Mixing vocals in 'parallel'

[losthighway]

Hi all. I just wanted to share something different I did in a mix session yesterday that seemed kind of handy. I often work with musicians who want to hear the vocals overdriven and have discovered dozens of ways to dirty vocals ranging from "old-timey AM" to fuzzy mayhem.

The problem is I usually print the dirty vocals during some pre-mix phase of the project and sometimes what seemed just enough that day turns out to be a little over the top, or just imparting some less desirable eq tendencies on the vocal sound. Printing new dirty vocals all over, especially on a full length, is time consuming.

What I did yesterday is I did a mult of the vocals one clean with some tube compression and the other channel through some dirt box and a gritty spring reverb. Then when setting the vocals into the mix I could play between the volume of these two and get more or less grit. The clean one sitting in there helped intelligibility even on the more saturated moments, and sending the mult at the same time meant that their phase relationship was solid and didn't require any sliding in the DAW.

[suppositron]

That's a nice way to retain more control. Pretty much any effect I use on vocals I bus to an aux track and "mix in parallel".

[losthighway]

Yeah, I guess it's a pretty obvious choice. Most everyone does it for reverb. I suppose I had a block in my head from being a guitarist with distortion boxes: It is all dirtied, or all clean, not two signals. It's funny how we have these little break-throughs by doing something that takes 30 seconds to patch and an hour to think about how I should have been doing it years ago.

[suppositron]

I know what you're saying. You never think of blending wet and dry with distrotion but it's a nice way to add dirt to vocals but still keep up with the clarity.

I guess I got the idea from reading an article about how the vocals for The Mars Volta were tracked: with a 58 next to the condenser just for running through effects. They use some really crazy effects on vocals but you can still understand the lyrics.

[vvv]

I do this sometimes just for the clarity.

I'll use a parallel EQ that's high passed at mebbe 250Hz and hyped at like 4kHz, and smashed, and bring it up under a vocal track that seems kinda muddy in the mix.

'Twas a great day I learned about parallel processing!

[Gregg Juke]

I've done that with an alto-sax lead that was a "foreground/background" part (an importnat line but subservient to the lead vocal).

One track clean, the other with just a little bit of tube distortion to fatten it up. Blend to taste.

GJ

[T-rex]

I just did this last night; main vox through an LA2A and the vocal double through a Level-or.

[gustavobill]

Do you distort the vocals on tracking? what do you use to dirty it?

I normally do doubles, triples or quadruples tracks and choose a few tracks to fuck up, but I do it ITB. I'm getting good results, but definetly not great results.

[vvv]

I distort 'em post tracking, nearly always.

I use plug-ins, from CEP's built-in, to VSTs - guitar and amp plugins, or "warmer" type stuff. There are tons of 'em for free, or you can buy 'em; most (all?) DAWs have some built in.

I find that, for just adding edge to vocals, a severe high-pass (even as high as 500Hz, depending) and then bring the distorted track up under the main, mebbe just slightly panned away(12:00 vs. 12:05) can work well.

Often, I'll effect the lead vocal with a time-based thing (delay, reverb, whatever) and leave the distorted alone, or add just a little of whatever global reverb ...

[gustavobill]

I distort 'em post tracking, nearly always.

I use plug-ins, from CEP's built-in, to VSTs - guitar and amp plugins, or "warmer" type stuff. There are tons of 'em for free, or you can buy 'em; most (all?) DAWs have some built in.

I find that, for just adding edge to vocals, a severe high-pass (even as high as 500Hz, depending) and then bring the distorted track up under the main, mebbe just slightly panned away(12:00 vs. 12:05) can work well.

Often, I'll effect the lead vocal with a time-based thing (delay, reverb, whatever) and leave the distorted alone, or add just a little of whatever global reverb ...

thats exactly what i do! even the 500hz high pass! heheh

[losthighway]

Do you distort the vocals on tracking? what do you use to dirty it?

I normally do doubles, triples or quadruples tracks and choose a few tracks to fuck up, but I do it ITB. I'm getting good results, but definetly not great results.

I have never liked the idea of distortion in the box. There are all kinds of great ways to dirty up a vocal:

-Reamp to a tube guitar amp and mic it.
-Overdrive a Symetrix 501
-Reamp through a guitar distortion or fuzz box
-Send through a Deltalab Effectron with all the buttons out and the input cranked
-Send to my practice space PA with the input clipping and mic a speaker.

The thing I've learned is once you're reamping and micing you are getting inconsistent results with the last time you've done it. The gain structure, and the settings on the amp which I don't recall, along with mic placement means that it usually ends up sounding different than last time I did it. Some times it doesn't quite hit the spot and adjustment, or method switch is necessary (I suppose this is true in any action you take while mixing).

[thethingwiththestuff]

-Send through a Deltalab Effectron with all the buttons out and the input cranked

yes! that distortion sounds awesome on guitar and vocals.

[Jeff White]

-Send through a Deltalab Effectron with all the buttons out and the input cranked

yes! that distortion sounds awesome on guitar and vocals.

*Adds Effectron to the ever-growing list of cool used outboard that he must have, laughs in a purely evil way*

[T-rex]

Yes the distortion from that box does rule!

[palinilap]

I like reamping through a RAT (sometimes RAT > PM1K DI), and blending that with the dry vocal. I love the simplicity of the RAT's filter.