Episode 19 - Vocal Production
Show Notes
Vocal Production
Live With Matt Rad - Episode 19
Sept 20, 2020
w/ Matt Beckley
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Matt Rad Vocal Chain:
Late 70s U87, 50’s longbody U47, Undertone Audio MPEQ-1
He used to use Neve.
Matt thinks a lot of mics are hyped up. They tend to be too bright. His U87 is darker but takes EQ well.
Ribbon mics may be dark, but they’re so accurate that you can really crank the high-end up and still have it sound good.
Coles 4038 - Amazing mic. Dark, but makes a great vocal mic. You can boost the high end a lot.
Matt Beckley Vocal Chain:
Telefunken 251. Sometimes he uses a U87, sometimes he uses a Mikrotech Gefell too.
He runs it through a Chandler TG Channel w/ the EQ. It has a Pultec-type EQ.
He uses a Slate Dragon. It’s like an 1176 compressor w/ a Neve transformer, but it’s also got a blend knob on it. That means he can get the vibe but still retain the transients that would go away with heavy compression.
Beckley prefers that people don’t spend 3k on an emulation of a 10k microphone that doesn’t quite get there.
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The people that know “how” will always work for the people that know “why”.
Beckley calls it “tracing”. He knows how the song should sound before he even starts and it’s just him filling in the sounds as he works through it. He knows what he wants, so then he’s just tracing the lines and chasing the sounds.
Beckley wishes more producers would get really good headphones so that they can beat the effects of the room and start to hear the nuance.
JH Audio in-ears are supposed to be fantastic.
Rad uses ATH-M50x headphones - $150
Q: Would you rather record in a more lively sounding room or a dead, but boxy closet?
Beckley things the boxy sound of a closet is going to fuck you harder than a lively room.
Beckley thinks enough people don’t think enough about polar patterns.
You’ll get better sonics if you put the acoustic treatment it behind the singer, instead of using something like an SE Reflexion Filter that goes behind the mic to isolate it.
A live wall behind the singer is going to fuck them harder.
Beckley: Hyper-cardioid has really good rejection, but it has even more proximity effect than cardioid. You can use this to beef someone’s voice up if you need to.
Omni picks up lots of room, but has no proximity effect.
U47s were built in a time when the singers were 1.5 ft away from the mic.
A lot of mics were designed to be used at this distance.
Nowadays people are eating the mic and need to step back.
A big mistake Rad hears a lot is in people eating the mic.
Handling sibilance:
Rad uses a metal pop screen. He finds metal to be more clear.
Beckley thinks the metal ones can be a little “ess”-y.
Both Matts would recommend you spending a lot of time recording yourself singing to improve your engineering chops.
A good producer will emphasize the emotion of the performance. If you get a shit performance going in you will get shit coming out.
Beckley would rather that they swing for the fences and bleed on the mic rather than bunt and get medium results.
He will take time to reassure them that he can correct for timing and pitch. Let them know that they can just go for it. You’ve got them. It’s alright.
Rad: The #1 thing we will try to impart to people is that this is the place to experiment, try weird things, and let your voice crack.
Rad is always pushing for the opportunity to spend multiple days on the performance capture.
“This is the place to try stuff. I want the biggest emotion out of you.”
“I want you to to embody the lyric.”
“Close your eyes and imagine where you’re at as you sing”
You need to create a space where the artist feels that this is the space to try things.
Beckley: these are the most important things we’ve discussed all session.
Beckley can tell everyone that goes into the booth: I did Paris Hilton’s record. There is nothing that you can do in the booth that is going to scare me and that I haven’t heard before, or can’t deal with.
Q: If the artist and producer are disagreeing on what to do, what do I do?
Learn to be more compassionate and kind. Learn to deal with it.
Beckley worked under Rob Cavallo for several years. He later went on to work under Dr. Luke.
Rob cooks to unwind.
As a producer, no matter what the other minutiae is, your #1 job is this: “Is this song or record awesome?” Is it the absolute best that we can get it? Your job as the producer is to do whatever it takes to get it there.
Producers don’t get hired for their gear. They get hired for their opinion and their results that their opinion gets.
You have to get it right. No matter what it takes. That is your job.
Setting monitor mixes for an artist:
Get in there and hear it for yourself while you’re setting it up.
This is hugely important.
Tiny amounts of latency can affect performance 30-40%.
Make sure you are ruthless about latency and direct monitoring.
People will sing immediately better.
You’d better be there listening to the headphone mix and determine if there is a smidge of latency.
You need to make sure that the artist is comfortable.
You need to take down as many barriers as possible between you and the magic.
Have everything ready to go: headphones, water on hand, temperature in the room.
The bigger the artist, the less the diva, in their experience.
Q: How do you decide when to tune or not to tune?
Don’t just strap on an auto-tuner.
Spend time listening and doing things subtly.
Ultimately you just need to listen.
Spend all of your time on phrasing and moving timing instead of tuning.
That’s the magic. That’s a big secret.
Rhythmically badass performance beats tuning every single time.
Every time you do something, be deliberate.
What is meant by phrasing?
Jack White is ahead of the beat 100% of the time. That’s exciting.
It tends to be more exciting if it’s ahead of the beat and more groovy if it’s behind.
The more ahead the more sharp they tend to be, the more behind the flatter they tend to be.
Pele (of The Hives) said: “If a song is only two chords, it’d better be the right two chords.”
Andrew Scheps: “Everyone wants their mix to sound like 99 problems, but nobody ever gives him 99 problems to mix.”
It’s not about being on the grid, it’s about listening to how something makes you feel. Is it giving you the chills?
Bass players are often behind the kick
Tambo and shaker can be way behind the beat and make the beat awesome.
Matt Rad homework:
Go on youtube and listen to acapella performances of Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Freddie, etc.
Listen to that and now know “That’s your bar for performance.” It’s up here.
Michael Jackson is the benchmark for timing and rhythm. Usually people need more timing and enunciation. That’s the comment that will get them there most of the time.
Do the MJ/Bruce Swedien distance trick when stacking vocals: With each layer of vocals, step back from the mic 6 more inches.
Have a keyboard right next to your desk that you can immediately be able to play the melody on in order to search for melodic/harmonic ideas.
It must be ready to go at all times. Don’t be in a situation where you need to bring up a software instrument. It must be ready to go.
