sticks and stones -vox help

[Glenn Mitchell]

This sounded ok on the headphones but the VOX comes out muddy on the MP3 and over my computer speakers.
What settings would you do to help the vox become clearer?
I suspect it might be EQ'ing but would be clueless about what frequencies etc to adjust.
1. Is it EQ I'm looking at?
2. What changes?
3. What FX or Bounce or Master settings would you use to get into these settings?
Thanks guys.

[xicpanad]

Well,I must say this is a great song. I really enjoyed listening this right in the morning. About the voice, what effects did you use? I always sing with the ForNylon effect, and it´s been working good. I´ve learned that volume, proximity to the MBR and even the room where you are influence the outcome.
Cheers

[Geir]

Cool performance first of all !!!

How did you record the vox? built-in or stereo-mic ?  If stereo, it could be some phase-canceling phenomena going on.

You also sound a bit far away. Best result for vox is as close as possible to the mic, if the sound gets too full you can always remove some low end.

I would try to turn off any reverb and add some more low freq to the eq of the vox

Did you use fx while recording? if so try recording without and experiment adding it afterwards.

I guess you knew all this !!

[Greeny]

There's a nice little reggae bounce to this. The music sounds clear and bright, but the vocals do sound like they're underwater or something. I'd try a different effect - ForNylon would be a good start, because it has a bit of echo and space that could work with this song. It might be a case of re-recording the vox if they don't clear up. And if they don't, it may be that you need to be closer to the mic. Great vocal and singing though!!!!

[The Reverend 48]

This is just great.the music is spot on.....
 and I love the vocals but the vox needs sorting but I'm a numpty so I don't know where to start......
Please post again cos I want this in my car!!

[Bluesberry]

Hey there Glen, here is an vocal idea that I found called "exciting compressor"  Here is the link:http://www.recordingwebsite.com/rwtip/archive/rw68.html.

The basic idea is to take your vocal track, copy it over to a second track.  Now leave the first track alone (natural vocal), just add some reverb.  Take the second track and master it with lots of compression and lots of high frequency EQ (no reverb).  Now blend these two together (no panning), let the natural vocal be the loudest part, and bring up the compressed, high EQ one in the mix to suit.  I have tried this myself and was very happy with the results.  It keeps your vocal real natural sounding, but brings up the clarity and punch of your vocals 100%.  It really made a big difference to my voice doing this, I tend to have a bit of a muddy voice also.  Give it a try, play around with it, it is a cool way to bring your voice up in the mix without relying on effects too much (keeps the natural sounding voice). 

[Bluesberry]

Oh by the way, very cool song Glen.  I like it.

[Glenn Mitchell]

Thanks guys. Just the stuff I needed.
I was experimenting with guitar FX on the vox on this one.
I recorded dry and bounced the vox track only with a customized P77 Piezzo.
It sounded great by itself but did not survive the mastering.
I'll try the various ideas and in particular BB's Exciting Compressor.

One discovery on this song was I felt that the rhythm of the tracks were greatly enhanced by ensuring any digital delays were always a multiple of the basic drum track.
EG this song was at 70 BPM so other tracks had 280 (70x4) or 560(70 x for example

[Bluesberry]

Great idea about the delay settings, I wasn't aware of this tip.  Thanks.

[Facemask93]

Nice song ,an all round great performance , i agree with the others on the vox , but still excellent , nice one , keep em coming.




Facemask93