Equalizer Help

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angelfire
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Equalizer Help

Post by angelfire » Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:06 pm

Hi Everyone.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it - I've recorded some tracks and the instruments are fine but the vocals are hard to make sound good.

Either they're too high and screechy and harsh or too low and bassy if you know what I mean. Does anyone know any usefull settings with the Equalizer that I can make my vocal sound good? I tried 'Columbia' and 'Accoustic' but they seem quite hollow sounding and muted.

Thank you in advance :)

Dan

kozikowski
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Re: Equalizer Help

Post by kozikowski » Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:18 pm

Those equalizer settings are for phonograph records. They won't do you a bit of good.

Can we assume you're trying to fix your voice by itself, and not in the music mix? If you're stuck with the mix, you're dead. Also, you start with the vocal and add the music, not the other way around.

Making vocals come out right is rough. Can you tell what's wrong with it? Can you post a couple of seconds of vocal by itself so we can hear it? People getting into this for the first time make some common mistakes. We can't take out echoes and reverb. Can't be done. We can't remove noise, either, not from a singer. If you're recording in your dining room, it's going to be really rough to make you into Harry Connick, Jr.

If all you have wrong is compression -- loudness changes and instability, you can use one of the fine compressors in Audacity, or the highly regarded Chris's Compressor from here.

Chris's Compressor
http://pdf23ds.net/software/dynamic-compressor/

If you sing off pitch, there is AutoTune, but there are some problems with the Audacity version.

Koz

kozikowski
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Re: Equalizer Help

Post by kozikowski » Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:33 pm

You should view the blue waveforms and make sure none of them ever goes all the way up (or down) to zero. That creates clipping distortion which is permanent and fatal.

You can use the bouncing lights in the sound meters to tell you errors as well. They should never go all the way up in to the red flashing zone. You can "undock" the meters by pulling them out of the Audacity work window and pull them really large so you can see what you're doing.

Koz

angelfire
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Re: Equalizer Help

Post by angelfire » Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:15 am

Hi guys,

thanks very much for your help :)

I didn't know you had to compress the vocals, I hadn't done that, they were screechy and high in places with a hollow sound :(

Now they're fine, thanks very much! Really happy with the sound after compression.

Dan

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