[linux-audio-user] How to get good vocal sound

Brett McCoy idragosani at chapelperilous.net
Tue Dec 6 08:55:20 EST 2005


Bill Allen wrote:
> I've been struggling with a technique problem. How do you get your 
> vocals to sound good? I know that you can't make a silk purse from a 
> sow's ear, but you can make the best of what you've got. What 
> combination of plugins and settings do you use to get the best sound 
> from vocals particularly in Ardour? I know that this is one of those 
> subjective questions for which the best answer is try it out yourself 
> and find what sounds best, but there are so many plugins (an 
> embarassment of riches), each of which has many settings, that a brute 
> force search of all the combinations would take forever - not to mention 
> that after a while, my poor ears become exhausted with the effort and 
> refuse to hear differences anymore. So what I'm really looking for is 
> good starting points to work from.
> 
> One combination that I like is GVerb to get depth and L/C/R Delay to get 
> width. Even with those two getting the settings right takes time. For 
> comunication, I've included a jack rack with some settings I've found 
> that work OK. I would love your critiques and suggestions for other setups.

I'm of the opinion that you should work on getting the vocals to sound 
good dry -- before adding any effects. What are you using to record the 
vocals? I recommend a good condensor mike and a pre-amp, and use 
balanced XLR for the entire signal path, at least until where the signal 
is going into your audio interface, where you probably just have RCA or 
1/8" inputs.

-- Brett




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