Not sure what the purpose for the processor is (tracking or mixdown or both), but I found this guys tips to be really spot on:

http://www.mixedbymarcmozart.com/20...-vocals-a-complete-tutorial-on-mixing-vocals/

Otherwise, I use this ancient device for live/practice sessions, and during tracking, but not applied to the take. Just to give the vocalist some sound good to help the performance. Usually some reverb as well.

 

Working on a Chill / Jazz track will post soon when I finish for feedback.

 

Yup, that's me making the WA76 work hard for a living.

 

You're really good! Must have been fun working with you!

Not singing for 26 years I have no clue what people use nowadays. For live gigs we used the Sure SM58, and for recording the AKG C391 B.

 

I should explain how I record my music. I have a small hardware setup on a table. This is connected to a USB mixer at present. it is all recorded as one track, there is no DAW mixing involved. Everything is done in one take. If I'm not happy with it, I keep redoing it till I am.
Then it gets a little touch up in Ozone. At the moment, my vocals go into a mixer for fantom power, through the Electribe 2 and into the main mixer. Neither mixer has sends, and the Electribe is limited in the fx to 2. So I'm looking at getting something to either plug the mic into directly, or to sit between the two mixers, when I'm doing tracks with vocals. It will be used, probably old, and something I can get locally. Present options I'm looking at are: Roland DEP 5, Zoom RFX 2200. Alesis Midiverb 3, Zoom 9050.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2016

Wow man! Blown Away.....

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Thanks @tulamide .. I always used to use an SM58 while performing, the one that fell into the mug of beer one night at CBGBs. What I used for this was a Gefell umt70s into the Warm Audio Tonebeast then into the WA76, which because I was singing fairly full throttle in some spots and to avoid moving too far away from the mic and changing the tone of the proximity effect, out of necessity the compressor clamped down in a few places. But like I was telling Beth, these little pieces that I like to do are just like snippets in a diary and are what they are, done really fast without much thinking in one take for each instrument, not mastered with just things rapidly eq'd and bang, done.

I have a mic similar to the AKG C391 B, the Audio Technica 4051b which I use sometimes if I want to accentuate the pick hitting the strings on an acoustic guitar, something like the sound of Cat Stevens from back in the day. I never could get a good vocal out of mics like these that have so much top end. Sometimes hand percussion gets the 4051, but since it is an older series one model it hasn't a pad so it breaks up rather quickly The little bit of the background vocal on this Over My Head is with another Gefell mic, the m930 which is a stunning microphone, the off axis amazing. You can really use it for so many things as placement can give you many different tonalities as well as depth differences, picking up the room to define the space. I would sell the umt70s way before the m930 (if was held at gunpoint and needed to make a quick decision) The lead was also recorded with it, the jumbo with the umt70s. I have an Electro Voice RE-20 which also works well with my voice, percussion like frame drums and djimbes and even acoustic guitar in a pinch. The RE-20 really loves the clean pre of the Babyface but I need to use a FetHead for the extra gain to get it to sing.

 

At the moment I'm working on the Live set for my first real gigs in less than a month (three dates), one of our song isn't finished and we decided to transform another one radically, yesterday, so I guess I could say that two of our songs aren't finished yet... ^^

EDIT:

I like it, I hope you'll finish it and share it with us!

 

Hey! This is really good. I am super into reggae. What do you use for horns?

 

Do you use the MDC as a processor when you mix the vocal? It actually has pretty darn good specs and works completely in the analoge domain. I have no experience with it, that's why I ask.

 

Wow, that makes what you submitted even more awesome! Though I don't envy the task of take after take until you get it all right, I suppose that's very similar to tracking, just have to focus on more than one thing going on at a time. Makes perfect sense to me now why you're looking for a hardware audio processor.
Too bad you don't have an audio interface that offered more inputs. Then you could forgo the mixers and record individual tracks for editing and polishing ITB. Also bad takes on say just the vocals, or just a keyboard could be comped and the whole take wouldn't have to be scrubbed.
You could of course record the keyboard's MIDI information and use the audio input just to capture vocals. But hey, that's your workflow. I'm just throwing out my own crazy ideas!

 

Funny you should ask that just now. While looking for a picture of the thing to post here, I ran across a GS thread where a guy was saying it could be used on instrument tracks and the 2 bus and yielded decent results.

I've been trying to get my hands on a DBX160a from a friend as a loan to test this hardware VS plugin thing, and after reading that thread yesterday was thinking about running some tracks/2 bus through the MDC to see if it gave usable results and to learn how to rewire everything for when the DBX becomes available.

But no, for now I've been using it just for monitoring purposes. I don't typically track through a compressor because I like the idea of having the untouched source tracks for later manipulation. What if I decided I didn't like the settings I used while tracking is always my fear.

 

@digitaldragon .. I used to think the same way, "what happens if I didn't like the settings I used while tracking?". I am now a firm believer in making decisions during tracking when it comes to comes to compression and also too partially in regard to equalization. I want to throw off that old/new idea that everything must be tweaked and tweaked to be made perfect later on. It is a time killer and second guessing destroys the spark of creativity of the moment. It blocks my free flow of ideas and I just don't go there anymore. I feel free and unencumbered again, and guess what? I have NEVER gone on forward later in a mix and thought that the 5 or 6 decibels that I smoothed off a vocal with a slowish attack and fastish release at 4:1 or 8:1 did anything bad, on the contrary, it was all good and definately made it easier and faster later on to fit the track in the mix. I pick a vocal or instrument chain with an idea in mind of what I want to hear later on down the line. Which mic, which pre, which compressor or eq will help me get to where I want to go quicker and with total joy while in the flow. With instrument micing, placement replaces the use of equalization. I move a mic around, and after listening to all my choices always make the correct decision. If it sounds good at the tracking stage it will sound great later on. Off axis response plays as much in importance as the chain itself. An inch here or there can make a significant impact on capture and can also make the mix go so much faster if you don't need to equalize the hell out of everything to make space later on.

These new tools we have at our disposal in the box are an amazing gift but also can keep us from the immediacy of our artistry. I find an inner peace when in the moment. Not thinking is a great place to be while doing anything creative, from playing an instrument to driving hard to the basket and burning by a defender, I would rather just be reacting to the need of the moment than to intellectualize every tiny detail in minutiae. Life is sweeter, the music flows, time and space they disappear, those shackles lose their hold. Give it a try, you might just like it.

 

Back in my Death Metal days a guitarist I used to jam with had this in his rack. This and a bbe sonic maximizer with a mesa trip rec half stack. He had crunch for days. The palm mute/chugs kicked you in the chest

 

This is gospel........

 

I'm going to have to break that thing out and try using it in several different applications! I only ever thought of use as a vocal processor. But hell, it is after all just a noise gate, compressor, expander. Wonder what it would do for the bass? Or a kick?

 

It worked great for live guitar. The gate tamed the all the noise from his pedals and pickups. Nothing digital can compare to tubes and circuits in a live setup. You feel that sh1t!

 

@superliquidsunshine I bet you would make the best mixing tutorials. Funny and informative, great voice plus you can track the examples live, not just stare at a wavform as is the norm.
But I can also imagine all the editing you would have to do to keep it under 1000hrs every time you took us on another interesting tangent trip. LoL

 

I made this one last night in just 1 hour and don't have any optimistic expectation you'd like it.
I also have one request from you. When you listen to it, just do it for more than one time.
I have learned this kind of production from Debussy (an impressionist).