I was listening to kpop (don’t judge) and I was wondering what specifically made the singer’s voice sound so pleasant, even though they were singing in a language I don’t understand. Is it something you can practice or is it simply something that you are born with?
In: Biology
The thing about studio recordings is that you are quite literally doing everything you can to make a tracked instrument sound as good as you can.
You asked about vocals so we’ll do vocals. In a studio you will track vocals in 1 of 2 places, either the live room or an isolation booth. Live rooms, as you’d imagine, are large rooms for tracking many people simultaneously but also for the *sound* of the room. It sounds “lively”. Usually A and B rooms have these.
Isolation booths are well…isolated. Theyre usually large enough for 1 or 2 people, and they’re treated to sound “dead”. Not much reverb or delay. So they’ll track in either of those rooms depending on the style of music, the sound they want and how they like to process the vocal next.
So now we have the room. Next we choose the microphone and preamp. These color the sound in a unique way that will match the style of performer and vocals etc. You’ll do a shootout with it and choose what you like best.
Sometimes in the vocal chain you’ll add a compressor or EQ, these also color the sound and you’ll set it to the style you’re tracking etc. If you’re starting out you’ll likely no have the budget for one, nor the knowledge on how to set it in a manner which you can’t undo.
So now that we have the room, vocal chain we need to push the signal (probably unless you are a real glutton for punishment) into the computer. Well you need some converters for that. Converters *also* color the sound in a particular way, however, what you’re really gunning for is accuracy.
Once you have all of this you can start tracking. You have many different kinds of producers and many different kinds of engineers that all take different approaches to tracking (recording) but in the end, it’s about getting the most out of the situation that sounds most pleasing. For the most part you want it to sound as good as possible before mixing – fixing it in post is not fun.
After the vocals are cut it’s time to mix. You may add reverb, delay, harmonizers, you may pitch correct if the vocal take is *really* awesome but they missed a note, you can EQ to change the tone of the vocal, you’ll compress to add color and/or texture. Anyway, it’s all to make it sound *awesome* and that’s how it’s done.
Latest Answers