For some singers, they want to feel like they are in the record.  One thing I sometimes put on a singer on the way in, which is a good little trick,  is a harmonizer,  which is like a widener. Now what that means is that they also get a bit of their voice in their ears left and right as well as like hearing it everywhere else. And some singers really benefit from that if they like to be dominating everything.
So does that make sense? That’s what I have available if people want to have it on the way in.  So the big thing about headphones is  you need to be patient and spend some time getting a good headphone level.  What I’ll tend to do is  I will record a couple of warm uptake of the song  while I’m sorting out  general levels, headphone levels,  et cetera, just so I get them feeling so comfortable that then once we’re actually recording, we’re not stopping and starting and they’re not asking for things to be changed.
But I would say be prepared  for people to  be quite demanding when they’re recording a vocal because it’s an important thing to get right. And I think your job as a producer is to get them comfortable.  So don’t make them feel that they can’t ask for things.
’cause sometimes singers are intimidated.  I’ve had singers come in and I’ve had their vocal muted in the headphones and I hadn’t realized  because I’m trying to mess around with other things  and they’re so worried that they haven’t even said they can’t hear themselves because they think they must be an idiot.  So it’s like your job is to make them feel like they’re really the most important thing because they are really the most important thing and you want ’em to think that it was a good session and that they will deliver a better song if they are really happy and they feel in a great place when they’re singing it.
Singing’s such an emotional thing. Don’t you think  that it’s  much more than just drumming some guitars or playing the drums? I mean, obviously there’s emotion involved, but it’s like you’re delivering a lyric or a story to somebody. So  to put a candle on and to light a Joss stick and to bring the lights down a bit low  isn’t really asking a lot as far as I can see.
And some singers really benefit from that. Some singers don’t need any of that or don’t even sing better like that.  So you’ve just got to kind of read the singer and know your singer. What I do when I’m recording a a session  is I have a,  a template set up in logic, which I’m gonna show you.  So Let me show you that. this is just something I did myself.
I’m just gonna close that for now. we don’t need to save it.  Yeah. Here, here we go. Oh, actually I just opened the template. So  new from template.  So this is my, is it that one or is it that one?  I think it’s this one basic vocal template.  So  let me share this with you.
Share  logic  share,  okay. And let me zoom in a bit so you can see what’s going on.  So hopefully you  can see that I have a whole bunch of tracks  already  colored in and set up, ready to record at  the top here.  I’ll bring in the instrumental track  underneath it.
I’ll bring in the guide vocal track,  and then  underneath I’ll have lots of tracks already set up.  And they are  lead vocal, lead vocal ad libs, lead, vocal, double track, lead, vocal, triple track lead, vocal octave, bv, high bv, high double bv, high Triple bv, high Quad.
You can see the rest of them. So this is like a basic vocal template.  Saves me a lot of time having it set up this way because if  I open the mixer page,  new share mixer page. Okay, so  this is what I have set up on now Mixer.  So I basically have,  yeah, it’s a pretty simple setup, so I have to track  the guide box and then I’ve got all these vocal tracks.
The lead vocal tracks  are the lead vocal is basically sent to  this bus called LV bus,  which is which has got, a plugin called Soothe on there, which I’ll talk about a bit later. And it’s also got, it’s being sent to a little bit reverb and a little bit delay. This reverb is a Val Halla vintage and it’s just a waves delay.
So  when it’s also got autotune on  running pretty slow and not doing very much,  can you see autotune?  Yes. Great. Okay, so what happens,  this is one thing I’ve really noticed about recording  Extremely good singers  is  all famous people, which I’ve done quite a lot of,  is that when you record them and they want to hear it back,  they want to hear it back sounding good,  even if they’re just listening to the line before the one they’re singing, which is sometimes what happens when you’re dropping in, to, to like do a different section.
So that’s why I’ll have  some auto tune running pretty slow.  Often it’ll be set to the key of the song if we know what the key of the, you know, if you know what the key of the song is, I’ll auto tune running.
I’ll have a bit of low band EQ just taken off the bottom end of the vocal.  And  often I’ll have like just this soothe on the bus,  have a little limiter on the master bus, not really doing anything.  But I might also have like, something  like  a,  a mix rack or something on there, which is Steven Slates  plugins.
And I might just have like a 1176 or something, which is a compressor, the,  the reason I’m doing this, or even a distressor a little bit of that. But just running a bit in parallel  and in 1176 kind of copy with a little bit of that as well.
Because the reason I’m doing this  is because when I, when they hear about what they’ve sung, I want them to be excited  and to  think that they’re doing great.  So  that’s why I  have some live stuff running.  As you can see, I haven’t got loads of stuff going on because I don’t want to crash the session and I don’t wanna have any latency. So I haven’t got any U a D plugins running there.
I don’t want it to be too complicated, but I want it to sound pretty good when they’re listening back.  That’s why also all the backing vocals are already being sent to a bus,  which is here. BV Bus, which has got a little bit of C L a  running,  taking some of the bottom end out. sometimes I’ll be, depending what’s happening, sometimes I’ll be panning the bvs and things while we’re recording.  So it  quickly starts sounding like a record and people get excited when things sound like a record.
