[linux-audio-user] Vocals

[Rob]

On Sunday 29 October 2006 22:23, chaz kiser wrote:
> Any suggestions what plugins or effects in Audacity I could
> utilize to make my vocals sound better, or more importantly,
> like someone else?

I'm no recording engineer, but I've worked with one in the last 
few years and I think I have a little bit of understanding of 
what sounds good and what doesn't now.

First of all, I assume you're not trying to record your vocals on 
a $5 microphone that came with your computer and that you're 
recording somewhere that doesn't have awful acoustics.  I've 
recorded in a closet, in a car, under a blanket and a number of 
other ways due to being unable to just put up acoustic foam in 
the apartments I've lived in.  I also learned that all the 
cliches about "sing from the diaphragm", "don't swallow the 
mic", etc. are pretty much true, at least if you're trying to 
record something that sounds like popular music.

After you're done recording, conventional approaches to fixing 
vocals include compression and EQ, various "aural exciters", 
which range from expensive snake oil to useful, and nowadays 
pitch correction (like Antares Autotune) especially.  I don't 
think there's a way to automatically correct sharp or flat 
vocals in Audacity though (yet.)  

I used something a lot cheaper than Autotune back in my Windows 
days, but can't remember what it was called and I don't know 
whether there are any Autotune clones that would work under 
Linux.  But you should be able to fix especially out-of-tune 
notes by either punching in from another recording (which I 
usually do) or selecting just that note and manually shifting 
the pitch through one of Audacity's time/pitch plugins.

A common mistake (or artistic decision I would disagree with) 
that I hear in people's stuff that they post to the net is 
leaving the vocals too dry when the whole rest of the track has 
a ton of effects.  Doubling the vocal track (recording it a 
second time in unison) or using chorus or delay, and then 
applying a reverb sound that's appropriate to the rest of the 
track, will usually help.  Use your discretion.... if it's a 
really electronic sounding track, you can take a lot more 
liberties (flange, gate, phaser, vocoder...) than if you're 
recording a "folk singer/songwriter" kind of track, but I think 
there aren't a lot of situations where you want to leave the 
vocal track totally dry.

Finally, people who aren't confident in their own vocal ability 
and who mix their own music tend to mix themselves way too far 
back, even when the vocal or lyrics is what they want you to 
notice.  I personally think it's better to have the vocal 
overcooked than inaudible.

As far as making yourself sound like someone else.... you can try 
tricks like slowing down your track, recording your vocals and 
speeding it back up (or vice versa), you can try analyzing the 
spectrum of the person you want to imitate's vocals and EQ'ing 
yourself to sound like him or her, but in the end there's more 
to someone's voice than just the timbre.  

There are articles about how to record better sounding vocals in 
the musician magazines almost every month, and I'm sure there 
are hundreds of them around the net, but these are my opinions.

Rob