setting up Rap vocals?

Question

setting up Rap vocals?

I am having the hardest time getting the vocals that I desire. I want those in your face airy vocals, but my vocals seem to sit to low or to high. I have an apogee duet and an AT 4047, I set the track up in Logic as mono and generally the best gain for me has been 43 DB gain from the apogee. Should it only be reaching up to zero when I record a dry take? then after recorded to I increase the gain from there? or do I recorded the highest level just before it clips? I cant seem to get the right compressor settings I tried the rap setting and bring down the gain cause it is a bit to loud, but no matter what I lose some presence. I try adding in reverb either space designer or platinum, I cant get them to sound synthetic robotic, I turn down the wet its either on noticeable echo or nothing at all. i cant seem to get the DELAY to just give my vocals more presence again its either all or none trailing delay or none at all. If you have any advice that be great. Cant figure out the settings for sound of rap is in compression? I am on gearslutz and FP but get alott of buy a better preamp recommendations.

macbook pro 2.4 pen, Mac OS X (10.5.2), mo mac mo mac

Posted on May 30, 2008 12:11 AM

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Answer 1

May 30, 2008 6:22 PM in response to Damien shanti

First of all when you are recording I would record at close to the highest level you can get without clipping. the reason being the gain on your apogee is of a higher quality of the gain in logic and if you decide later its the signal is too hot you can always turn it down. Second of all the problem with presence may not be the vocals at all it may be the surrounding mix of the instrumental that is causing the vocals to loose "presence". Hope this might help.

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Answer 2

May 31, 2008 10:31 AM in response to Scott Studios

i agree with the mix having a direct impact on vocal presence, but I strongly disagree with near-0dB tracking. With 24bit res and the decent quality of the Apogee pres, you needn't worry about hot levels right off the bat.
Often for rap vox, or any pop-vox material, is to layer unison tracks with slight panning for "larger than life" FX, but that is a production step you're going to have to work out - if the song is better off with it or without, which sections do you layer, which are a single voice only, and so on.

Back to tracking though.... just don't worry about hot levels. If EVERYTHING in mix has to go down several dB just so you don't clip on the output, what's the point of recording everything so hot - esp. in 24bit-digital world? You're not trying to escape some evil noisefloor or tape hiss... And if the voice is too bottom heavy in the 250Hz area, experiment with mic placement to balance out the proximity effect (too close can be too muddy - too far can record too much ambience, but that's why it's experimenting after all). It's nice not to have to worry about that in the mix as EQs aren't always the best remedy... and one of the signature mic sounds for rap is based on the SM57 for lacking presence in the low-mids (SM57 + Avalon - but who cares? don't fuss with that mess right now).

I must leave at that for now

Message was edited by: Electronathan

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Answer 3

Jun 2, 2008 8:13 PM in response to Damien shanti

You guys made gave some great advice<
I guess I sound to much like a broadcaster with some compression and a bit of eq which is frustrating !

I am confused about how High to record the vocals let me go through my steps and tell me what to do or not to do etc?

I set the audio track in logic to mono, and output to 1-2.
In the apogee the DB is set to between 43 and 45 gain.
the track is set to 0DB
I do a few takes to see how im clipping or not.
I'll record a verse, then play it back and watch it on the mixer.

The problem is i either recorded it to hot where its clipping all the time, or to low where it sounds distant, or its in between and then it will spike on a few words (throughout the track)

What I cant figure out is should I be recording as high as possible, Or record lower (although when its low the track it self looks like the voice is very little im sure that you need a certain amount of signal on the track. Should I turn increase the track db over 0 if its recorded to low?

Then I add a compressor , set the rap setting decrease the gain a bit, put the threshold to 4.1.1, set it to soft and on platinum, ( helps give a little presence_)
Add reverb but it never sounds clean and clear its always robotic sounding or non existant , i play with the wet and dry signals.

add in delay, but can never get it to line up so there is not so much of an echoe.

I would love to do my spoken word with more presence

Should I copy past my tracks double them pan them a bit?

Man if anyone had a rap vocal take I would love to see how you set it up in logic!

Then I usu. ally choose the louder version

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