to be doing some downstream studio trickery. It's much easier to get the vox all at one time than to try to go back to add to it.

I'll give an example: I had a pretty bad sinus infection one February last year, where I was writing and recording 14 songs in the month of February (trust me, with that kind of a schedule, you keep first takes). It got so bad during the month, that my voice lowered several steps beyond what was typical. I wrote and recorded these two songs that month, amongst others. These are songs intended for kids, mind you - not masterpieces of songwriting:

Before sinus infection took hold:
http://rockstarnot.rekkerd.org/fawm2009/Scott%20Lake%20-%20Hoodie.mp3

After sinus infection took hold:
http://rockstarnot.rekkerd.org/fawm2009/Scott%20Lake%20-%20Moe%20theToe.mp3

On Moe the Toe, I knew that my voice probably wouldn't sound that way anytime soon. So I took more takes than I usually do. I kept the best bits from all 3.

Your favorite recording vocalists - my money is on the fact that they do more than one take and they keep more than one take, and the results you hear are comp'ed, most of the time.

Back to the topic:

Another technique that is somewhat popular that can do some of what might be looked for with the 'exciter' mentality is to track one time through while whispering the words. Then you high-pass filter that track and mix it in with the main vocal to where you can clearly hear it, then dial it back a couple of dB. This can give definition to fricatives as well as provide a little 'buzz' for the vox, without having access to an exciter unit or plugin.

This is not unlike intentionally adding slight hints of overdrive to guitars and drums (yes, I said drums).

-Scott

Daisy, the traditional use of audio term "ducking" is found in the making of commercials. Background music is playing, then the announcer says something, and the music is automatically lowered in volume under the talking. Sort of like "duck out of the way". This ducking process is automated, instead of having to manually edit the music track to go into the background.

I've read about the technique in the eBook ReaMix: Breaking the Barriers with REAPER. The technique looks interesting, but my listening skills aren't discerning enough to hear a lot of the effects being demonstrated.

Still, it looked like a great technique.

Thanks for all the cogent observations and suggestions... lots to try out.

About Reaper... I am seeing more and more folks on here using it. I like RB very much (having been put off by the complexity -- and cost -- of Sonar) and wonder if anyone wants to clarify what the advantages of Reaper are over RB. I know it may not be completely politically correct to discuss a rival product here, but the forum is a pretty tolerant bunch... and since so many are mentioning it, well, use your own judgement. Same for the book you mentioned, "Realmix."

Thanks,
Daisy

Hi Daisy. No question, Reaper is far less expensive than SONAR and they perform a similar purpose.

Just thought you should know that, as of December 8, there is a new version of SONAR called X1, and the company has dropped the price to $399 US for the top-of-the line Producer edition. There are also less expensive Studio and Home editions, too. So, if you are considering SONAR, keep that in mind.

Others who know Reaper can answer your questions about that; I've used SONAR or its predecessor for so long, I'm sticking with that.

Another question you might want answered is, what advantages are there in RealBand over either SONAR or Reaper? RealBand takes BIAB files directly and you can continue to work with them; no other software can do that. All the other DAW programs can do is take MIDI or audio tracks generated by BIAB.

Matt hit the main points for RealBand: integration, and ease of use. As with any tool, it's as powerful as the user.

I don't really think of other DAWs as competing with RealBand, because they sort have different audiences in terms of the level of detail that they're trying to get down to.

In addition to being a great program for the price, Reaper also has got a very responsive development team, a great community, and some really nice documentation. It's also got a great evaluation policy, where you can use it with no restrictions other than the initial nag screen. So there's no cost or risk if you want to try it out.

I don't really have any experience with Sonar, so as far as Sonar vs. Reaper, I think you'll have to wait until the latest version of Sonar gets out for people to evaluate. There's a lot of excitement over it, and the lower price will certainly be an incentive for people to have another look.

The ReaMix book was well written for its target audience: Reaper users who want to understand the mix process. It takes a "newbie" through the process of mixing down tracks, explaining what the goals of each step are, and what tools can be used to get various results. Some of the examples get complicated - like splitting vocals using the EQ and applying different effects - but there are lots of pictures and it goes through the process step by step. If you're a Reaper user without a lot of mixing experience, it's a great purchase. The downloadable version is $13.50, which is what I bought.

Real band is a must for larger track counts. It's integrated with biab and real tracks and they really go together. Even though you can mix in real band, I can't get the business of editing done there. Simply put, if you've never used any other daw, then real band could work for you. If you have used other daws, it makes real band mighty tough to deal with. But for me, I don't use real band as a daw. I use it as an extension of my productions in biab. I'm very thankful for real band. I couldn't do what I do with this software WITHOUT real band- it's that integral to me. But once all the real tracks are keepers in real band, I use plugin mode [thank you PG] and move everything out to reaper, where I can edit and mix much more to what I expect and need. I could just mix in real band I think, although it would be a challenge. But I could not edit in there. It has to come quite a ways more in it's feature set and the way it works before I could contemplate doing so. And yet without real band, PG software would be very limiting for me- all but useless except for the most basic of things. I like Reaper but I've used many along the way, including my software in my recorder, Sony Vegas, Sonar, Cubase, Pro Tools LE, and Nuendo. The only other daw I like besides reaper is vegas. Those two daws remain the ONLY daws I didn't have to spend oodles of time studying and learning- constantly reading the manuals. With reaper and vegas, I just work. That's how good they are. To each their own though. It's a personal choice.

Dan

You mentioned issues with editing in RB (a couple times).

Describe 'editing' please. Which aspects?
(curious)
May lead to some wishlists items

I did put some things in wish list a while ago. I can't remember exactly what- it's been a while now. I think it had to do with the cursor behavior or lack of how I prefer it, highlighting regions, zooming, and other stuff I can't remember. I do know that a lot of what I'd want is already listed in wish list, last time I was reading. I'm not fancy- I'm just looking for typical features and 'behavior' that everyone is asking for already. Any new stuff or improvements can only help. If RB remained the way it is right now for ever, I'd still enjoy using it and I'd still HAVE to use it no matter what. I'll be curious to see what 2011 brings.

Dan