EQ Magazine - April 2009 - (Page 31) to say was, “Finally, someone who can sing over Eddie’s guitar.” David Lee Roth sang in a low register, and you couldn’t get the vocal up loud enough without eating up the track, which meant the guitars had to be back in the mix. In the early days, Eddie would only do one guitar track, and as a result, the guitar was very sparse. When I joined the band, the guitars got much louder—and the production got much fuller—because I could scream over a bunch of guitar tracks, a cranked bass, and a keyboard. DAWS LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD A BIT TOO MUCH DAWs tend to allow people who aren’t so good singing or playing to be very competitive. I can sing on key, and I can play in time. My band can go in and get an amazing track in one take. But some bands can go in and sound like they’re just as good as us because of technology. It’s funny—you go and see them and say, “These guys stink!” I don’t think being able to fix bad performances is good for the industry, because then it seems like any goodlooking chick or handsome dude can go off and have a smash hit. Don’t Eat the Vocal! Okay, Sammy Hagar can hang tough with just about any raging guitar tone, but your singer might not be as sonically macho. So rather than be an oaf and bury the vocals under a tsunami of 6-string mayhem, here are three tips for crafting powerful guitar tracks that still allow the singer to command center stage in the mix. Tone Down. Guitars and vocals tend to travel in the same midrange frequencies of 500Hz up to around 3kHz (depending on the singer’s range and the tuning of the guitar), so boosting the EQ of your guitars in that range is going to seriously screw the singer. Instead, cut the mid frequencies on the guitar by 3dB or so, and give the vocal its own cozy little home in the mix. Move ’Em On Over. Panning can also help clear out some real estate for the vocal while letting the guitars rage. Pan your guitars hard right and hard left, and then position the voice dead center. Dry Heat. Ambience can be used to the vocal’s advantage, as well. Employ reverbs and delays on the voice to taste, and then leave all rhythm guitars completely dry. The guitars should rock the foundation, while the vocals float nicely on top of the mix. —Michael Molenda www.eqmag.com APRIL 2009 EQ 31 http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/sos http://www.eqmag.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.