Today the main objective of the session was to record all of Daves lead vocal parts whilst making sure that i touched on learning outcome 1 and learning outcome 3.
From my research, a common technique applied by a lot of the big producers is to use a valve condenser microphone running into an independent (sometimes also valve) hardware pre-amp, through an external compressor and then into Pro Tools. For example, Jacquire King likes to use his own Sony C37A through a Neve 1073 or a 1081 and then run it through an LA-2A compressor. Jim Abbiss on the other used a Neumann M149 valve microphone on the Arctic Monkeys debut album which he then ran through a UA 1176 compressor. I used this research to inform my own decisions at the beginning phase of vocal production.
Unfortunately the uni don’t have any valve microphones so instead I opted for the AKG C414 due to its flat EQ response. I used the pre-amps on the Audient desk and then ran the signal through the Drawmer DL241. When applying the Drawmer into my signal path, it was clear that its main use was going to be catching some of the harsh transients coming from Daves voice and before relying too heavily on the Drawmer, I asked Dave if he would be able to pull back from the mic a little bit when singing at a louder volume. However when he tried this I felt like the vocal performances were not a lively and I decided to apply harder compression on the Drawmer to combat this.
Once setting the threshold and the ratio, I altered the attack and release time to try and catch some of the transients, with this technique being inspired by Jimmy Douglass. Doing this helped to reduce these transients significantly however there were still a few transients that were slipping through and I think this mainly down to the compressor not a having a short enough attack time. I could’ve combatted this by adjusting the ratio and threshold eve further however I decided not to so that I didn’t run the risk and of over compressing and squashing the signal.
Once I was happy with the signal going into Pro Tools I recorded a few takes of each track so that it gave me more options during the editing and comping stage.
Jim Abbiss https://www.soundonsound.com/people/jim-abbiss
Jacquire King, Lowell Reynolds & James Bay: Recording Chaos And The Calm https://www.soundonsound.com/people/jacquire-king-lowell-reynolds-james-bay-recording-chaos-and-calm
Mixing Justin Timberlake Vocals – Jimmy Douglas https://youtu.be/PpIanhvC9qw