Saturation plugins model analogue tape saturation, which sounds a bit like very gentle and soft overdrive. It is often used on lead vocals, and is a useful effect for buss mixes, and even on master mixes. If you don’t have a dedicated saturation plugin to try out, have a look at our Taphead review which is a free saturation plugin from Massey and very easy to get to grips with.

Here are a few ways that you can use saturation in your mixes, on lead vocals and drums.

Lead Vocals

Most modern vocal recording techniques are designed to keep the vocal sounding as clean and crisp as possible, to help it stand out in a mix. To give a vocal part more character you can very quickly and easily reproduce the old ‘analogue sound’, by adding the sound of tape saturation. It works particularly well on lead vocals because it adds subtle harmonics as the audio gently distorts which give the vocal some grittiness, and also adds some of the ‘analogue warmth’ which helps sit the vocal into the mix nicely.

Saturation naturally works on the louder parts of the audio, which can be a problem for vocals as they tend to vary in level quite a lot and you will hear the saturation coming in and out a lot. To solve this, send the vocal to a second channel in the mix window (either with an aux send or by duplicating the audio onto a new track). Then use a compression plugin on the second channel with a fast attack, a high ratio and a soft knee. This compression will level out the vocal for you, so now when you put the saturation plugin on the new vocal channel, you will get a much more even tone. You can now balance the analogue warmth of the saturated vocal against the original vocal in the mix window, usually just a small amount is enough.

This can be extremely effective on the second part of doubled tracked vocals.

Drum Overheads

Saturation sounds great on drums, but like vocals it will be most noticeable on the loud parts of the audio, in this case the initial drum hits. Only having the actual hits saturate will soften the attack of the drums but won’t really change the overall tone very much because it is only effective for such a short period of time. An easy way to add more colour is to compress just the drum overheads, and then use the saturation effect on them. Alternatively, you can duplicate the drum mix and then compress and saturate that to mix the effect back in, in a more controlled way.

Master Fader

Saturation can also be used on the final mix. It’s a really great way to add some grittiness to the overall sound of a recording, or to make it sound old and analogue, but be very sparing with it as a little really does go a long way.

The post How To Use Saturation appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Recording “double tracked” vocal parts are simply two vocal recordings of the same part played back simultaneously, a simple technique but very reliant on the ability of the singer. Here’s our guide to double tracking.

Why Double Track Vocals?

Double tracking is used as an effect similar to a vocal delay, to add weight and texture to a lead vocal part and blend it into the mix. You could use this to add some substance to backing vocals – but unless it’s for a specific effect with its own place in a mix, the effect isn’t prominent and can get lost easily.

You can use it to highlight sections of a song, such as a verse or even shorter phrases. This works really nicely as it’s fairly subtle and your average listener probably won’t notice a big difference – just more ‘presence’ of the lead vocal.

The Recording Process

Most of the time you can just treat the doubled part exactly the same as lead vocal, and let the doubled part itself add color to the mix. If you want to add more texture and interest, try using a different microphone for the doubled part.

Recording the lead vocal part with a large diaphragm condenser mic, and then with a dynamic microphone for the doubled track will bring out different qualities of the singer’s voice, and it will blend into the mix nicely – ideal if you don’t want the effect to be too prominent.

In the studio, make sure that the singer can hear some of the original vocal take in their headphones during the double tracking, so they have something to match to. Finding the right balance of the original vocal against the current take in the singer’s monitors is tricky but worth spending time on, as it will make the process easier for the vocalist.

The Performance Process

You have to bear in mind that some some singers can double track, and some can’t. It requires the singer to very closely match the original take, allowing the interest to come from the tiniest differences between the two takes. To help you know if it’s going to work well, during the recording keep mind that the two parts should sound interchangeable (so you could edit from one to the other mid-phrase) but not absolutely identical.

This means your singer needs to be well rehearsed and know exactly what they are going to sing before they record the first take.

If your singer can’t match the original take closely enough, break the song up and use the effect to highlight verses or specific phrases.

The Mixing Process

If you have a great singer, you can use the double tracked parts at the same level as each other. Panning them centrally will give you a similar effect to a short vocal delay, and panning them slightly wider will give some natural width to the vocal part.

If you can’t match the two takes closely, use the doubled part to support the lead vocal. Having it a slightly lower level than the lead part will help the lead to blend into the mix, without becoming too distracting from the main vocal part.

[original image via Ibrahim]

The post Double Tracking Vocals appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Massey Plugins inc. are our favourite plugin designers – because they are very high value for very low money.

They have been slaving away at converting their much loved plugins from the Pro Tools specific rtas format to vst – which is great news as it is much more widely used across the various recording and mixing software.

Available VST Plugins

Tapehead: models analogue tape saturation

CT5: a superb stereo compressor and limiter

and most recently;

VT3: a 3 band eq with an outstanding high-end

We’re not quite sure what’s next in line for transformation, but we hope it’s the superb L2007 limiter.

For all those Pro Tools users who are considering upgrading to version 11 when it’s released, but don’t want to lose their Massey plugins – Don’t Worry! Massey have told us they are currently working on AAX plugin versions to make them compatible with the new Pro Tools, as well as new VST3 versions.

Go Try Them

Massey give you unlimited use of a free version of every plugin they release, with added functionality if you upgrade to a paid (but cheap) version. You can try them all out here, all the vst versions listed above as well as every one of the original rtas versions, such as their unique Drum Replacement Tools v2 (DRT2) which is an absolute get out of jail free card in our opinion – and you should try it.

The post Massey Plugins – Progress Report appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Today we review the Massey VT3 eq plugin, and it’s been very easy as it’s the simplest eq plugin we have ever used. It has been available in rtas format for a while, and has recently been released in the much more commonly used vst format!.

Functionality

As you can see, there are three dials; bass, mid and treble with a healthy -20 to +20 dB range available to each.

The three bands cover the whole frequency range evenly, and the crossover between bands is gentle enough to be subtle but still small enough to be useful.

The Trim slider allows you to compensate for the changes in overall level that using the eq dials have.

Usability

The treble dial sounds brilliant, and most mixes will stand up to a significant high end boost with this plugin, which brings out superb clarity and brightness on just about anything, acoustic guitars sound particularly good with it.

The mid and bass dials are useful on mid range instruments like guitars, but not quite so useful on complete mixes as they seem to sit too high up the frequency range, possibly to make sure the entire range is covered. This plugin would be utterly outstanding as a four band eq, with separate hi-mid and lo-mid dials for better control of the low end, and would be an ideal plugin for final tweaks of your mixes.

The huge range of ±20 dB in each band is occasionally useful on an individual track that needs high or low pass filtering, but for the majority of the time you will probably want to use the handy fine-tune option by holding down shift for the vst version or Ctrl for rtas.

The trim range of ±12 dB doesn’t match the massive 20 dB of the eq dials, which would have occasionally been helpful, but as you only seem to get to the full 20 when you’re taking out the high or low end completely – it isn’t actually a problem and you do get finer control over the more important 0 dB to 6 dB range.

In short, the Massey VT3 gives you outstanding top end control for an impressively small $69, and it’s worth getting just for that. It’s very easy to use, with a very low cpu load which makes it perfect for using on aux sends and busses. As with all Massey plugins, they are free to try for an unlimited time, and upgrading to the full version gives you added features like save-and-restore, stereo support and automation etc. We suggest you give it a go!

The post Plugin Review: Massey VT3 EQ – VST appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Following on from our guide to using delay on vocals, we are going to look at a few more advanced uses of delay on vocals. Aside from the basic echo which repeats and dies away, there are a couple of things you can do with delay to give more texture to vocals, and lead vocals in particular.

Slapback Delay

This is a short delay with usually just one echo of the vocal part, it almost doesn’t sound like a separate delay but more like a reflection off of a hard wall in a small room. With the delay channel setup from the vocal delay guide already running, all you need to do is bring the delay time down to about 100-150ms, and reduce the effect of any low-pass filters or eq you have put in – as we want the delay to be crisp and punchy.

Stereo Delay

You can set this to either give you a ‘ping-pong’ delay from left to right, which bounces back and forth as the echo dies away, or you can use it more subtly to give some stereo width to a delay effect. For a ‘ping-pong’ delay, set the left side of a stereo delay plugin to be half the delay time of the right side, and the vocal will bounce from the centre (from the dry vocal channel) to the left and then right on the delay channel. If you want the delay to repeat and die away for longer, you will need to have much more feedback on the shorter side of the delay plugin, as the repeats come much faster so will die away quicker.

To add some stereo width to a vocal delay, you can reduce the delay time on one side by a very small amount – 10ms is plenty. Be aware that as well as adding some stereo width to the vocal delay, shortening the delay on one side will make the delay sound like it is coming from that direction. i.e. if the left delay is 10ms shorter than the right, you will hear just one delay slightly to the left of center, as well as the delay sounding wider. To compensate, you can make the right side louder to pull the delay back to the center and retain the added width.

Short Delays

Delays of less than about 80ms sound much less noticeable as separate delays, and blend in with the dry vocal part to help it sit better in the mix. This is very common trick for rock and metal vocals, where you usually can’t afford to add reverb because it is too thick and will take away from the clarity of the mix.

Ducked Delay

This is actually quite easy, all you need to do is put a compressor on the delay channel and set the side-chain input to be the vocal aux send (as set up from the vocal delay guide). Then dial up a fast attack time and slow delay and release times. This means that when the lead vocal sings, the delayed vocals are compressed so they don’t get in the way. When the lead vocals stop, the compressor releases and the end of the last phrase echoes. This can take some fine-tuning to get the delay and release times exactly right, and if it’s too tricky to get perfect then you can always simulate the effect with some straightforward automation of the delay channel.

The post Using Delay On Vocals: Advanced appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Using a delay plugin on vocal recordings is a useful alternative to full-blown reverb, it can give colour to the vocal track and help it sit better in the mix without getting too bulky.

There are two main approaches to adding a delay to vocals, either you can simply use a delay plugin directly on the vocal channel, or you can send the vocal to a new channel with an aux send which is what we suggest. If you do only use one channel, you will need to balance the dry vocal with the delay using the ‘mix’ or ‘blend’ control in the plugin which can be fiddly to automate if you have to.

Setup

On your vocal channel in the mix window, put in an aux send and set it to be around -6dB (post fade if you have the choice) so it’s at a more useful level for mixing later. On a new channel strip, set the input to match the aux send from the vocal. Now you can load up a delay plugin on this new channel.

Tempo

If you are working to a preset tempo, or a tempo map, then set your delay plugin to follow the session’s tempo. If you don’t have an exact tempo then you can set the tempo to be approximate, or go straight to adjusting the delay time manually. Once the tempo is set choose what fraction of a bar you want the delay to be, 1/4 will give a pronounced delay which matches the beat in a 4/4 song and is very common, or an 1/8 length for a faster delay which is less clear but still definitely separate from the dry vocal.

Feedback

Feedback sends some of the delayed signal back into the plugin to be delayed again, giving you an echo which repeats and fades away. As a general rule of thumb, start with about 10-15% feedback to give you a dying echo which isn’t too strong. If you want just a single delay, leave the feedback at 0.

EQ

If you leave the delayed vocal as an exact copy of the original vocal part, your ears get distracted from the original vocal. To get the delay to blend in and make it distinctive, most delay plugins come with a low-pass filter (or ‘LPF’) control so you can filter out some of the attention-grabbing top end. If your delay doesn’t have an LPF control, you can get exactly the same effect by putting an eq plugin on the delay channel, and taking out some high frequency content – probably from above about 6kHz.

Balance

You will need to balance the dry vocal against the delay channel, and this is where having the delay on a separate channel really pays off because the balance can change throughout the song. For example the verses might need a gentle amount of delay just to add some background colour to the vocal part, but for the chorus you might want no delay at all so the vocal cuts through clearly, which is all straightforward mixer automation.

Here are some more advanced vocal delay techniques for you if you to try out once you’ve got the hang of the basics.

The post Using Delay On Vocals appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Recording vocals really well can add a lot of colour and interest to your mixes, especially considering lead vocals are almost always the focus of your listeners. We have put together some guides on vocal recording to help you improve your technique.

Lead Vocals

In most modern recordings the lead vocals are likely to be very the centre of attention, as they carry the melody and the lyrics. For this reason, if you are using a guide track, make sure it includes a decent vocal take for the rest of the musicians to follow and perform alongside. I prefer to leave the final vocal overdub to very near the end of a session, because then the singer has a more complete and balanced mix to listen to, and will usually give you a better performance for it.

Backing Vocals

Backing vocals are often recorded to bring depth to a track and help support the lead vocal part. They can also be used to add a harmony or contrasting melody part to a recording, and vary from accenting single lines of the lead part to more gentle support throughout a song, more like a string pad. How you intend to use the backing vocals in the finished song will determine which recording method you use initially, so here’s our complete guide to recording the different types of backing vocals such as harmony parts and choirs.

Vocal Effects

Our guide to using a delay on vocals explains why it is a useful alternative to reverb, and how it helps the vocal track sit better in the mix without taking up too much space. Here are some more advanced vocal delay techniques for you if you to try out once you’ve got the hang of the basics.

Double tracking vocals is a common process in professional recordings, and has a very distinctive sound which you can easily use in a home studio recording.

[image via amador]

The post Recording Vocals appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Backing vocals are often recorded to bring depth to a track and help support the Lead Vocal part. They can also be used to add a harmony or contrasting melody part to a recording, and vary from accenting single lines of the lead part to more gentle support throughout a song, more like a string pad. How you intend to use the backing vocals in the finished song will determine which recording method you use initially, so here’s our complete guide to recording the different types of backing vocals.

Single Harmony Part

This is probably the simplest of all the different types of backing vocals, because you can treat them very similarly to the lead vocals. Usually with a single harmony part you will want it to be fairly prominent in the mix, so a large diaphragm condenser microphone like a Rode NT1-A positioned around eight inches away would be a good choice to give the voice clarity help it stand out.

For a more gentle approach, maybe for a vocal part that runs throughout the song, then using a dynamic mic like Shure SM7B or even an SM57 about five inches away will help tame some of the sibilance (f, s and sh sounds etc) of the voice and give it some warmth to help it blend in and support the lead vocal.

Multiple Backing Parts

From a mixing point of view, multiple backing parts are best kept separate so that you retain control of the balance. Obviously if you have one singer for several different parts, they need to be recorded individually anyway. When recording multiple parts, pay particular attention to the sibilance of each part as it can very easily build up as you layer tracks on top of each other, and then take focus away from the lead vocal. The smoothness of a dynamic mic can be very helpful with this as it does a lot of the work for you.

Two Voices

Recording two voices at once can be problematic, because unless you completely isolate them from each other there will always be some amount of each vocalist on the other’s microphone. This makes it very tricky to separate the two if you need to edit one later on. However, there are a couple of reasons why you might record two vocalists at once; the first being for moral support if they need help with timing and pitching etc, and the second is if they are so good that you won’t need to separate them later on. The bonus that you get from recording two people simultaneously is that they will be able to follow each other better and sound much more ‘together’ as a result.

For mic choice, you might be more limited as to whatever you have available, but two condenser mics will help keep the voices clear if they are both great singers, and if not then two dynamic mics like SM58′s very close to the singers’ mouths will make them easier to separate later.

Choirs

Choirs or vocal groups are brilliant to record for backing vocals, because the hard part of blending all the different voices is already done and you can just record them as one big group, and let them pad out the mix for you. For choirs, we would always recommend large diaphragm cardioid condenser mics like the Rode NT1-A because they need to be further away from the choir to avoid picking up individual voices, but still retain clarity and sibilance.

When it comes to positioning the mics, start just in front of the conductor (or where one might stand if they don’t have one). This could easily eight feet away which seems a lot, but remember we are looking for a nicely blended sound. Two mics will usually be enough to cover a small choir, but be prepared to use three or four if the choir is bigger. Space The mics evenly across the front of the choir, and if one section sounds louder than the rest then move your mics to compensate.

Also keep an ear on the stereo image of the choir, which is very important to get right from the beginning. You want a nice smooth spread of voices across the whole stereo image: if your mics are too far apart you will have a hole in the middle, and if they are too close the choir will sound small and unimpressive.

As always with fairly distant microphones, make sure that the reverb and ambiance of the room don’t overwhelm the direct sound from the choir. Remember, you can always add more later but you can’t take it away!

[image via kleemo]

The post Recording Backing Vocals appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Knowing which plugins to use for a particular sound, and how to use those plugins effectively will improve your mixes and help you work quickly. Plugins are the most versatile tools that are available for mixing, as they come in a vast range of sounds, shapes, applications and in varying levels of complexity. Here is our guide on how to get the best from the different plugins used in the majority of digital mixes.

Parametric Equalisation

Eq, or equalisation, is the most common effect applied to audio during mixing. Here is our guide on how parametric eq plugins works, and how to use them effectively.

Compression

Learning how to use compression effectively can be a tricky business, so here’s our guide to using compression, with snare and vocals as examples.

Expanders and Gates

These work very similarly to compressors and can be used to reduce or cut out quiet sounds. Here’s our guide to how gates and expanders work, and how to use them effectively.

Reverb

Knowing how to use reverb effectively is one of those things that really comes with practice, but we want to help you a get ahead, as poorly balanced reverb is one of the most obvious signs of an inexperienced engineer. So, here’s our guide to how reverb works and how to use it effectively. In this article we will use natural reverb on solo piano, and plate reverb on vocals as two examples.

Saturation

Tape saturation is a helpful tool for lead vocals, to add colour and depth. Here’s how to use saturation plugins.

The post How To Use Plugins appeared first on Cobalt Audio.

Knowing how to use reverb effectively is one of those things that really comes with practice, but we want to help you a get ahead, as poorly balanced reverb is one of the most obvious signs of an inexperienced engineer. So, here’s our guide to how reverb works and how to use it effectively. In this article we will use natural reverb on solo piano, and plate reverb on vocals as two examples.

Reverb Overview

Put simply, reverb plugins simulate acoustic spaces like cathedrals or concert halls, and reverb equipment like spring or plate reverb units. There are no hard and fast rules as to what type of reverb sounds best on which instrument, so experiment will all the different presets you can find, as they are all distinctive and useful in different ways.

How They Work

Some reverb plugins create a large number of delayed versions of the audio input, which all add together to create a smooth reverb tail which gently dies away to nothing. These delays simulate the individual reflections of sound off all the hard surfaces of a real acoustic space.

Alternatively, rather than using lots of delay lines to imitate reflections in a room, convolution based reverb plugins like Altiverb multiply the incoming audio with the response of a room or piece of equipment. This gives a more realistic sounding reverb, which is perfect for our solo piano example. Almost anything will sound good with convolution reverb, but it does require you to have the response of the right room or piece of equipment first, you can’t just make one up by changing the settings.

Reverb Type

Just about every reverb plugin will allow you to choose from several different types of reverb. The acoustic spaces like halls, churches and small or mid-sized rooms are useful for piano or strings to give the feel of genuine space. Plate and spring reverbs are not particularly natural sounding, but they have a unique metallic tone which is useful for guitars and snare drums that need some character. Vocals sound particularly nice with plate reverb, as the distinctive sound is easy to pick out in a mix.

Early Reflections / Size

The first few reflections of reverb are usually quite distinct and clear, and your ears use these to work out how big a physical room is. Most plugins will give you some control over these early reflections in the reverb, even if it’s just labelled as ‘size’. Larger rooms have more pronounced early reflections, so when you select a larger size the plugin will usually make its simulated early reflections louder.

For a solo grand piano with a natural sounding reverb, we want a large sounding space with plenty of acoustic information for the listener to pick up. Early reflections help bring clarity to plate reverb, so a medium to large size would fit vocals quite well.

Delay

Also known as ‘pre-delay’, this is the time before the first early reflection arrives, which has a big impact on how big a space sounds; as you increase the pre-delay the room gets bigger. For a concert hall, somewhere around 15ms should be about right to match a real space. For a plate reverb on vocals this can be much shorter or even zero, as we are not trying to create the illusion of space, and just using the reverb tail as an effect.

Diffusion

This determines how dense the reverb tail is, literally how many reflections there are per millisecond. A very diffuse reverb has a lot of reflections which blur into a big, thick and dense sound. Be careful with the diffusion in big mixes as the reverb tail can make the mix sound very muddy if it is too dense. Broadly speaking, about 60-70% is good starting place, listen and then dial it back if it’s too much. For solo piano, we want to keep some character in the reverb tail so about 40-50% diffusion is plenty. The vocal plate reverb should be very diffuse to get a soft and smooth decay, so 100% diffusion is ideal.

Decay

This determines how long the reverb tail takes to die away, and is what a lot of people focus on exclusively. For our vocal plate reverb, a decay of just over two seconds is enough to make the reverb heard without being so long that it clogs up the mix. For solo piano, we have the luxury of making the reverb more of a feature, so about four and a half to five seconds should be about right.

EQ

Equalisation is a step that is often overlooked when setting reverb. Most plugins will give you control of a high frequency cut or eq, which simulates the hf loss that you would get in a real acoustic space. This is perfect for the solo piano, just dial in a little hf cut so the reverb sounds softer and less brittle. Vocals will usually benefit from some hf reduction on the reverb, particularly on plate and spring reverbs which can be very bright, to the point of sounding harsh. We can’t give you specific frequencies or how much to reduce them because it really depends on the instrument you are using, and the specific type of reverb you choose, so get experimenting.

Cutting the reverb’s low end with eq is a very useful way of thinning it out so that it doesn’t take up too much space in the mix. This isn’t so helpful on vocals as they don’t contain much low end anyway, and the solo piano really needs the low end to sound natural. However on instruments like piano or guitar in a full mix, taking out anything below about 100 Hz in the reverb will stop it sounding muddy and overwhelming.

The post How To Use Reverb appeared first on Cobalt Audio.