Looking for something to add some dirt to vocals

[stupid_life]

That's right... I record a lot of hardcore punk bands and I'm looking for something to add some extra gravel to male vocals. Probably a compressor or limiter I'm thinking?

Since this is the only function I'm really looking for it to serve I don't want to spend a whole lot of money, can anyone recommend me something that would serve this function well? New or used equipment, old or new....

[thethingwiththestuff]

sure, you're going to want to compress and/or limit it, and you can do so pretty aggressively, but for real "dirt" run a duplicate through a guitar amp and mix it in.

[digitaldrummer]

transformers!

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=73795

[Sean Sullivan]

This may sound crazy, but we have this little Behringer 1 mic input Euromixer at Gear for Days and if you turn the gain to max it has his ridiculous distortion that reminds me of screamo/hardcore vocals. I can just breath into the microphone and it sounds insane.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to post a clip.

[Matt C.]

for real "dirt" run a duplicate through a guitar amp and mix it in.

agreed. this has always worked well for me. just make sure to listen closely for any phase issues.

whenever i try to do this with a compressor, the result is usually more subtle than i want. with the compressors i have at least, once you push it into the realm of serious dirt, you end up with a lot of pumping and breathing artifacts that make it pretty unusable.

[Gebo]

I have a few different things that I use, some were cheap and some weren't.

I have a Sebatron preamp that can overdrive really well. The input has a three position switch that basically goes from clean to broken up to overdrive. It's a tube unit, so i usually set it to break up when the singer belts but stays kind of clean most of the time.

I also have am mxr dual limiter which works really well when you cascade the channels together.

I have an old yamaha pa mixer (the model with the built in drum machine). This also works well cadcaded into it's self.

The overdrive plugin in logic also works really really well.

[kslight]

If you want software Amplitube works well and you don't make any "committed" decisions by destroying the vocal on the way in. Not only that but it's pretty good for adding dirt to anything, I use it on keys and bass all the time. T Racks clipper can also be used this way.

For hardware obviously reamping is effective but sometimes a bit hard sounding. Overdriving and cascading tube compressors is a popular way to do it (that is exactly how KMFDM does it). I personally feel that less is more for distorting vocals...which is why compressors work better than dirt pedals IMHO.

[stupid_life]

transformers!

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=73795

'

Not the type of distortion I'm looking for. As much as I'd love to own some of those trafo's please don't plug shit you're selling in my thread...

[stupid_life]

sure, you're going to want to compress and/or limit it, and you can do so pretty aggressively, but for real "dirt" run a duplicate through a guitar amp and mix it in.

Good idea.. I've used some guitar fuzz plugins (I use reaper) which can be good sometimes, especially since I don't have to commit immediately. Here's the thing though - sometimes I will used delay as a vocal effect for bands that are extremely chaotic and noisy in a sort of psychedelic way. If I just use it as a FX chain distortion>delay I pretty much always get feedback that makes the distortion unusable. I guess I could just duplicate the track in software, put distortion on one and delay on the other and mix those 2 signals into a mono bus?

If I send the vocal signal into an amplifier I will probably have to build a box to attenuate the signal to guitar level or purchase a re-amp right? Could putting a line level signal into a guitar amp actually damage it or would it just drive the preamp stage harder?

Thanks guys. Getting stuff moving!

[stupid_life]

This may sound crazy, but we have this little Behringer 1 mic input Euromixer at Gear for Days and if you turn the gain to max it has his ridiculous distortion that reminds me of screamo/hardcore vocals. I can just breath into the microphone and it sounds insane.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to post a clip.

You should totally post a clip!!!!! I could borrow a similar crappy behringer mixer from a friend I've let borrow mics before, and just run a duplicate signal into it and mix to taste.

[stupid_life]

This may sound crazy, but we have this little Behringer 1 mic input Euromixer at Gear for Days and if you turn the gain to max it has his ridiculous distortion that reminds me of screamo/hardcore vocals. I can just breath into the microphone and it sounds insane.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to post a clip.

You should totally post a clip!!!!! I could borrow a similar crappy behringer mixer from a friend I've let borrow mics before, and just run a duplicate signal into it and mix to taste.

[Nick Sevilla]

Please define "Gravel"...

Is it road gravel made of asphalt, or small stones?

Or is it made of pumice stone, or other volcanic rock?

Making gravel sounds is not easy, if you do not know the sort of gravel you are needing.

Logical

[thethingwiththestuff]

for me, in that situation, i'd have a clean/compressed track and a reamped track, and send each of them (or one or the other, or whatever works best..) to a delay set on an aux send, not as an insert.

when reamping, use your output fader to keep the level to the amp low, and you'll be fine. if you want, get a proper reamp box to match impedances, but in the end, the impedance police don't care about small potatoes like us.

[calaverasgrandes]

I've had good results with older TOA rackmount mixers. Total white noise transistor clipping. The old radio shack mixers with the VU meters do this pretty good as well, I've even noticed a lot of noise acts using those?!
I like the infamous PM180 for this, but it really only works if you use a high gain LDC that can really pummel the input.
On prerecorded tracks I've done a few where we multed the vocal through a realtube rack unit that had a starve-plate-voltage knob. The crispy sound those get (which I usually dont like on anything) was good for giving a slightly buried vocal some edge. It was blended with a clean voc from tape of course.

My other favorite trick and I surely didnt invent this, is to mic a crappy Peavey PA speaker from about 10 feet back. That is the sound of Punk/Hardcore vocals that we all grew up on! Especially if you have the peavey head and can run it into DDT compression.
I also think that distorted vocals like vocoded vocals are kind of difficult to get right and usually require a blend with clean vox to sound intelligible.

[eeldip]

bellari mp105 gain up.

try that guitar amp in the room while the guy is singing, feedback!

a million distortion plugs, i like +chebyshev for free.

rat pedal.