How to mix a doubled vocal recording

 

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to talk about a common practice when recording vocals: if we want to put emphasis for example on a chrorus or on a verse part but we don't want to make it stand out too much using some vocal harmony, we can simply record twice the same vocal part (from the same singer) and play the 2 tracks together.

When is this used? It's a technique used to thicken the vocal part, raising it in volume and giving it a "Chorus-like" effect  but more realistic, less cold than a chorus, and it's very popular especially in genres like rap or death metal.

This technique is used also for another purpose: to hide the imprecisions, in facts usually for example when singing a melody, if one of the 2 vocal tracks is slightly out of tune it's likely that the other one is better, and in the mix of the 2, the perception is that the good one prevails.

Talking about tuning, we can use this technique instead of autotuning our vocal track, but if we really need to autotune it, it's better to do it only on the worst of the 2 tracks, because if we would do it on both the result would sound a bit too "robotic" and noticeable.

When mixing these 2 vocals I suggest to route them in a single vocal buss and treat them as they were one single voice, so they should share eq and compression, but the level of the individual tracks may vary according to your taste (just consider that if one of the 2 is too low compared to the other one, though, the comp woud probably not affect it).

At the end of the chain then we can put a Limiter with as ceiling the maximum level reachable from the main vocal track, so that the final result will be a thicker vocal line but the volume will remain consistent, considering that otherwise the volume might double in some parts since the gain would build up in some frequency area.

I hope this was helpful!

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Review: Vadim Taranov Raven Volcanic (with video sample and free VST download)

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to review a new VST amp simulator from the producer Vadim Taranov: Raven Volcanic!

This free plugin seems to be the emulation of the boutique amp Omega Ampworks Obsidian, and boy it sounds good!

The Raven Volcanic plugin is a 2.5 channels head, which means 3 channels with the rhythm and lead channel that share the same eq (the clean one has a separate eq section), and which offers also a power amp section with the equivalent of the usual Depth and Resonance controls present in, for example, the Peavey 5150.

The 2 overdrive channels also share 2 vocing switches, one for the voicing of the mid frequencies, one for the voicing of the high ones, allowing us to fine tune our tone by making it more or less scooped.

In the video sample I have used this amp sim both for the rhythm guitars and for the lead one (obviously the lead one had different settings), and I must say the amp responds very well, it has an enormous amount of gain and it doesn't need a booster even to go into death metal territories, if the guitar pickups have a decent output.

All in all, in the recent years free plugin creators seems really to have taken a quality leap, between Vadim Taranov, NaLex and Ignite amps, allowing really anyone to have fun playing and recording with the computer, and I can only suggest you to try out this amazing piece of software and pair it with some quality impulse response, it will grant you hours of killer chugs.

Thumbs up!

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How to use Ping Pong delay to give a sense of depth to a sound

 

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to talk about an interesting, creative use of delay (click here for a dedicated article): the ping pong effect, in a particular way used by some producer to add a nice sense of depth to a tone, especially vocals, but it can also be used on guitars (for example a clean arpeggio or a solo).

Let's start with the definition: a Ping Pong delay is a type of delay that sends the repetitions of a signal on the right and left side alternatively, like it's a ping pong ball.

In order to do this we are going to need a stereo delay plugin (often there is one also bundled directly in our DAW), and usually the interface of this type of plugin features controls to dial specific settings for each channel. 

Instead of using it as a normal stereo delay with ping pong effect (the same type of delay that bounces from left to right), we can add a more 3d effect by using a different time signature between the left and right channel, so that the sound does not bounce back and forth evenly (this is a technique used for example by The Edge, the guitarist of U2):

- we can try to set the repetitions of our vocal track in triplets on one side and in quadruplets on the other, using the same tempo.

- we can try to offset the repetitions by setting for example the time signature in 3/16th of note on one side and 1/8th of note on the other.

- we can try (but this is slightly more risky in terms of result) to detach the sync with the project tempo and set the 2 sides at 2 different bpm.

Any solution we choose, since the result can be easily messy/overwhelming, it's a good practice to filter out some low end, maybe to effect only the tone from 800hz/1khz up, and to not overdo with the mix knob: just a little amount goes a long way, we want to add a 3d effect, not to overshadow the main vocal track.

I hope this was helpful!

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NaLex Ampex review (free VST plugin with video sample)

 

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to review a new free guitar and bass amp simulator which is produced by NaLex and which incorporates the models of their other single VST plugins in one: the Amplex!

This plugin is defined by the producer as "guitar tube multiamp", and it recreates a head composed by a preamp section, with gain and eq, and a power amp section, with "power amp" (which is the power amp level control, and even if increased mantains the output volume constant), presence and resonance.

Besides these basic controls the particularity of this plugin is the fact that it can load presets (and comes with many presets bundled), each one of which corresponds to a particular guitar amp (for example the rhythm channel of a 5150, the clean channel of a Fender Twin, or the overdrive channel of an Ampeg bass amp).

Here is the list of the amps simulated, and for each one of them there are usually two or more presets, each one recreating a channel (for example clean and overdrive):

2120 is Peavey 5150 style
Barbarian is Engl Savage style
Bass is Ampeg SVT style
Citrus CR120 is Orange OR120 style
Crunchman is Friedman BE-100 style
Firecube is Engl Fireball style
Four is Diezel VH4 style
Gerbert III is Diezel Herbert CH-3 style
Hell is Randall Satan style
Hot Dog is BadCat Hot Cat style
J800 is Marshall JCM800 style
J800 Lead is Marshall JCM800 Lead Series style
Ketchup is Tomato style
Magic is Crate BV style
Pectifier is Mesa Rectifier style
Revolt is Krank Revolution style
SV is Carvin Legacy style
Twin Clean is Fender Twin style
Uber is Bogner Ubershall style
ZLO is Soldano SLO style

I'm really surprised of how good this amp sim sounds, especially considering that it's free: it is versatile, sounds very realistic, honestly I don't see differences with most of the paid amp simulators on the market (obvioustly excluding the 2 or 3 cutting edge high end ones) and also stable, even if it's not the lightest on the cpu, when loaded on a stereo buss.

I suggest all of you to check it out, it might just be what you were looking for, especially for rock and metal, but there are enough models here to get good tones also for any other genre.

Thumbs up!

Specs taken from the website:


- Controls:

- Gain - input level knob

- Bass - tone knob

- Middle - tone knob

- Treble - tone knob

- Power Amp - power amp level knob (level stabilized input/output)

- Low End - tone knob (resonance)

- Presence - tone knob

- Volume - output level knob

- Stereo - mono or stereo switch

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How guitar amp, stompbox and cabinet simulators affect the harmonics of a tone

 

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today's topic has been suggested me by my friend Carlo from Ignite Amps, and it involves using a spectrum analysis tool to see the changes that occur in our tone with the various types of plugin that can be used in our guitar chain.

The first picture, the one on top, is a sine wave generated from Presonus Studio One, the most neutral sound I could come up with, and in this second image we can see what happens if we pass it through an overdrive (the Ignite Tyrant Screamer, the settings of all the plugins are at noon): you can see the solid state style distortion produced, which creates harmonics in a regular, repetitive way.

In this third picture we see our sine wave passing through a tube power amp simulator (the Ignite TPA-1), notice that the harmonic increase is not as dramatic as per the overdrive, but this addition makes the tone warmer and fuller thanks to the tube emulation.

In the fourth picture, the one below, you can see what happens if we pass our sine wave through a preamp, the Ignite NRR-1; here we can see a more noticeable change, especially in the high end.

In this fourth picture you can see the result of summing up the overdrive, the preamp and the power amp: the harmonics add up, and if you look closely for example you can see graphically the overdrive ones and the preamp ones.

Finally one of the most important steps, which once again changes dramatically the tone: the cabinet simulator (in this case Lancaster Audio Pulse, using its stock IR):  the change is significant, because the IR applies its own EQ curve, in this case lowering the high end and gives the tone its final touch in order to sound realistic.

Obviously I have used a sine wave because it's easier to show graphically, if you will repeat this experiment using your guitar tone it will look different, but I have made this article to focus on two things: the importance of a power amp, compared to when someone puts a virtual preamp directly into a cabinet simulator, and to show how drastic are the changes performed by the cabinet simulator.

I hope this helps!

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