Tips for Editing Metal Vocals (Singing and Screaming)

[@deltavistastudio124]

Hey Jordan, Great tip about cutting on the "S's"!

[@gregorycurry1827]

great quick tips clearly explained and demo'd. thanks!

[@TheHumanPorcupine]

Great video as always, Jordan! I've been doing it pretty close to this, but I got some new tips to use regarding backing vocals. A suggestion is to turn up the volume of your voice in the video. I find myself having to turn up when you speak and then turning down again when the music is playing.

[@bunkowske]

I've been waiting for this video for a while now. Thanks for the insight!

[@hardcoremusicstudio]

I was secretly reading your mind

[@raykrush]

Awesome video as always definitely going to try this out thanks Jordan!

[@purplemonkeyelephant]

Seen some tips here I've never seen before. Awesome

[@MadMaxwellP216]

Great video, thanks!

[@deltavistastudio124]

Thanks J! Vocalign is powerful, but because it lines everything up so tight, it suddenly sounds SMALLER!

[@ChrisRisingOfficial]

maybe shift one of the tracks by a couple of ticks later or earlier

[@carlossousa-gomes6040]

Ye i think you just track until everything is in time. Minor imperfections are ok

[@alessandrosummer]

It depends. If you tune the vocals too much they kinda disappear so yeah in this case Vocalign makes them sound smaller. I never tune the double track very tightly for this reason

[@MetalArcade]

What version of Pro Tools is this? I'm on PT 12 and I can no longer use my VocAlign project... did you do something special to allow it to work?

[@zakkbass2816]

nice sweater

[@ncrstudio3108]

this is the same workflow I've used for about the last 12 years or so...but I honestly can't stand the sound of elastic audio at all...I manually nudge everything except when absolutely necessary...then I'll use Revoice Pro to barely tweak it. I've got most of the tuning software out there and I've found that Autotune works the best for me on well sung vox, but Melodyne is a bit better for stuff that''s off by more than a half a semitone. Revoice Pro is the most transparent, but I can't stand dragging around the notes by ear only...especially when I'm tired and start making mistakes...with Autotune it's so much better using the snap to grid and having the security of knowing it's dead on. Even when editing at 4am lol... I was kinda surprised that you didn't select the key of the song first though...to my ears it actually does make a difference in how the plugin responds...even with tracking the pitch from the very start...

[@anthonydahl5454]

Hey really nice video! By the way, what is the band you are editing in the video, music seemed really promising!

[@VarietyShop]

The auto tune editing looks so much cleaner than Melodyne. Thanks for the video!

[@jimmylennon3088]

thank you.great help.to.me.allways have truble with vocals

[@BetonBenni]

So are you using 1 track in center for the clean vocals and than layers l and r? Or do you use 2 loud tracks for main vocals and than 2 more layers on each side?

[@kalmkaos1465]

Epic

[@dominicchristoph]

If I'm doing demo stuff at home to send to my producer should I edit my vocal tracks in this way before sending them out or have my guy do it? Great instruction for sure.

[@prashuryagoswami6122]

you should do it

[@elbuenmexicano577]

Is this a program built into Mac? Or is it universally available?

[@JulianWorden]

How come you use polyphonic mode on screams? Any special reason, or is it just sort of a set it and forget it kinda thing?

[@hardcoremusicstudio]

Polyphonic mode is what I find works best on almost all material (other than drums/percussion). But in this case, I use polyphonic to edit timing and when finished, I switch it to X-Form for the highest quality and then I commit by consolidating.

[@MannyFacio]

You’re a saint 😭

[@jdfcovers2721]

Yo I love the song man! can I find it somewhere?

[@seanmichael2554]

What song is this that you're editing? I dig it.

[@johnhynesproductionslimite7522]

I’m not sure why your DAW won’t allow you to just “grab the transient” amd just move it over...is the “snap to grid”enabled?....I see what your trying to do the first part of the vocals but I feel like your doing it the hard way... PS I use Reaper

[@ryanhayden9235]

He kinda addresses all your questions before he starts editing.

[@roberthaskin1723]

If the vox are to out of time, maybe to often, do you ever just tell the singer to redo it?

[@Samstonednb]

Yep, way better to fix problems like that during recording, rather than in post production

[@xaosnox]

I am just in shock at how nonchalant he is about this vocal take. Has this just become acceptable? When I used to record, there were none of these tools. I remember the first time I worked with a producer who wanted everything doubled. It took time, it had to be perfect and studio time was expensive back then. After my first day, I got it down to where it was almost impossible to tell it was doubled. Now, these guys have all the time in the world to get something right, and that vocal was unlistenable before he fixed it. You used to have to have a thing called "talent" and do this other thing called "practice" where you honed that talent into a what we called a "skill" and that's what got you behind a mic to record. Now it seems all you need is the mic. This isn't even demanding work. The guy's maybe got a one and half octave range to master, right? I can see fixing one bad note or a word that not timed well to save an otherwise great take, but this is a redo, not a take. So, the engineer has to have more musical talent than the "talent" now, it seems. I used to have a lot of bands pay me to do their demo because they were sure that they could get a deal with my vocal, then I'd join their crappy band. So, I'd get a lyric sheet, a rough idea of what the guitarist thought the melody should be (guitar players are usually NOT very good at writing vocal melodies), one listen to the track, then do the song in one take with maybe a couple punch-ins. If I was working with a real band, I'd get a daily on cassette to take home and listen to and figure out if I wanted to touch anything up a bit and practice for the double. I would have a really, REALLY hard time with the ethics of making some no-talent, undedicated schmo sound like he could sing. It seems to me that, in todays world, the engineer should be getting their pictures on the album art and the royalties and points from the sales and the performers should be working for a flat fee. It seems like the only artists that I hear anymore where I can't detect pitch correction are people like Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi, and Ann Wilson. Even people like P!nk, who can really sing, has a note here or there where I can hear some correction. WTF? I guess if the feel of the take was great, and they didn't catch the mistake while she was recording, I could justify correcting it, but the level of correction being done in this video is just sickening. It's like every word needs time or pitch correction. What they really need is a vocalist.

[@aliatruman]

@@xaosnox I mean, go off, I guess?

[@mashpotatosauce3566]

@@aliatruman lmfao

[@Jazzguitar00]

@@xaosnox This video is about vocal editing, not vocal recording. There are separate videos for that on KZbin. I know the internet is a new and scary thing but you'll get used to it (jk jk).

[@purplemonkeyelephant]

What's the band/track?

[@eddietaylor9059]

Great video, ive leard that melonine works similar to auto tune. have it never used it know that you told me i will open it up, and use your techniques.

[@dynatwenty]

Thanks for the insight. I love to hear unprocessed pro vocalists sounding like total shit. It gives me hope that i can learn to sing!

[@sebastiengaudette8265]

They don't sound like shit. Its just an effect due to everything else being on the perfect note. :)

[@xoswitch5484]

@@sebastiengaudette8265 dude i love how u worded this honestly gives me confidence when u put it like that

[@sammytheman8994]

When a person says, tracking a vocal with some compression.. do thy mean having like a compressor plugin turned on during your monitoring when tracking?

[@hardcoremusicstudio]

no, usually talking about recording with an actual outboard compressor in the chain

[@kevinvangelooven4864]

I sing and if you need to nudge so many stuff... I would feel bad about my timings/performance :p

[@jabooky15]

Can you use vocal line on guitars?

[@hardcoremusicstudio]

They market it that way, but I've never really tried it. I don't edit guitars like that, I've never used any time stretching on bass and guitars that didn't significantly affect the tone

[@jabooky15]

Hardcore Music Studio I’m definitely gonna but that plugin and I think I’m gonna try it on guitars just for the very little details like a riff starting/ending together perfectly and see if it makes it sound funky anywhere in between, either way I’m excited for this plugin, thanks for the videos

[@ncrstudio3108]

I've tried VocAlign Project on guitars and it honestly sounds really bad...even with Revoice Pro it still gets garbly in APT. I always just nudge manually and as a last resort, I'll manually do just the smallest sections in Revoice (using Pro Link) or Melodyne (using the universal algorithm)

[@jabooky15]

NCRSTUDIO oh ok, thanks for letting me know

[@birdisthezv]

Autotune man how hardcore is that

[@23thkr]

Many of the modern metal/hardrock productions today sounds so perfect that it looses its authenticity. I agree with Rick Beato's statement that perfect is the enemy of good and a lot of bands are just photoshopping their music.

[@Jazzguitar00]

I'm glad you are detached from reality and you think only pop artists use auto tune.

[@ScottyWiard]

How about not "editing" a performance and just make the artist do it until they get it right?

[@hardcoremusicstudio]

totally agree... however, sometimes the artist's ability isn't up to the standard you need. I'm not going to let a record have out-of-time/tune vocals. Get it as close as possible and then help it the rest of the way. And if it doesn't need editing, all the better!

[@ScottyWiard]

@@hardcoremusicstudio Fair enough, I suppose. I'm just a fan of keeping it as natural as possible.

[@roadkillpotato3468]

@@hardcoremusicstudio that's no excuse if you want to get the right not you need to practice repeatedly to get it right just like bands like iron maiden would have done before auto tune existed. Metal isn't about sounding perfect. It's about using ones own natural abilities to make the music.

[@alessandrosummer]

@@roadkillpotato3468that's not the job of the engineer. Their job is deliver the best quality product, no matter how. If the musicians suck... that's a problem of them when they perform live

[@roadkillpotato3468]

@@alessandrosummer there's a difference between "sucking" and being perfect. Just because your not perfect dosent mean you suck. That's why they call it practice. You try to do something repeatedly until you nail it. It doesn't mean your bad. You can be good at something and still need to practice to improve.