tips...020.
A REAL RECORDING SESSION WITH POWERTRACKS.(cont.).
(laying down the guide vocals..and showing handling PUNCH INS.).
ok....at this point things should be in reasonable shape.
we have skeleton bed tracks.
(drums/bass/rhythm guitars.).
now its time to add guide vocals.
but before i get to that.
i hope you remembered in the cleaning up tracks phase
to resave your seq for the CEFE song ??
(as well as did any final audio track consolidation...
in case u did heavy editing on some audio tracks.
ie...in a tracks audio edit window...select whole..
then TRACK>>>consolidate audio region.)
now to guide vocals.
in this phase with CEFE weve also found out sadly the vocalist isnt the greatest.
so we are going to be what is "vocal comping".
ie.getting a good vocal take out of several "bits".
so lets attack it like this.
from now on i'm going to use the letters "tr" for track.
i want you to name tr 12 "voc guide punch ins".
and tr 13 final guide voc 1, and tr 14 final guide voc 2.

what we are going to do is record bits of vocal in tr12,
then as we get them correct, transfer to tr 13.
then we are going to repeat the process from start of song again ,
record vocal bits again and then transfer to tr 14.
in summary we are aiming for two final guide voc tr's...
(which we will add some fx to , and i'll show u how to do that.)
which is called a VOCAL DOUBLE.
the idea of a vocal double is to help strengthen vocals.
in the process i'm gonna explain how i do punch ins..my way..lol.
(which is nice n simple.).

so set up the vocalist so the bed traks can be heard in his/her phones.
with the old pantyhose on a hanger trick screen between
the vocalist like this...
vocalist>>>screen>>>mic>>>>mixer mic input.
and start recording the vocals on tr 12 ensureing that the ptw input led peaks no higher than
-6db. (do some trial runs.)
at end play back tr 12.
well hot dam.the vocalist didnt do a bad job.
verse one and three was good. but verse two was bad.
so..in audio edit window for tr 12...hilite the waveform for verse 2
and edit/cut/keep gap. now just duplicate tr 12 on tr 13 ...
(TRACK>>>duplicate ).
now tr 13 has the final vocal on minus verse two which we are now going to do.
WE WILL NOW DO A PUNCH IN. but first erase the data on tr12.
(TRACK>>>>erase data only on tr 12.)
now lets say verse 2 starts at 45 secs.
in the audio edit window for tr 12....
place the cursor with the mouse 10 secs before to let the singer hear a pre roll of the song.
and clik record. then let the singer sing verse 2 only.
repeat until singer has verse 2 correct..lol.
ie.just record over the top.
once the singer has verse 2 correct , its a simple cut n paste job to
the final guide trak 13.
me personally i prefer to do punch ins this way.
repeat process for second guide vocal as before initially recording to
tr 12 , then transferring to tr 14 ...final guide voc 2...
and useing tr 12 for any punch ins/fix ups.
there are many ways to do this of course.
and ..in later posts ...i'm going to get a bit more complex when we get to final
vocs rather than guide vocs.
at the end of this process , u should have two final guide vocal traks 13 and 14.
now u can erase any remaining data on 12.
in summary , to do punch ins i prefer a track named punch ins.
and just do my punch ins on that special trak and then transfer
to final tracks.
once tr 13 n 14 are done..once again select whole for each in
audio edit window and consolidate audio region.
now heres a trik.
twould be nice now if we put a bit of fx on one of the guide vocal tracks.
theres a thousand and one settings/choices for this.
ie echo/chorus/rvb etc.
one thing u could do for example is copy tr 14 (guide voc2.)
to tr 15...and name tr 15.guide voc 2 with echo chorus.
then apply some echo /chorus..(not too much).
to tr 15. mute 14. and bring the fader of tr 15 just under the fader of tr 13 ..
the dry guide vocal one. just experiment !!.
(i'll get more into fx triks later on.)
thus at this point mebe we decide that we play back thru cans the tr13 plus tr 15 tracks.
so we have some fx on the vocals.
u can blend in how much fx from 15 useing ptw mixer view.
(the fader in mixer for tr 15. )
(what i'm attempting to do...as some folks are new to recording possibly...
is introduce triks gradually ..one step at a time..
rather than throwing too much out at one time..
which might be confuseing.)
now also start thinking bout some further triks we can do.
i would like u to think about these ideas for when i get into much more detailed advanced triks.
for example in ptw..did u know , u could create a situation
whereby the effected tr 15 vocal swells at certain points on certain words.
ie..mebe a certain vocal phrase needs more of an accented fx
behind the dry vocal.
if this was a hendrix like lead guitar break u could even get fancier and make it psychedelic , so the effected
tr 15 was swirling around the stereo image moving from left thru center to right and then
to left again. and get a psychedelic result.
now also startthinking re vocals , what if we duplicated a vocal track ,
and then to each duplicate applied different types of fx,
and panned the fx differently. ??
for example original dry vocals center with one fx trak panned
all left and the other panned all right in the ptw mixer.
see what i mean ?? i just want u to get your idea juices flowing at this
point ready for when i cover the FINAL lead vocals.
but for now two vocs for guide is sufficient.

one other point. a way to try and lessen vocal pops.
try putting a pencil...i once used a thin piece of stick .
if i remember ...tween the vocalist n the mic.
you could try mounting it on the nylon screen.)


if u really want to experiment with vocals. try different rooms n mic positions.
for example for a very dry vocal put vocalist in a soundproofed booth.
(if u cant afford one a clothes closet might work.)
if u wanted a bit of room ambience and the recording room sounded excellent,
u could put up a room mic to capture some room sound n mix it in.
(more to come.)