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Project 4, Session Diary 11: More feedback and track changes

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In my last entry I stated that I would re-record the vocal but after long and careful consideration and some more feedback from friends and tutors, I decided to keep the take we had already recorded.
My reasoning behind choosing not to re-record the vocal is that I really like the take, I think that we captured the emotions of the song. There are a couple of intricacies of her performance which I think could not be replicated.
I tested the Rode NT1A with Lauren and in my opinion, it does sound better than the TLM 103 by Neumann. Her voice sounds fuller and more natural but I think for this specific song the TLM 103 was the right choice because the vocal is a bit more breathy and almost heavenly. It’s quite hard to describe but the sound of it melds well with the instrumental.
On Monday in sequencing skills, I presented my track to the class and my lecturer Shea and received very positive feedback. He said that I should sit down and mix the vocal again but not re-record it.
When I asked Professor Stretch to listen to it he also commented on the vocal but not on the actual sound but purely the mix. He said that the dynamic range is too big and that during the loud parts there is a frequency which sticks out which is quite jarring. I opened the Logic project for him where I had previously mixed the vocal and he examined it thoughtfully. He then changed the settings of the Vintage Opto compressor to catch some of the peaks and boost the overall RMS signal by reducing the dynamic range and increasing the volume of the track by adding about 8db of makeup gain. Stretch set a low threshold of about -35db and a decently high ratio of 3 so that it would reduce the volume over the threshold quite drastically to get a more even sound.
He then added a second compressor, compressing the frequencies at 1500 hz acting kind of as a dynamic eq. The Classic VCA compressor is also set so that it reduces peaks a lot to control the vocal.

By adding the two compressors we really tamed the vocal and made it louder without losing too much dynamic range.
Additionally, I altered some parts of the arrangement to make the song a little bit longer and more commercial sounding as the previous arrangement was quite as there was no real breakdown after the first chorus and it was harder to listen to.


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