scrunched AM type vocal sound

bannerj · Post by **bannerj** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:57 am

I know you can get this with some EQ and even some plugins...but everything i have tried sounds cheesy. I even did the record to a dictaphone/answering machine thing...and nothing.

I want something scrunchy or almost old for a vocal sound. Any cheap mic reccomendations? or is there some compressor/limiter I should try?

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:25 am

What are you recording to? Compress heavily, extreme highpass and lowpass, smash with a limiter. Use a limiter that distorts when you hit it really hard, like an L1 or 1176 type. Remember that AM radio and telephones tend to have peaks around the center of the human hearing range (1-2k) so boost that area. You may also try some sansamp or other distortion.

bannerj · Post by **bannerj** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:25 pm

I'll give these things a try. Mics?

I can record to both tape or digital.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:16 pm

IME, any mic will work since your goal is to fuck it up. Two thoughts along those lines:

1) a shittier-sounding mic will get you partway there in the first place, so use a Radio shack Highball or an SM57 or the cheapest piece of crap mic you have.

OR

2) if you're trying to simulate an announcer on AM radio, or even pre-recorded music on AM radio, you're simulating a well-mixed (hopefully) recording or a dude talking into a broadcast-quality mic that have THEN been sent through some unforgiving, crappy electronics like broadcast limiting and amplitude modulation and then bounced off the ionosphere. So go ahead and use a nice mic and then apply all the layers of crud. Generally this is the approach I take because my clients are inclined to change their mind halfway through the process and go back to wanting it to sound pristine. YMMV.

kakumei47 · Post by **kakumei47** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:52 pm

i tried doing something similar (band wanted a litening to the radio in the 50's vocal sound for an intro) with the speaker presets in Altiverb. Came out too "shiny" but with some filtering and comp it was alright.
izotope makes a plugin called "vinyl" that has some interesting effects. it has some eq/filtering thing where you can select decades (like 30's, 40's 60's etc) and speed (33-78rpm). this is free and occasionally usable here and there.
maybe not what you're going for exactly....

nlmd311 · Post by **nlmd311** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:47 pm

If you have a soldering iron, head over to RadioShack and buy a few different size Piezo buzzers. Buy a 1/4" TS jack or two and have fun. Easy and fun way to get a similar sound. I have used the one I made on a few recordings and never get tired of it. Best $3 I've spent that I can recall right now. Once you find the size that translate the sound you are looking for, try a few different housings... a coffee can, an old plastic cup, anything you can think of, or just leave it alone. I cut the bottom out of a Yoplait yogurt cup and taped it on the underside. Boosts the mids even more. And it's fun giving someone a yogurt cup and telling them to sing into it, or mic'ing up a bass cab or an acoustic guitar with it.

As far as EQ, try pretty much everything the others have mentioned. A serious low-cut, mid-boost and hi roll off will probably get you there.

There is a plug-in called dfx "polarizer" that I found through www.kvr-vst.com a few years ago. A lot of fun for crunching up sources.
Try a few amp sims, and compression along with the above mentioned EQ.

Fun!

-Darrill

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:09 pm

Wah-wah pedal at some constant set level of wah-ness?

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:40 pm

nlmd311 wrote:If you have a soldering iron, head over to RadioShack and buy a few different size Piezo buzzers. Buy a 1/4" TS jack or two and have fun. Easy and fun way to get a similar sound. I have used the one I made on a few recordings and never get tired of it. Best $3 I've spent that I can recall right now. Once you find the size that translate the sound you are looking for, try a few different housings... a coffee can, an old plastic cup, anything you can think of, or just leave it alone. I cut the bottom out of a Yoplait yogurt cup and taped it on the underside. Boosts the mids even more. And it's fun giving someone a yogurt cup and telling them to sing into it, or mic'ing up a bass cab or an acoustic guitar with it.

awesome, I am gonna have to do that.

earth tones · Post by **earth tones** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:41 pm

Mark Pirro's Copperphone.

http://www.placidaudio.com/

lapsteel · Post by **lapsteel** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:36 am

try a shitty computer mic

bannerj · Post by **bannerj** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:49 am

cetanorak wrote:Mark Pirro's Copperphone.

http://www.placidaudio.com/

the shutting down of DFW is really funny

NewAndImprov · Post by **NewAndImprov** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:34 pm

If you have an iPod, you could use one of those cheap low range iPod transmitters to broadcast the track to a crappy radio and mic that.

soundofsingles · Post by **soundofsingles** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:37 pm

NewAndImprov wrote:If you have an iPod, you could use one of those cheap low range iPod transmitters to broadcast the track to a crappy radio and mic that.

I actually did this on a song already, but I ran the whole 2-track mix to the transmitter and mic'ed my 15 year old boom box with a pair of Rhode NT4s and it still needed some squashing. It was fun taking this track to the mastering engineer and watching his expression.

Phiz · Post by **Phiz** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:56 pm

NewAndImprov wrote:If you have an iPod, you could use one of those cheap low range iPod transmitters to broadcast the track to a crappy radio and mic that.

This is rather nit-picky, but those transmitters are FM, which will distort in different ways than an AM system.

high five · Post by **high five** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 5:25 am

I have a cheap ($30?) digital voice recorder made by Sony, for taking notes or recording lectures. The sound quality is terrible, but I've used it when it was the only thing available, and it sounds like some jazz recording from the 30's. Turned out to be pretty cool sounding... nothing above 4-5kHz.

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