It's nice to have a good piece of work in your hands.

[Bob Womack]

I record and mix for a living. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day working with my latest project in the "time and tune" phase. Yep, aligning syllables in harmony parts and using Antares Autotune in manual mode to clean up the vocals. But the thing is, these were great vocals from the start.

I was working with two vocalists who were doing harmony but were recorded at two different times. I also had a group of about ten background vocalists who performed to a scratch vocal track. The young lady lead vocalist was well-trained and knew not to slide up to pitch. With her it was just moderating a tendency to overshoot slightly sharp at the head of the note. Well-trained vocalists are also trained not to let a held note sag at the end, and in attempt to prevent it may go a little sharpish. That's the technique, but it may clash a little with a harmony part. There was a little of that so I earned my keep. The male vocalista wasn't as well-trained but he was consistent. His tendency was to gently slide on and then stay just slightly flat. He had also been well-taught to dim or mute his initial and final consonants so they didn't clash with the lead vocalist's. That made the whole job easy and rewarding.

The point here is that I wasn't doing a salvage job but just adding the "sparkle" to take them from really good to outstanding, and that was a joy. With these jobs there is no pushing the envelope just to break even. By contrast, the really horrible jobs are those where you've got a marginal vocalist and you have to polish the performance to the point where it supposedly sounds great by pushing the software to its limits. Those jobs are where you end up with artifacts and, frankly leave the job site feeling dirty.

So it was a rewarding day's work.

Bob

[whiteshadow]

Out of interest, for all the vocalists you work with, what percentage impress you with their technical ability?

What genres of music do you produce normally?

[muscmp]

very good points for vocal technique.

thanks bob!

play music!

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by whiteshadow

Out of interest, for all the vocalists you work with, what percentage impress you with their technical ability?

Hmmm... Keep in mind that I work with everyone from national acts to local artists, operatic to hip hop, Jerome Hines to Johnny Cash to Joe Schmoe. Probably 15% impress me. Another 25% are easy to work with by virtue of talent and training and/or personality.

What genres of music do you produce normally?

I've done production work in rock, progressive, pop, blues, R&B, country, folk, classical, and jazz. I probably do more rock, progressive, and pop than anything else.

Bob

[mc1]

so there probably won't be a leaked warm up tape on youtube.

oh well, interesting story.

sometime you'll have to post your editing tips and tricks, i bet they would be pretty helpful.

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

... Keep in mind that I work with everyone from national acts to local artists, operatic to hip hop, Jerome Hines to Johnny Cash to Joe Schmoe....
I've done production work in rock, progressive, pop, blues, R&B, country, folk, classical, and jazz. I probably do more rock, progressive, and pop than anything else.

you could save a little time by writing that you haven't done much work with tibetan throat singers or modern polka artists.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by mc1

you could save a little time by writing that you haven't done much work with tibetan throat singers or modern polka artists.

Are you talking about the Tibetan Monks chanting? I've seen/heard a vid of that and it was a pretty amazing sound, that and the singing bowls.

[Bob Womack]

Well I've recorded Turkish Qanun:


and mixed a Nigerian Goje and talking drum band:



That's pretty exotic, no?

Bob

[mc1]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Are you talking about the Tibetan Monks chanting? I've seen/heard a vid of that and it was a pretty amazing sound, that and the singing bowls.

yes, this sort of thing:



i believe lhasa's best sound engineer considers this some of his finest work. j/k.