Loud vocals are better dealt with at the Local Level....

[Paul[_13_]]

.....as opposed to using a limiter to squash the
offending passage (and everything else).

Just did this tonight. The multi-band limiter
will certainly do it's job, but at a price. The
clarity of the vocal sibilance, which is crucial
for enunciation and understanding, will often suffer.

Much better to cut a small localized piece of the
loud passage, and reduce the volume of only that small
chunk of audio.

Too bad I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the
multi-band compressor/limiter parameters in Ozone 5,
before I realized it was cleaner to use the built-in
compressor in Cubase 5.

Less is often More!

Ozone 5 is very powerful software, but it can
kill the clarity of a track easily.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >, Paul > wrote:
>....as opposed to using a limiter to squash the
>offending passage (and everything else).

The limiter would not be the tool for that anyway, you would want a slow
AGC-style compressor for the job.

But yes, the solution is to manually ride the gain controls. That is
what the mixing engineer does. That is his job.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Paul wrote:
> ....as opposed to using a limiter to squash the
> offending passage (and everything else).
>
> Just did this tonight. The multi-band limiter
> will certainly do it's job, but at a price. The
> clarity of the vocal sibilance, which is crucial
> for enunciation and understanding, will often suffer.
>
> Much better to cut a small localized piece of the
> loud passage, and reduce the volume of only that small
> chunk of audio.
>
> Too bad I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the
> multi-band compressor/limiter parameters in Ozone 5,
> before I realized it was cleaner to use the built-in
> compressor in Cubase 5.
>
> Less is often More!
>
> Ozone 5 is very powerful software, but it can
> kill the clarity of a track easily.

Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.

Or put a slightly more remote mic on the singer and comp together
a mix of those two tracks.

You probably don't want to mix the vocal mics unless you
can align them and that may or may not be easy.

--
Les Cargill

[Scott Dorsey]

Les Cargill > wrote:
>
>Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
>fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.

If I don't have charts, I'll often do that. If I have charts,
or even just a lyric sheet, I'll write fader and eq moves down on
them.

>Or put a slightly more remote mic on the singer and comp together
>a mix of those two tracks.

That is a lifesaver for singers who are swapping between head and
chest voices, or between spoken and sung sections, etc.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Adrian Tuddenham[_2_]]

Paul > wrote:

> ....as opposed to using a limiter to squash the
> offending passage (and everything else).

It depend on whether you are recording an actuality event or whether you
can do a re-take. If the latter, just ask the singer to turn sightly
away from the mic on that passage or step back a pace or two. The
results will sound perfectly natural and almost undetectable, whereas
electronic post-production rarely does.

Two examples, one recent and one from 1931 at:
< http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/other/sounds/NoBlasting.mp3>

The two head-turns occur at 0:15 and 0:40

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> Les Cargill > wrote:
>>
>> Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
>> fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.
>
> If I don't have charts, I'll often do that. If I have charts,
> or even just a lyric sheet, I'll write fader and eq moves down on
> them.
>

The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.

>> Or put a slightly more remote mic on the singer and comp together
>> a mix of those two tracks.
>
> That is a lifesaver for singers who are swapping between head and
> chest voices, or between spoken and sung sections, etc.
> --scott
>

--
Les Cargill

[Paul[_13_]]

On 11/23/2014 10:39 AM, Les Cargill wrote:

>
> Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
> fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.
>
> Or put a slightly more remote mic on the singer and comp together
> a mix of those two tracks.
>
> You probably don't want to mix the vocal mics unless you
> can align them and that may or may not be easy.
>

Yes, I had to additional x-y mics on the singer's acoustic
guitar.

So I ended up reducing the main vocal track mic by about
8 dB in the offending passage, and kept the vocal bleed-though in the
guitar mics, which removed the harshness.

Point is, it's better to reduce the volume of an isolated event,
than to compress the hell out of the entire song.

[Luxey]

On Sunday, 23 November 2014 18:38:22 UTC+1, Les Cargill wrote:
> ...
> Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
> fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.
> ...
> --
> Les Cargill

Drawing those lines can get tricky and is more suitable, AFAIK, for riding and
leveling longer passages. For anything less than couple of bars of music I slice
it to pieces and adjust volume per segment. Then I limit it all to the ground.

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 11/24/2014 7:43 AM, Luxey wrote:

> Drawing those lines can get tricky and is more suitable, AFAIK, for riding and
> leveling longer passages. For anything less than couple of bars of music I slice
> it to pieces and adjust volume per segment. Then I limit it all to the ground.

One of the most talked about new features of Pro Tools 10 was "clip
gain." You can highlight a segment, as large or small as you need, and
pop up a fader to change the volume of that clip.

I thought every DAW could do that, and I guess they can, but it may take
one or two extra steps. My Mackie HDR24/96, which is 15 years old, can
do it.



--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[[email protected]]

Luxey wrote: "On Sunday, 23 November 2014 "Then I limit it all to the ground. "

I'll be sure not to buy any music with your credits on it, and warn others to do the same.

[Paul[_13_]]

On 11/24/2014 6:07 AM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 11/24/2014 7:43 AM, Luxey wrote:
>
>> Drawing those lines can get tricky and is more suitable, AFAIK, for
>> riding and
>> leveling longer passages. For anything less than couple of bars of
>> music I slice
>> it to pieces and adjust volume per segment. Then I limit it all to the
>> ground.
>
> One of the most talked about new features of Pro Tools 10 was "clip
> gain." You can highlight a segment, as large or small as you need, and
> pop up a fader to change the volume of that clip.
>
> I thought every DAW could do that, and I guess they can, but it may take
> one or two extra steps. My Mackie HDR24/96, which is 15 years old, can
> do it.
>

Yes, it has to be a common feature these days.

In Cubase 5, you can cut the track just before and just after
a too-loud passage, and adjust volume on only that small chunk of
the track.

It's cool that you can do this on top of manipulating the shape of
the automated fader level line.

[Luxey]

On Monday, 24 November 2014 20:12:13 UTC+1, Paul wrote:
> On 11/24/2014 6:07 AM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> > On 11/24/2014 7:43 AM, Luxey wrote:
> >
> >> Drawing those lines can get tricky and is more suitable, AFAIK, for
> >> riding and
> >> leveling longer passages. For anything less than couple of bars of
> >> music I slice
> >> it to pieces and adjust volume per segment. Then I limit it all to the
> >> ground.
> >
> > One of the most talked about new features of Pro Tools 10 was "clip
> > gain." You can highlight a segment, as large or small as you need, and
> > pop up a fader to change the volume of that clip.
> >
> > I thought every DAW could do that, and I guess they can, but it may take
> > one or two extra steps. My Mackie HDR24/96, which is 15 years old, can
> > do it.
> >
>
> Yes, it has to be a common feature these days.
>
> In Cubase 5, you can cut the track just before and just after
> a too-loud passage, and adjust volume on only that small chunk of
> the track.
>
> It's cool that you can do this on top of manipulating the shape of
> the automated fader level line.

That I exactly what I described I was doing.

[Luxey]

On Monday, 24 November 2014 18:26:29 UTC+1, wrote:
> Luxey wrote: "On Sunday, 23 November 2014 "Then I limit it all to the ground. "
>
> I'll be sure not to buy any music with your credits on it, and warn others to do the same.

Oh, well..., there it goes my kid's scholarship ...

[Scott Dorsey]

Les Cargill > wrote:
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>> Les Cargill > wrote:
>>>
>>> Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
>>> fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.
>>
>> If I don't have charts, I'll often do that. If I have charts,
>> or even just a lyric sheet, I'll write fader and eq moves down on
>> them.
>>
>
>The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
>do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.

Depends a lot on the style and how predictable the vocalist is. If it's
traditional acoustic stuff, that would certainly be the case.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

"Scott Dorsey" > skrev i en meddelelse
...

>>The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
>>do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.

> Depends a lot on the style and how predictable the vocalist is. If it's
> traditional acoustic stuff, that would certainly be the case.

Vocalists that have enough control so that they can be transferred, mix or
master or whatever, to delivery format audio without any kind of gain riding
are few and far between.

A well chosen local compression on just the peaky stuff tends to work better
for me and to be less obviously audible than doing it manually and I'd
rather have a problem with the dynamics than have the vocalist messing with
my - via mic setup - configured ratio between direct and reflected sound by
moving around.

> --scott

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Scott Dorsey]

Peter Larsen > wrote:
>"Scott Dorsey" > skrev i en meddelelse
>
>>>The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
>>>do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.
>
>> Depends a lot on the style and how predictable the vocalist is. If it's
>> traditional acoustic stuff, that would certainly be the case.
>
>Vocalists that have enough control so that they can be transferred, mix or
>master or whatever, to delivery format audio without any kind of gain riding
>are few and far between.

Depends. The closer you're miking them, the more exaggerated the dynamics
can be, and therefore the more control they need or the more gainriding you
need. Crooners can be all over the place without some limiting, but that's
just the technique.

>A well chosen local compression on just the peaky stuff tends to work better
>for me and to be less obviously audible than doing it manually and I'd
>rather have a problem with the dynamics than have the vocalist messing with
>my - via mic setup - configured ratio between direct and reflected sound by
>moving around.

Depends on the style a lot. If the performer is moving between head and chest
voices, I might want a change in perspective in the process. If they are
just going from loud to soft in the same style and bobbing their head forward
and back, that can be a disaster.

I tend to go for gainriding before anything else, but I live in the "mix as
performance" world of mixing in realtime rather than drawing envelopes on
a screen, and sometimes you just run out of fingers to ride everything that
needs to be ridden.

A very small amount of vocal compression can also bring the vocal up front
and center... and usually people think this is a good thing although for
folk and jazz I find it unnnatural.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> Les Cargill > wrote:
>> (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>>> Les Cargill > wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dave Morgan would have a legal pad and write down time marks and
>>>> fader moves. You can do same with gain-line drawing tools now.
>>>
>>> If I don't have charts, I'll often do that. If I have charts,
>>> or even just a lyric sheet, I'll write fader and eq moves down on
>>> them.
>>>
>>
>> The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
>> do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.
>
> Depends a lot on the style and how predictable the vocalist is. If it's
> traditional acoustic stuff, that would certainly be the case.
> --scott
>

Professional singers in genres other than rock learned to adjust
distance and angle of attack to microphones.

Smiley Weaver used to call it 'mike culture', as in "(s)he ain't got
no mike culture."

--
Les Cargill

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Peter Larsen wrote:
> "Scott Dorsey" > skrev i en meddelelse
> ...
>
>>> The implication is that if you'd tracked it right, you wouldn't have to
>>> do that. But sometimes, it's just that way.
>
>> Depends a lot on the style and how predictable the vocalist is. If it's
>> traditional acoustic stuff, that would certainly be the case.
>
> Vocalists that have enough control so that they can be transferred, mix or
> master or whatever, to delivery format audio without any kind of gain riding
> are few and far between.
>
> A well chosen local compression on just the peaky stuff tends to work better
> for me and to be less obviously audible than doing it manually and I'd
> rather have a problem with the dynamics than have the vocalist messing with
> my - via mic setup - configured ratio between direct and reflected sound by
> moving around.
>

Compression will alter the ratio between direct and reflected sound
anyway. You can't win :)

This being said, anymore I'd be likely to reach for compression unless
it's a small number of adjustments per song. I have a couple of plugins
that are pretty good at this. But it depends.

>> --scott
>
> Kind regards
>
> Peter Larsen
>
>
>
>
>

--
Les Cargill

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

"Les Cargill" > skrev i en meddelelse
...

> Peter Larsen wrote:

>> A well chosen local compression on just the peaky stuff tends to work
>> better
>> for me and to be less obviously audible than doing it manually and I'd
>> rather have a problem with the dynamics than have the vocalist messing
>> with
>> my - via mic setup - configured ratio between direct and reflected sound
>> by
>> moving around.

> Compression will alter the ratio between direct and reflected sound
> anyway. You can't win :)

You forgot to say track compression, then you're right. I was talking about
applying the - self designed - soprano control preset in my A3 for just the
duration of - ahem - lack of control of dynamics. It is also the least harm
when applied for the duration only to the track.

> This being said, anymore I'd be likely to reach for compression unless
> it's a small number of adjustments per song. I have a couple of plugins
> that are pretty good at this. But it depends.

Having a well isolated vocal track vs. having one that is not and where the
gain relation between spot mike and main pair can not be changed for image
stability - or only a main pair are different situations and what works best
differs.

> Les Cargill

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 11/25/2014 1:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
> Professional singers in genres other than rock learned to adjust
> distance and angle of attack to microphones.

Not just rock singers. I like to think that there are no professional
folk singers, so they can be excused, but some unfortunately do think of
themselves as professional. They don't wanna be compressed, or reverbed,
either.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

"Mike Rivers" > skrev i en meddelelse
...

> On 11/25/2014 1:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:

>> Professional singers in genres other than rock learned to adjust
>> distance and angle of attack to microphones.

> Not just rock singers. I like to think that there are no professional folk
> singers, so they can be excused, but some unfortunately do think of
> themselves as professional. They don't wanna be compressed, or reverbed,
> either.

bBut, if you're close miking you need to do both, not a lot, a wee bit,
otherwise it aint gonna be no natural sound like.

> For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Scott Dorsey]

Peter Larsen > wrote:
>"Mike Rivers" > skrev i en meddelelse
...
>
>> On 11/25/2014 1:07 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
>
>>> Professional singers in genres other than rock learned to adjust
>>> distance and angle of attack to microphones.
>
>> Not just rock singers. I like to think that there are no professional folk
>> singers, so they can be excused, but some unfortunately do think of
>> themselves as professional. They don't wanna be compressed, or reverbed,
>> either.
>
>bBut, if you're close miking you need to do both, not a lot, a wee bit,
>otherwise it aint gonna be no natural sound like.

Maybe. If there are other mikes the leakage may be enough to thicken things
to make it natural, or you can add a room pair. I'd sooner do that than
compress, althugh sometimes you have to compress.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[geoff]

On 26/11/2014 7:07 a.m., Les Cargill wrote:

>>
>
> Professional singers in genres other than rock learned to adjust
> distance and angle of attack to microphones.
>
> Smiley Weaver used to call it 'mike culture', as in "(s)he ain't got
> no mike culture."
>

The rest of us call it "mic technique".

geoff

[[email protected]]

there is also the so called "New York style" compression which fills in the weak spots without squashing the loud parts.

Mark

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

> skrev i en meddelelse
...

> there is also the so called "New York style" compression which
> fills in the weak spots without squashing the loud parts.

Not gonna cure a soprano without control. And while it has the advantage of
not squashing the peaks - which is what it is about and why it is
recommendable for classical and natural recordings - it has the disadvantage
that most of the audio is processed most of the time. Some of the time it is
a better choice to apply local gain riding only, be it automatic or manual.

> Mark

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Peter Larsen wrote:
> "Les Cargill" > skrev i en meddelelse
> ...
>
>> Peter Larsen wrote:
>
>>> A well chosen local compression on just the peaky stuff tends to work
>>> better
>>> for me and to be less obviously audible than doing it manually and I'd
>>> rather have a problem with the dynamics than have the vocalist messing
>>> with
>>> my - via mic setup - configured ratio between direct and reflected sound
>>> by
>>> moving around.
>
>> Compression will alter the ratio between direct and reflected sound
>> anyway. You can't win :)
>
> You forgot to say track compression, then you're right.

Spot on, sir.

> I was talking about
> applying the - self designed - soprano control preset in my A3 for just the
> duration of - ahem - lack of control of dynamics. It is also the least harm
> when applied for the duration only to the track.
>

Interesting. That's a tougher job.

>> This being said, anymore I'd be likely to reach for compression unless
>> it's a small number of adjustments per song. I have a couple of plugins
>> that are pretty good at this. But it depends.
>
> Having a well isolated vocal track

I will almost always try to have this. For your work that's tougher.

> vs. having one that is not and where the
> gain relation between spot mike and main pair can not be changed for image
> stability - or only a main pair are different situations and what works best
> differs.
>

Right!

>> Les Cargill
>
> Kind regards
>
> Peter Larsen
>
>
>
--
Les Cargill