There
are many software’s that have emerged in the last two decades to revolutionize
the audio recording and mixing techniques.The most powerful of them all are Pro
Tools and Nuendo. We also have otherSoftwares such as cakewalk, sonar, Apple’s
soundtrack and so on. In some of the FM Radio stations Sony
Vega is also used. Each of them have their own plus and minus. Pro
tools is more of a sound software till the recent versions that have introduced
music programming tools and plug in instruments to compete the VST’s of Nuendo. With
so much of power at our finger tips, it is a common notion that anything can be
done with the software. But the reality is that software helps with tools that
can give you more control to record tracks, and arrange them sequentially to
design an audio. It also helps in visualizing sound using waveforms and
bandwidths. To get a good sound mix, it is essential that a sound recordist has
to take care in primary steps of recording the audio signal is weak or bad, the
entire mix can go bad. So ensure to record a clean and tight sound. Acoustic
corrections using onboard plug ins will further detiorate the sound signal.
Avoid hollow rooms, even walls while recording your voice. Also if you are
having a home studio, try to get one or make a horizontal V shaped portable
isolation booth, using acoustic foam. This is a very useful tool to avoid
hollowness of room acoustics. You can use a pop filter if you
are recording with amateurs, this helps in reducing the blows and pops of the
lips. But for those who have the liking for crispness and grain in voice, need
to avoid this filter. So record the voice absolutely flat without any tweaking
pre or post processing on software. Now that you have
recorded your voice with a good signal, work on the compression to tackle the
peaks and overshoots. Do not overCompress the voice, there are chances of
loosing the fine aspects of subtle expressions. Next is to use the Eq’s
effectively. Equalization is a very tricky area and it will
vary from singer to singer. Though the standard values for male and female
singers is identified on the bandwidth, each singer will have a certain tonal
quality which sounds good on some frequencies and not on some. Use the high
pass and low pass filters to isolate the voice on various bandwidths before you
actually finalize the settings. This helps you to identify the power of the
voice in various bands. It also depends on the song orchestration and the feel
for the song. For getting more presence play around with 6200 hertz, for sibilance,
use still higher frequencies, but be careful not to over do it. To avoid noisy
high frequency mixes, use a DE Esser for voice on the insert mode to filter the
ESSS sounds and avoid sibilance distorting your mixes. To cut on throat noises,
room ambience you can have a low cut on 100 hertz. After you
are done and happy with the voice EQ, the next challenging task will be to
color the voice with Reverb or delays or both. While using these effects,
always create a stereo bus, and apply reverb or delay to the selected track by
assigning desired level of the dry signal. The bus out will add a stereo reverb
to the mono voice signal and hence the dry and wet signals create a 3
dimensional effect. The above are some basic tips to enhance
your voice mix. Use them and experiment more to find the infinite possibilities
that make music an ocean
