Lil Jon Crunk Vocals, mixing/recording big shouted rap

[wrymann]

I'm trying to achieve that big & loud crunk vocal sound. Yes, they're yelling loud into the mic... They're also mixing it wide and full. Serious processing going on. My experience is mostly in metal vocals, in which much of the bigness of the sound is in the guitars. In this music, the vocals are as big as metal guitars, but obviously the process is different. What do you hear going on with this vocal sound?

(btw, I'm recording myself with an SM7b)

Examples:
Lil Jon - Outta Your Mind ft. LMFAO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=041h-1_5yfo

Lil Jon and The East Side Boys - Rep Your City W/Lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H1q-aXOkM8

And for that matter, what about crunk gang vocals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYH7_GzP4Tg

[Gregg Juke]

Yo, yo, lissen, yo. Yeeee-ay, da's right, I set yo yo yo yo!
Ya'll betta come correck, we gotchou all in check, yo.

OK, sorry. I'd place the vocal forward on the mike. I'd place the vocal forward in the mix, without having it feel disconnected from the rest of the track. The "gang vox" (ironic) sound like the regular straight-up lead vocal-- multi-tracked several times, or at least copied, cut & pasted multiple times (make sure you move each vocal off a few ticks on the timeline, to achieve the correct effect, but watch/listen for comb-filtering). When Quincy and Bruce were recording Michael Jackson doing multiple vocals and back-ups using an SM7, they had him move around, back and forward and a little off-axis for various takes, to get the perception of depth/different space on each vocal; you could try something like that too.

You could try a whisper track or two. And one of them sounded like some dub-reggae delay-delay-delay-lay-lay was implemented; you could play with that as well.

Compress the snot out of it (to taste), and Voila!

GJ

[wrymann]

Thanks!

When Quincy and Bruce were recording Michael Jackson doing multiple vocals and back-ups using an SM7, they had him move around, back and forward and a little off-axis for various takes, to get the perception of depth/different space on each vocal

Now that's good advice! Got more?

Before I read your suggestion, I tried some stuff last night that worked pretty well. Triple tracked the vocal, panned hard left, center, and hard right. And time aligned all the consonants. Used some heavy pumping compression on the L & R tracks (about -35db at 5:1 ratio). And then an L2 plugin on the center vocal to bring it more forward.

Any more suggestions?

[Gregg Juke]

Sounds like you have a good handle on it.

>>>>Triple tracked the vocal, panned hard left, center, and hard right. And time aligned all the consonants.<<<<

Maybe this will help. It all depends on your approach, and I've used this primarily for lead with background vocals, rather than multiple lead vocals, but here's a pretty old-school technique that could keep you from spending hours time-aligning consonants:

When singing back-ups, harmonies, or phrasing with an already locked-in/comped lead vocal, skip the consonants at the end of phrases (like esses [s] or tees [t]), or at the beginning of phrases as necessary. Example-- First line says "Oh baby, it's you I want, always," but you're having trouble matching the phrase just right with subsequent vocals due to consonants not "closing" at the same time on various tracks. One way that can help is to sing subsequent lines as "Oh baby, it you I want, alway." Or if necessary-- "Oh baby, ih you I wahn, alway." If you drop those hard sounds, or at least trail-off/really de-emphasize them in subsequent vocal takes, they often blend a lot better. Let the lead vocal, or the initial back-up vocal act as your "enunciation track."

This is counter-intuitive to how we are taught to sing, so it takes some practice. But it really does work, and I've even transferred the practice from the studio to live choir situations (much to the choir members' chagrin), and it can work real well with live vocals too, with certain phrasings. No joke.

GJ

[lionaudio]

Besides the triple tracking, the thing that makes the vocals sound so huge to me, especially on "outta yer mind" is the fact that there is nothing else taking up that space. You hear that grimey bass hit, then it's just pure crushing vocal. It's all relative, so imagine if the instrumentation were this big, busy multi-layered thing. The vocals wouldn't be nearly as huge

[goose134]

Sounds like you have a good handle on it.

>>>>Triple tracked the vocal, panned hard left, center, and hard right. And time aligned all the consonants.<<<<

Maybe this will help. It all depends on your approach, and I've used this primarily for lead with background vocals, rather than multiple lead vocals, but here's a pretty old-school technique that could keep you from spending hours time-aligning consonants:

When singing back-ups, harmonies, or phrasing with an already locked-in/comped lead vocal, skip the consonants at the end of phrases (like esses [s] or tees [t]), or at the beginning of phrases as necessary. Example-- First line says "Oh baby, it's you I want, always," but you're having trouble matching the phrase just right with subsequent vocals due to consonants not "closing" at the same time on various tracks. One way that can help is to sing subsequent lines as "Oh baby, it you I want, alway." Or if necessary-- "Oh baby, ih you I wahn, alway." If you drop those hard sounds, or at least trail-off/really de-emphasize them in subsequent vocal takes, they often blend a lot better. Let the lead vocal, or the initial back-up vocal act as your "enunciation track."

This is counter-intuitive to how we are taught to sing, so it takes some practice. But it really does work, and I've even transferred the practice from the studio to live choir situations (much to the choir members' chagrin), and it can work real well with live vocals too, with certain phrasings. No joke.

GJ

+1 on this. It really worked well for a consonant heavy harmony I was recording with a friend.
It also seems like the production was REAL active with the panning of vocal parts. Sometimes with a lot of emphasis on a particular bass hit, other times strictly for the movement.
Lord knows it was the only thing of interest to me.