Ableton Forum

Recorded some female vocals with a shure sm57 mic (think that's what it's called)...anyway, i've got like 5 vocal tracks overlapping each other in a 'row row row your boat' type fashion. my problem is getting all the vocals around the same volume. i've got lots of fade ins/outs and chopped up bits of vocals, it's getting complicated and all the vocals are all 'uneven' so to speak...now, from what i understand 'compression' is probably what i need to look into but i know NOTHING of this. I used to do limiting on cool edit but that's as far as my knowledge spans as far as that stuff goes. what's some good ableton 5 compression to use to sort of 'even' things out? also, when recording vocals in the future what can i do in the recording phase to keep vocals from overdriving when she sings too loud?? something in ableton perhaps? ANY advice would be much appreciated...thanks.

Google how to use a compressor for vocals. Compression is what you want for this. The only way to stop the vox from overdriving while recording is to turn down the input. You need to set your levels based on the loudest that your vocalist sings. You can always compress it after to bring up the quiet parts.

cool...thanks figgy.

You can aslo use the gate for that,

another tip: cut and crop the clips so they have the same length and decide which track sounds more "right".

make a volume envelope on that clip, muting or damping the silent parts and the breathing parts. don't over do it and use nice smooth fades. now copy that envelope to the other clips.

if you don't have cpu issues and want a fat commercial sound, put a compressor on each track with short attack (0-1 ms) and a fairly long release (80-150 ms) ratio around 2 and threshold so that the signal is comped no more than 2-3 db (look at meter).

pan two of your tracks hard left and two tracks hard right. let your "good" track sit in the middle.

route all tracks to a new audio track and put a compressor, an eq8 and a de-esser in that track (a de-esser is a compressor which only works the high frequencies (the sss sounds), look under compressor presets). the order of the plugins is a matter of taste, but having the eq after the compressor gives a fatter sound i my opinion.

use the eq to cut low frequencies (cut at 80-150 hz depending on the type of vocal)and boost the high frequencies a bit (2-3 db at 10-20kHz). with that kind of mic i'd probably lower the mid frequencies a bit (1-2 db at 400-800Hz with a wide q).

use the compressor to mash the tracks together (attack 5-10 ms, release 20-50 ms, threshold to comp about 6-8 db or whatever you like (again, check the meter).

adjust the threshold of the de-esser. don't over do it.

adjust the volume of the individual tracks, keeping an eye on the final compressor and de-esser. if it's a chorus keep the panned tracks loud in the mix, if it's a verse then the center track should be louder, and the panning a bit softer.

use your ears and tweak

this is just one way to do it, but it's easy and it works well for pop productions.

happy tracking!

Nice Tips Glamourboy!

I was going to suggest the he uses volume envelopes.. takes a while to get it right.. but it ends up sounding much more dynamic than compressing the shite of it..

Hd