Learn How to Produce Vocals in Studio One

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Gary Hibner and welcome to this class on vocal production in Studio One. In this class, we're going to take a look at the steps that you need to do to edit and process your vocals so they sit better in the mix. Now, vocals are quite a complex instrument and when you hear them by themselves, they sound quite raw and don't sit really well in the mix. But by following the steps in this class, you'll get vocals that sound much. They sit much better in the mix. And you'll just have this polished sound with the vocals just sitting right on top there, being the hero of the song. Now let's jump in and see what to do with our vocals in the song. We're going to be taking a look at how you can take a raw vocal part and then how you can go through the steps of editing and processing it to get a polished, final vocal production that you can use in your music tracks. It's interesting how many steps you actually need to take with the vocal part to get it to sit nicely in the mix. But by following these videos and going through all these steps in this course, you'll have a great understanding on what to do on your vocal parts in your productions. We're going to be starting off with this vocal part. You find comfort in memory last time, you don't know what it is they are arch to. But then after all the editing and processing that's done to it, it's going to now sound like this. In the production you find the memory, find out times, don't know what it is they are. Arch, I'll be providing you with the studio, one project, with the associated audio files so you can follow along as I show you what I'm doing. So without further ado, let's get into it. 2. Recording to Layers: In this video, I want to show you how you can record your vocal part, but more specifically, how you can record your vocal to multiple layers. So you can build up a composite part of it. To do this, make sure under the view menu, you bring up the record panel here. Take to layers. So make sure that you've got that selected. What this is going to do is every time you record a different part, as it cycles back again, it's going to record it to a layer on this track. Then you'll have multiple layers that you can choose from to build up a composite part of the performance. I've made a cycle selection from bars three to eight. 3-7 is the first part of the song, and then 7-11 it repeats itself, but I've just added extra bar because I'll sing a vocal part that tails off, so I can catch that vocal before it cycles back around again. Let me play through the music so you can hear what We're going to be a recording over as you can hear from bar seven, it cycles back around again, and I've set up those cycle mode locators. Then next I need to set my input device for my vocal. My vocal is going into input one or input L on our audio device, and then I could input monitor and record on the track. When I do that, I've also added a reverb as an insert. The reason I've done that is I want to hear the tale of sounds from the reverbs that I can pitch my voice again. When I get into the next line I'm going to record, now I'm actually recording to a different mic. I just want to plug that in and then we'll record to the takes. And then after that I'll show you what happens where it creates those layers. Okay, so here we go. Fanapt Y. There you go. There are the different layers that have been recorded and it's made takes to them within the track as you could hear. As I got to that last layer, my voice was taking a bit of strain and that's why I stopped. But obviously, the beauty of this, you can do different refinements when you're doing different takes and then go back and choose them. What I mean by this is if you mess up a part over here, when you get to the next cycle, you can focus in on just that bit and you don't have to worry too much about the other takes. But obviously, recording multiple takes allows you to get the best parts to build up a composite of the performance. In the next video, let's see how we can take these different takes and then build up the comp. The next video, let's see how we can do this comp editing before we add any processing to the vocal part. 3. Comp Editing: Okay, so let's now go over the commping. As you could see, each take was recorded to a different layer. Up here is your main part. Currently, this take is selected. But if I hover over a take and just draw on it, it pushes that part of the take up to the main part. As you can see, I can make different selections within my different takes and build up that composite part. But to start off, let's just draw over this take one here to jump that up to the main part. We're going to listen to that vocal just as a reference. Let's solo some instruments as well. I'm going to add the base synth and the pad. Just so we've got some sort of tonal reference for the pitching of the vocal now I'm going to play back and find comfort in it. Memory, fine, glass times, you don't know what it is they are. Just to let me just turn off that pad, I don't actually need it, just the base now. There are going to be some discrepancies with the level of the vocal, as you can see from the waveform. Some areas are louder than others, but don't worry too much about that. We are going to fix that in a later video with some clip gain editing, but for now we're just trying to hear the best performance of each part. I'm going to break it down in two sections. So if you can see here, we've got one section there, another here, the third one here, and then the fourth. So I'm going to just play through these four different layers of that first part and decide which is the best one you find. Come firt in Ned. Now, let's listen to this. You find come firt ned. I'll really prefer that one much better. It's got more energy in it. The third one you find come firt ned. That's also pretty nice. Then the last one you find come firt ned. Actually, that first take is probably the worst out of the rest, but I'm going to go for that second take. Now moving on to the second part of the vocals memory slot times. Let's hear this one. Moral times. I really don't like that. So let's hear the third one, Moran lust times, then the fourth one, Memory song, lot times. The first part is definitely the best. With that, I can just neatness up so we've got that then. Going over here, you don't know what it is. And the second part, you don't know what it is, that sounds quite nice. Third one, you don't know what it is, that's not too bad, you don't know what it is. I think that second one over here is probably going to be the best times. You don't know what it is, they are just talk. Then the last bit they are just talk. I don't like that. And this one over here, they are just talk. And then last part they are just tall. You can hear the vocal is breaking up at there. But probably the best is that first one, they are just tall. So take a listen to the whole recorded part. Now with that composite build of the edit, you find comfort in it. Memories, I find last times you don't know what it is, they are just tall. Great stuff and now worth everything. Comfort, memory, Tim know what it is. The Arg song, great stuff. That's how we can build up a composite edit of our vocal performance. Next, let's see what other editing can be done before we go into any further processing of vocal parts. 4. Editing the Clip Gain on the Parts: Welcome back. In this video, let's see how we can improve the loudness to just get an even loudness across this vocal. With some gain editing, what I'm going to do is I'm going to select all of these parts on the track. Right click on it and then go to Event, and then bounce to new track. This has created a new track for me. So now what I can do is I can mute this. I can return to it if for any reason I want to see these takes or layers and change anything about it. But for now, I'm just going to mute and move it to the top so I don't need it. What I can do, if you look on this track, looking at the waveform, you've got some differing levels. If I click on a part, I can change the gain structure by using this gain handle over here. What I just want to do is just eye out the waveform and just roughly improve the gain structuring. With this, you can see the volume is softer here and then increases. What I could do is select the split tool. Split it so we've got two parts and then now I've got a gain handle for each one. Just slightly improving the handles. This part over here, I could do the same going to the split to change the volume, but as you see, I'm also increasing the transient. In a later video, I'll show you how we can take a compressor and even out the soft and light bits of the audio. But for now, improving the overall volume is going to make the compressor do less work. I just want to take a listen over here, I'm just going to solar this vocal. You find F in that these first two bits are a bit soft. I can actually go into each one, you find comfort in it. That sounds nice, and even memory sound fine last time, you don't know what it is, even though it looks like the wave form drops there. I'm pretty happy with how the volume sort of decreases from the initial transience. Know what it is, they are just listening here. It just sounds like these two parts over here can do with some slight gain increasing. They are just tall. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I can get rid of this last but here and just neaten it up by just dragging it in. Also, on the top of each part, you've got some cross fades. I can fade it out to silence, so I don't have any extra noise there. The same with any little gaps I could go in and slice them out, for example. Take that out there, creates a little cross fade. So basically what we're doing is neatening up the whole performance by removing any silence we don't need. I am going to be using a gate later, which is going to cut out when there's no volume on the audio, so it will cut to silence. But doing these little extra steps will help the whole process. That's how to do some gain structuring just to level out the volume of the vocal. Now next up, let's see how we can take this vocal part and pitch correct it with melodyne catch in the next video. 5. Pitch Correcting with Melodyne: In the last video, you saw how we went into these parts and changed the gain clip envelopes on them just to increase the overall volume so it just sat at the same level. Now, before going into any further editing, what I'd like to do is select all these parts and then process them with Meldon so I can pitch correct the audio. Then it'll be much easier after that to add extra processing without any parts signing out. What I can do is just select all the parts right, click on it, go to Audio and then choose Edit with Meldon Or use the shortcut control M on the PC or command on the Mac that opens up Meldown for me. I'm just using Meldon Centrals now so I don't have all the tools, but basically I can select the audio in here and do some slight pitch correcting just to move things onto the respective notes. I can just select some audio. Go to the algorithm, it's using melodic, that's perfectly fine for me. Then I'm going to go to the correct pitch macro. As I increase the pitch sensor, it's moving these notes onto their respective notes, pitching them more correctly. If you look here, some things are sitting off. I'm just going to move them on. I'm not sending it to any scale, I'm just doing it in a chromatic fashion where it's just moving to the nearest pitch. I can also improve the pitch drift. This is correcting as a note moves from one note into the next. I'm going to go through and do this with all the other notes. I'm just doing it one at a time just to check how things are going. Let's select all those, moving them onto their correct pitch sensor and increasing their pitch drift. I think I forgot these ones in the beginning, so I'm just going to increase those. If my timing was a bit off with my performance, I could also select my note data and go into the groove reference, and go into the quantized time macro, and choose an interval value and increase that intensity. Maybe I want all my notes to sit on eighth notes. You can see how that's moving them. But I've got some areas where I'm slightly off and I'm perfectly happy with the timing, so I'm going to leave that. But if you find that your vocal maybe is sitting a bit loose and you want to tighten up on the grid, you can use that to do this. I'm just going to take a listen, but obviously before listening to the vocal by itself, let's actually load up an instrument to use as a reference. I'm going to solo the base as well, so I've got a point of reference and maybe just slightly reduce the volume you find come in memory stop fine. Last times you tone know what it is they are just talk. Taking a listen again, you find in it. So looking at these notes, maybe this needs to shift up. You find come memory stoping last times you tone, maybe this would be bitter suited of a males stop lost times and these are not sitting onto the grid. If I double click it, it'll shift right onto that note. As I move it, it's gonna veer off and not lock to it last, so I don't want it sitting exactly on the note. I'm just gonna pull it down slightly so it slightly off and moves back into the notes times you know what it is, there's note over here, then what it is, they maybe also pull it down so it moves into it. You don't know what it is. If I needed to, and I've got a long note that maybe needs to change key, I can actually go to the split note. I'm going to select that note, go into the wrench. I can go to note separation and then I could actually split it there. Then going back to the pitch correction, I can move this note elsewhere. Ah, just or maybe I want to drop that down. We just, they are just, I think I can move it slightly up. I just, Yeah, that's sounding good. So we did some slight improvements where we took the vocal and used the macros to shift the pitches onto the pitch center, improved their pitch drift. And then when needed listening back some parts might have needed to be shifted off their notes. Memory stela times you know it is, looking back here fine. Last times you know what it is and maybe shifting this up a von last time, one last times you don't know what it is they are just talk that actually drops there. I'm actually going to separate that as well. So going to the note separation, doing that, jumping back, just that one. I actually want to go in and remove that pitch drift. The same with these two notes that increase the pitch center, but not the pitch drift. The same with this note. Then we got this. They are just, yeah, that's sounding good there. We've altered the pitch. If you look at the audio parts, you can see there is actually what it looks like Midi note data. And that is the notes that's representing the pitch that Meldon has detected for the audio. Now that we have pitch corrected and edited the audio, we can actually start processing this vocal. I'll catch you in the next video. 6. Using Compression: Now that we've pitch corrected the audio, let's start getting into the processing by adding effects to this vocal. Starting off, I want to use a compressor. Now, we did go in and do some clip gain envelope editing to increase the overall level of some of the quiet bits to have a smoother performance of the vocal from a level point of view. Now with the compressor, this is just going to accentuate that. It's going to help us bring up the softer volumes of the vocal and decrease the lightest ones and just compress everything. And then allow us to bring up the overall level. Just make the vocal sound a bit more punchy. I'm going to go to my inserts on my vocal track and I'm going to go for the stock compressor within studio one. Now what I like to do is I like to set the ratio and then start pulling down the threshold until I start seeing some gain reduction. Then after that, I go in and I adjust the attack and release. Finally, finishing off with some makeup gain from the gain reduction loss from the compression. I'm going to use the vocal in isolation and then I'll bring it back within the mix with the other instruments to hear how it's sounding. We're just going to loop through this vocal and adjust the compressor. So here we go, you find come foot in it, increase that ratio. Memory, stop fine last time and start pulling down this threshold, but it is until you start seeing some gain reduction by you find come foot in it. Memory, stop fine. Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall and add some makeup gain you find come foot in it. Memory stop fine. Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall. Bring down this release, fine, come foot in it, memory style fine. Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall is before you, fine, come foot in it. Memory style fine last time and now the compress know what it is, they are just tall. Such as giving the vocal a bit more presence there and evening out the dynamics between the softest and loudest splits of the vocal. I'm sitting at a ratio of about 7.2 to one, and I've pulled the threshold down to about -20 DB. As you can see when you play back you find come fund in that you've got round, about minus six, minus eight DB of gain reduction from the compression and I've just used the makeup gain to increase that gain from the gain Lo, I've just used the makeup gain to gain up the volume. After that gain reduction, I can probably push it up slightly a bit more then from the attack. If I pull this attack too low, it's going to cut off those transients that you're getting here at the starts of the phrases. So I've kept the attack quite high, but I've pulled that release back. And then for the release, I've used a shorter release, so it snaps right back into that compression. Now let's unsold that and hear this within the context of the music. I might need to increase this overall makeup gain just to push those vocals up slightly. You come in memory stop. In loud times, you don't know what it is, they are just tall at. I'm gonna pull it down. You come in before memory stop. Flutie, Don't know what it is. Yes they are. Just great. That's working pretty well. It's just even out those dynamics and giving those vocals a bit more push in the mix. Now next up, let's take a look at some EQ that can be done on some vocals. Catch you in the next video. 7. Using an EQ: Now let's place this vocal better in the mix by using some EQ to carve out its own space within the frequency spectrum with the other instruments playing as well. Now we are dealing with my vocals, which is a male vocal. Here there is a difference in frequency and total character of male and female vocals. But generally the same principles apply across both. I'm going to jump for the stock Q, which is the pro. With this EQ. You've got a parametric EQ with different bands where you can set different types of curves that it's using. Now one of the first things you really want to do with a vocal is cut out any of the low end, there isn't going to be any vocal that's sitting in this low end register. And if you're using a microphone that's maybe picking up some noise, you're just going to get rid of that low end noise that might be sitting in the vocal mix and freeing up some extra head room with the part. I'm going to go to a low cut, I like using a steeper curve and I'm just going to pull everything back to around about 120 hertz, depending on how deep your vocal is. You might need to pull this back, but I don't think anything is really happening on this vocal part. For example, if I just solo it and just bypass this Pre Q You find F in this and then turn on memory. Stop fine. Last times you tone know what it is. As you can see, there's just some slight noise here, but I can pull this back in, you find come in memory. So we've just got rid of the low registers. You can maybe use a slightly less steep curve, but for now, let's just stick with this steep curve over here, the 24 DB octave. Now next what I want to do is I want to find some resonant frequencies that are sounding but harsh, and remove them from the vocal part. The best way to do this is to take a band and boost it up with a very narrow cue. So I'm just using my mouse here just to narrow the cue. And what I'm going to do is just sweep this around while the vocal is playing back. And then just finding that resonant, noisy frequency and then pull it out. You find fun in it. Memory stop fine. Last times you don't know what it is, they are just to sitting right there, find com fun. So what I can do is just go down to my low mid frequency over here and reduce that gain. I can actually tighten up that Q a bit. You find foot in memory, fine. Last time you don't know what it is, there was one other sort of resonant frequency, so I'm going to take another band and boost it up and sweep it around you find come foot in memory. So fun last time right there. So we're going to take that that's sitting at 1.8 kilohertz and we're going to drop that as well and narrow that queue. So you're just getting rid of these noisy areas that really don't need to sit in this vocal, you find comet in it memory style. Find last times you tone know what it is. Now what really benefits with vocals is to add some extra air and presence. With some boosts in the high frequencies run about somewhere of 46 Killer Hertz. Doing a little boost. There's just going to give some nice presence, you find comfort in it memory, Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall. And also you can do a high frequency boost as well, giving some extra presents. I know me like to go to this and change it to a shelf 12 DB, which is a bit more pushed and then push it around. You find comfort in it, memory style, fine. Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall. Now key is to heal within the context of the other instruments. So I'm going to play it back and then have it bypased and then enable it. And here if we need to do any tweaks, you find Come Birt and the memory stop. Find out times you don't know what it is, they are just tall. You find Come Birt memory stop. Find out times you don't know what it is, they are just tall, great stuff. So just doing a quick little check without the compression and EQ, we had this, you find Come Birt then and now with those processing times, you don't know what it is. They are just yeah, that's getting there. That's just with some slight EQ and some slight compression. Just make sure that you don't do boosts that are too big because it's going to sound a bit unnatural with big boosts. Rather cut frequencies. And then after that, if you need to do some slight boosts. Now let me catch you in the next video where we can use a gait to help us gait out any other noise, to give some extra silence to the signal. And just clean it up. Catch in the next video. 8. Using a Gate: Now another tool that you can use to clean up your vocal performance is to add a gate. Basically, what this does is it determines a threshold. And anything over that threshold passes through and you hear it, and anything that falls below will be cut out. For example, if you've got some low level noise that's being picked up in your vocal signal, you can add a gate and remove that. Take a listen to this vocal part again, you find you can hear how there's that noise in the beginning. If I just zoom up here, take a listen as I play over here, you find I know it sounds quite minimal. But clearing out all this unwanted signal from your vocal part is just going to help improve the whole performance and clean it up and get it to sit really well in the mix. I'm going to jump for a gate on the insert now basically I'm going to pull this threshold down until it's getting rid of that noise. What I can do is just create a loop section here and play through fire, and you can see you've got the threshold. If I pull it all the way down, there's nothing that's been cut out. You find come firt in net. And as I increase this, you're going to change where that threshold point is. You find firt. Now, obviously that's too high, but I'm just showing you how you can choose how much or where you want to set that threshold point. You find come foden. I can also set a range, so I want to determine the maximum reduction. So as it hits that threshold point, I want it to be reduced by -40 DB. If that sounds like too much, I can just increase this to have less gain reduction. Also there's an envelope where you can set the attack time release and even the hold value the best is probably going to have super short attack times so that it's kicking in really fast. And the same with the release. I'll leave the hold where it's at and I'm not going to touch the trigger or the side chain. If I just move this down here and just zoom out on the vocal part and play back memories Sound fine. Last times you don't know what it is, they are just tall. It's still picking up some slight sort fluctuations in the voice there. Maybe just focusing on that area, I'm going to pull that threshold up a little bit. Memory stop flying glass times, you don't know what it is, they are just tall. Yeah, I think that's setting good. It's very subtle. But basically it's going to remove any unwanted noise that you don't have. Instead of having to go in and deleting or slicing up a part and getting rid of these sections, you could just use a gate. For example, if I increase this part over here and bypass the gate, malory stop, you can hear there's that voice or breath of my voice. And when I turn on the gate, gets rid of that. Obviously I went in here and cut out that part. But you could just use a gate instead. Adding a gate, setting that threshold, then deciding on the maximum gain reduction just can move all that noise that you don't need. And cut down the time that you'd spend on editing this vocal part. And then we left with this. You find come memory so fine. Last times you don't know what it is they are just to cleaning up that vocal very nicely. Now next up, let's take a look at how we can create our own DSa within studio one. Help get rid of that sibilant sound that you find in voices catch in the next one. 9. Building a DeEsser: Welcome back. In this video, I want to show you how you can use a DS effect to get rid of those sibilant sounds in your vocal parts. These are your strong sounds that you hear that sometimes can get quite annoying if you're hearing them in a vocal production. Now, Studio One doesn't come bundled with a DS, but it's really easy to build one up using the stock compressor. I'm going to add a stock compressor, This gives it the name compressor two. I can actually just right click on it and rename. And I'm going to call it just to make things a bit simpler when we're looking at the chain. Then on this I'm just going to dial in some values. I'm going to leave the ratio set at two to one. I'm going to pull this threshold down quite a bit. I'm going to leave the attack and release set as it is. Then the important thing is to enable this filter. I'm going to click on side chain. This is going to be looking at the internal side chain. Then I can dial in the frequency area where that Sibilan sits. I'm going to cut the low cut all the way up to about 2 kilohertz. And the high cut I'm going to bring back to about 7,000 kilohertz. I'm going to bypass this first and just play through the vocal fine, foot in it. Memory stop fine. Last times you tone what it is right over on these parts here, you can definitely hear those sibilan sounds just ing in and playing back from here. Memory stop fine. Last times you tone what it is times. And let's enable the DS that we've built up with the compressor memory style glass times what it is. I can pull this back or actually I can increase this and change where that filter is listening, what it is, what it is. I can actually listen to that frequency area to ready fine tune that. Siblings? Yes, what it is. That sounds good. I'm going to turn that, listen off and pull that threshold down even further and increase that ratio. You tone, what it is. This is, before you tone know what it is, maybe let's play a longer section. You tone, last times you know what it is. And then with the sting last times you tone what it is, I'll pull that low cut back and the high cut up a bit, so it's quite subtle. But with this in the mix, you're going to have those less harsh sibling sounds in your vocal performance, and it's just going to smooth it out. Now taking a lesson with all these processes so far within the mix with the vocal Mary Stop findin' know what it is they are just just putting something into context. Let's bypass that play three B and the memory in loud, what it is and now with the processing you come in memory loud, tint what it is they are just, that's working really well. So let's move over onto the next video to explore some further processing. 10. Saturating Vocals: In this video, I want to take a look at how we can add some saturation into our vocal. With saturation, you hyping up some of the frequencies and it gives it a bit more punch in the mix and can push it through above some of the other instruments. It also takes a clean vocal and adds some extra character to it through the harmonics of the distortion. For this, I'm going to be using the red light distortion, that's an extra extension for studio one. This is really a great saturation effect. You've got different types of saturation that you can apply here. I don't want to go too heavy, so I'm going to use a soft tube, so it's just going to give some extra warmth to the sound. And beef it up. I'm going to play back the music and start tweaking this drive and sort of figure out where I want it to sit in the low and high frequency area. The mix is set to 100, and then after that, I'm going to dial this down so we can blend in how much of that saturated vocal sound we want with it. So here we go, you find comfort in it. Memory stop fine. Last times you don't know what it is. You've also got different stages of the distortion here. As it goes, 1-2 up to three. The distortion is just gonna get more harsh, you come in memory stop fine. Last times you don't know what it is, that one's a bit much. So this go for stage two. You find come in some of the low frequency memory, Stop fine last time and pull back some of the hears what it is. Now, let's dial in this mix. So here's with no saturation come but, and it slowly pull this up. Memory stop fine. Last time you don't know what it is before arches tall you find comfort. And now with the saturation memory live, push it up slightly. What it is, they are arch tall, so just adding a slight bit of saturation there, it really just pushes the vocal through the mix and also gives it some extra warmth to the sound. I'm going to show you in a late video how we can use the same red light distortion to give a sort of filtered vocal effect. But we'll get to that in a bit later. Now, in the next video, let's take a look at adding some reverb sends to this vocal to make it sound less dry. Catch in the next video. 11. Using Reverbs on Vocals: We've added a fair bit of processing onto this vocal, but it's still sounding a bit dry now what's going to fix this is to use some reverb to place this vocal in a room with the rest of the instruments. Instead of its sounding as dry as this, I could just go to my reverb sense and use the room reverb that I've set up for my other instruments. For example, if I go across to the mix console, you can see I've got the reverb on the snare and some of the synth lead patches. By using the same reverb, you're going to a gel this vocal with the other instruments and make it sound like it exists within the same room. So I'm going to go to the sands and just add it to the effect. And just add the room. Reverb in memory. Stop. Find loud times you don't know what it is, they are just tall before you. Still very dry memory. Stop. Find loud times. For example, when I stop playback, you can hear the tail out of the reverb. But that's actually a great way just to check the reverb on an instrument or vocal. Just play it and then stop playback and hear that tail play out. That's fine. I think it works. But let's actually just drop the level a bit and look at some other reverb options. I'm just pulling it back. It sits in the same room, but it's still a bit dry. What I could do is add a dedicated vocal reverb as a send. What I could do is go to the browser and use a different type of reverb. A good option is this open air, which is a convolution reverb. I can just drag this onto the send and it creates a send on that track to this reverb here. You can jump for presets. For example, maybe I want a hall, it's going to be a medium hall. And let's choose a preset warm hall one. As you can see, this has a time of over 1 second. The mix is set to 100% because it is a send effect. Now I can take a listen using this reverb memory style last times just to get an idea of the difference. Let's pull this room reverb up, which is an algorithmic reverb. It's using algorithms to generate the reverb. So I'll just actually open up that reverb. As you can see this is the algorithm that's generating the space but marine style fung last times. Now let's jump for the convolution reverb, which is actually using an impulse response to generate the sign of an actual room. And this is what this sounds like. Ft, Merin style fung last times you don't know what it is they are just talk now. This is a very nice reverb for vocals. It's more smooth and more natural where the room reverb has a bit more of a sort of artificial sounder and works great with other types of instruments. But like I said, I have used this room reverb on some of my other instruments to give a sense of space. So what I could do is just drop this reverb down. So it sort of sounds like it's in the same space, but then the open air is dedicated to the vocal, so you can definitely use more than one type of reverb to get the sound that you're after with your vocal. So now we've got this, but in it memory style, fine. Last times you don't know what it is and now the vocals. With the rest of the mix you come in, the more stop on loud times you don't know what it is they are. Just just to see how far we've come so far. It's good just to do this every now and then just to see what all the processing is adding. So I'm going to bypass the inserts and the sends, and we've got this in the more stood times, so very dry. It doesn't feel like a commercially produced vocal for a music track, but when you add all the inserts and the sends, this has more character processing to, to make it sound more upfront and the mix and having its own sense of space and not so dry memory, find out times you don't know what it is, they are just tall. That's one way of using reverb. Later in the course, I'm going to show you how you can use some side chain. Reverbs creates a different effect, but in the next video, let's check at how we can create some width with our vocals using some modulation effects. 12. Stereo Spread and Width with Modulation Effects: In this video, I want to show you how you can use some modulation effects to give your vocal more width and make it sound even bigger in the mix. First off, I'm going to show you how you can use some chorus, and then I'll show you how you can use some pitch shifting effects to give some extra width. First off, let's go to our effects. I'm going to drag this chorus onto the sends here to create a send return of that chorus effect. Then on this chorus I want to make it a doubler effect. It's going to sound like it's doubling the vocals. Then for the stereo width, I'm going to click spread and increase this to the max so that we've got some stereo spread with the vocal, I'm going to leave everything else set the same. I'm going to solo the vocal. I'm going to pull this down and play back, and then increase the send level on the chorus. You find foot in it. Memory stop fine. Last time, you don't know what it is, they are just tall. You can hear how you're getting that double effect, but that really is a bit drastic. I'm going to pull that down somewhere around -16 You find foot in it. Memory stop fine. Last time pass, you don't know what it is, they are just tall. Now, within a mix with it before you come in memory now with the don't know what it is they are just tall. Definite adds a bit of something giving that extra width and some modulation gives that vocal more presence and feels a bit bigger than it really is from the initial recording. It's okay to use this chorus, but I want to show you another way of using some pitch shifting that really helps at giving the vocal some width. Now I know you're probably thinking the vocal is panned to the center, so why would you need some extra width to it? Well, having a vocal in the center and then using some pitch shifting to increase that spread, just makes that vocal seem bigger than really is. So I'm going to bypass this chorus under my effects. There's this really neat free effect called pitch proof. This is made by a gear. Music I'm not too sure how that's pronounced. I know I've used mainly stock effects that come bundled with Studio One throughout these videos, but this is a really nice third party free effect to use. So I'm going to take the VST version of it and drag this on my Sends to create a new end of it. This is the interface. Now basically I want to slightly detune this vocal for the pitch. I don't want any harmonies going on, so I'm going to set this to zero and set the wet mix all the way up to 100% Then for the pitch, I'm going to slightly pull this off. Maybe not 0.6 let's say. Then going across to my mix console, here is the pitch proof. I want to pan this all the way to the right. Then I want to add another instance of pitch proof. Another end of it. This time I'm going to do the reverse. I'm going to still set the pitch to zero, but I'm going to slightly detune this to the left and set the wet all the way to 100% Then on my X console for this pitch control, I'm going to pan it all the way to the other side. I've got pitch shifting on the left and one pitch shifting on the right. If I solo this vocal and play it back now with those two pitch proofs, this is what it sounds like. You find come foot in it memory style, fine. Last times you tone know what it is, they are just tall. Now I'm going to take these two tracks, select them, drag them down, and increase them so you can hear how we're not blend this in, it creates that extra width. Here we go, you find foot in it. Memory style, fine. Last times you tone what it is, they are just tall. Before you find come foot in it. Memory stop. Fun loud, hang in with this. You know what it is. They are just tall. Now let's hear it with the music you come in. Memory, stop what it is. They are just tall. So that's with the pit shifting with the two cent effects pans to different sides. Just to compare it. Here is the chorus doubler with a stereo spread in the find out times don't know what it is, they are just tall. And now with the pitch proof, send effects pan to the left and right, you come but in the memory, find out times what it is they are just tall. I know it's very subtle, the difference between the two. But I really prefer the use of these pitch shifting effects used as send effects and then pan to different sites, create some extra width And then using the send levels other here on the send effects or on the channel strip volumes of the cent effects to adjust how much of that you want to push the stereo spread on the vocal. That's how to use some modulation effects to create some more stereo spread with your vocals. It really gives them more presence and makes them feel bigger than they are in the mix. Now let me catch you in the next video where we're going to talk about those si Cheney reverbs that I mentioned in a previous video. 13. Using Sidechained Reverb: In this video, I want to show you how you can use reverb on your vocals in a different way. Now what I mean about this is when the vocal comes in, the reverb is ducked, and then when the vocal phrase finishes, the reverb comes back in. So you've got the ducking effect that clears the mix and gets your punchy vocal through. And then as you finish the phrase, you hear the tail of that reverb come in. I found this works really well to get the parameters set up on the reverb, but once that's done, you get this clean vocal, but it still has that room sound effect to it, but it doesn't feel like it's drenched in reverb. Let's see how it's done. I'm going to solo the vocal so you can hear it in isolation. And then like you've seen in other videos, we'll play it together with the other instruments to hear how it sounds. I'm going to be doing this side channing on this open air reverb. I've just bypassed this room reverb for now. I'm going to go across to the mix console, scroll across to my open air reverb. Then on this, after the reverb, let's just check the reverb settings out. We've got a warm hall preset with a 2.27 length reverb. It is quite a good siding length tail to the reverb. Then after this, we're going to add a compressor. Now the key thing to get this working is to set up the side chain input. For the side chain, I'm going to enable this. And then over here if I click this, I can click what the source is going to be. The source is going to be this vocal track. Now I do apologize, I've got two tracks named vocals one and vocals one. Maybe I'm going to name this vocals two, so we can clearly see the difference. Then I'll click here to go to the sources. And I'm going to tick vocals two as the source. Now let's get the setting set up. I want quite a high ratio, somewhere around the seven to one region. I'm going to pull this threshold down to about -30 DB. I want a very fast attack, but a low release. Now, I'm going to play back this vocal and here as when the phrase finishes, how you hear that reverb, did you hear that? I'm going to just bypass the side chain. This is what we've got with just the vocal and the normal reverb fnet. Maybe I should increase the reverb amount. We hear this more clearly. And this is with the side chain. This is with a side chain. So I'm going to enable the side chain and make sure that that is ticked and I'm just going to pull the threshold down to hear this more clearly. Get that pumping effect. When there's a little gaps in the vocal, it pushes that vocal up. You can also see how the reverb is going to be working with the ducking effect. With the gain reduction on the compression, that's a bit drastic. Let's pull down that reverb. It's tailor some of these settings. I don't want the threshold so low. Maybe increase that ratio to eight to one. Have the attack a bit shorter with a longer lease. And then let's hear this you in memory style. Fine. Last times you don't know what it is, they are just that's working very well. Just to give you a reminder, this is what it's like without any sidechain compression. And I'm going to bypass the compressor in it memory. So fine last times and now with the compression and the side chain, you find comfort in it memory. So fine last times you don't know what it is, they are just tall. It just helps that vocal to get through and not feel like it's drenched in the reverb. I find it works really well and I actually prefer this method over just having a send with some reverb. I can, if I want to add a bit more of the room reverb, so it's using that same reverb as the other instruments, but just make sure that you don't dial this up too much and drench the vocal and get rid of that sort of side chaining reverb effect that we've set up with this reverb, you find come now let's hear it with the mixed in net memory, findin' know what it is they are just that's how to set up a side chain compression for vocals. Now next up let's take a look at how we can do a similar thing but with delay. Side chain delay on vocals. Catch in the next video where we're going to be speaking about more on this set up. 14. Using Sidechained Delays: Okay, we're going to continue where we left off on the last video. In the last video I showed you how you could set up a side chain reverb. In this video, we're going to be talking about how to do the same thing but with a delay effect. What I mean by this is the vocals are going to be sung when that delay effect that's being set up is going to push up and you're going to hear the tailed off echoes of the vocal. Let's see how this is set up. First, we need to choose what delay effect we're going to be using. I personally really like the delays and the pedal board on the send effects. I'm going to add a chair. I'll go to my browse panel down to prisons and look for the pedal board. There we go. And I'm going to add this as a send. Then on the send under the insert section, I'm going to add this analog Stomp box type delay. For this delay, I want the mix set all the way to 100% The feedback can be around about 50% The timing is going to be eighth notes for the repeats. We can filter where we want these repeats to be happening. I want to low cut out some of those repeats, the same with the high cut, cut that out in the filtered out frequency area. There's going to be those delayed repeats of the vocal. Let's first hear what this sounds like with the delay on the vocals. And then we'll explore the side chain compression after this as an insert effect, soloing those vocals. You've got this, you find memory fine last time it is, they are just tall. Obviously, that delay effect is very drastic, it's draining out that vocal there. You've got that reverb plus the delays, but if we use some side chain compression to duck that delay when there's the vocal part, it's actually going to clear it up, but you're still going to have that sound or effect of the delays under the pedal board here on this send effect. I'm going to add a compressor on this compressor like you saw in the last video, I'm going to enable the side chain and set up the source, which is vocals two. For this we're going to dial in a similar setting like we did with the reverb. We're going to pull the threshold all the way down to about -37 I am going to use a high ratio of about nine to one, somewhere around there. And it'll be a short attack. The release can actually be a bit shorter as well. Now, let's hear what this sounds like. You find memory fine last time you know what it is they are. Just so you can hear how those repeats are ducking down when the vocal part comes in, I could maybe dial back the send level so it's more like this you find come in memory so fine. Last time, you don't know what it is, they are just tall. I was just slightly tweaking those parameters as I was playing back. Now let's hear it in a mix. I'm actually going to close the stand, close the mix console and just zoom out. And instead of this looping back, I just want to increase that sort of loop end so this can play out and you can hear those repeats on that side chain delay you find come in memory stop Fine ladies don't know what it is. Yes they are just tall. Let's increase that delay because with the other instruments it feels a bit buried, so I can actually push it up a bit more. You come in memory stop that time, don't know what it is, They are just tall. So it's very cool having that effect. As that phrase finishes there, the delay comes back in and you get that sort of repeated tale of that last word. Now like I've been doing throughout the other videos, let's just see how far we've come. So I'm going to bypass the inserts, bypass the sends. Here is the raw vocal before any processing come more fine, fine. And then with the inserts processing and the send effects, and as you can see, we've actually been doing quite a bit of work. Got a good selection of inserts and definitely a big selection of sends that are set up on this vocal. What you're probably getting now is that a lot of processing goes into vocals to get it sitting very well in the mix. All of this is going to make it sound like a professional vocal within your tracks and your recordings. So let's play this out one last time and then I'll catch you in the next video. You find comfort in the memory so fine, last time you don't know what it is, they are just told. 15. Using Filtered Saturated Vocal Sound: Throughout the series. So far with these videos, we've been taking a look at how to process the vocal part, in particular the main lead vocal part. Now in the remainder videos of this course, let's take a look at how we can add some interest by using some different processing and using different vocals to complement the main vocal. Now I remember when I showed you how you could use the red light distortion as a saturation effect, I hinted at how you could use a high saturation bit for a filtered vocal effect. Let's take a look at this and this video. What I'm going to do is I want to create a new track. I'll make it mono. Then I just want to select all these parts and duplicate them down to that track. I'm just holding down option or Olt. I'm copying them down. Now what I want to do is I want to repeat this last vocal pit over here. They are tall I can get rid of. Now, I'm just going to zoom up. What I want to do is I want to have this last part and then repeats that. It'll be here. They are just tall. Somewhere around here. I think if I'm looking at it correctly, let's listen. They are chest. They are cheers. Tall. Yeah. That's exactly what I want to do, but I want to process this one differently to this vocal. I am just going to copy across some of the settings. Let's just name this correctly filed vocals. Jump across to the mixed console where I can see the filtered vocals. I want to copy across the compressor, the EQ, the gate, and the D for the red light distortion. I want to use some different settings, so I'm going to go for the red light distortion. I'm just going to put this over here and I'm going to make a cycle area. Where is it over here? I'm just going to cycle through and get the sound that we want for this vocal. They are just tall. Is that using the hard tube, I want to drive it a bit more. And then for the filter I want to create the sort of pocket of sound on where the saturated sound is going to sit. So I don't want so much low end, but I don't want to much of the high end either. They are just tall. They are just tall. Drive the distortion up a bit more. They are just tall and pull down the drive, they are just tall. Here, is it before? They are just tall. They are just tall. That's sounding good. So I'm going to add the room reverb onto here and also the open air, but I don't want to do any of the sidechain compression. And then I want to pan this slightly to the right so we can have something like this. Yes, they are just tall. They are just tall. I can pull that in so it doesn't need to be panned so far to the other side and pull the volume down and maybe less of that rev of mouse. They are all they are just tall. They are just tall. Awesome. That sounds great. Using the main vocal parts, I've copied that across, move it down, used a red light distortion to saturate and create that telephone distorted effect. Works really well, just giving some extra interest to vocals. Now in the next video, let's take a look at how we can add a harmony over this vocal part catch in the next video. 16. Conclusion: Thanks so much for watching all the way to the end. I hope by now you have a much better understanding on how to produce vocals in studio one with your songs. As you can see, it's quite a complex instrument, but by following all these steps that I showed you, you'll have a much better vocal that sits in your productions. It's well worth taking effort to really get your vocals nice and polished and sitting in the mix. I hope you enjoy this class and I hope you have good luck with your vocals and your productions.