Vintage Vocals

[OldGoat]

Dear readers,

is it possible in Reason to make a recorded voice that has been compressed to death sound more "Vintage"?
With "Vintage" I mean the vocal effect that has for example been used on (some/all?) Songs of Amy Winehouse.
If yes, what device(s) is/are required?

[ryanharlin]

Dear readers,

is it possible in Reason to make a recorded voice that has been compressed to death sound more "Vintage"?
With "Vintage" I mean the vocal effect that has for example been used on (some/all?) Songs of Amy Winehouse.
If yes, what device(s) is/are required?

You should probably post a specific example because I loaded this song to listen to what you mean and the entire production/arrangement has vintage flair, sure. But her vocal isn't "compressed to death." Her vocal sounds vintage here because of two main factors: 1.) The production 2.) Her delivery. The mic isn't particularly filtered... there's some plate reverb but nothing over the top. And she's compressed, but just the way a vocalist should be. It's just a well recorded vocal.

[EnochLight]

When I think vintage vocals, I think lots of tube warmth, ribbon mics, plate verb, and echo. But like Ryan said, the bed of music has a lot to do with it

I feel what Hooverphonic did with "2 Wicky" sounds more vintage vocal than the sound it was trying to emulate:

[Ronin]

When I think vintage vocals, I think lots of tube warmth, ribbon mics, plate verb, and echo. But like Ryan said, the bed of music has a lot to do with it

I feel what Hooverphonic did with "2 Wicky" sounds more vintage vocal than the sound it was trying to emulate:

That song is dope. Sorry nothing else of value to add to this thread, but I am interested in how to sound like these "vintage" vocals though.

[OldGoat]

Thank you very much for your responses so far, unfortunately it is not possible for me to watch the video, because I'm in germany...

Here are two examples of what I mean with "Vintage Vocals", I might be wrong, but I think the following songs have something in common regarding the vocals:

[EnochLight]

I still agree with Ryan. There is nothing really special about those two vocals from both Amy Winehouse and Duffy except for the fact that their delivery is incredibly retro soul and the bed of music is complementary (well, that and both Amy Winehouse and Duffy - duh)! The recordings are excellent and the production is spot on, but that's just indicative of a well done recording. They could be any singer over any bed of music and the quality of the recording would still be the best, IMHO.

Both Duffy and Amy Winehouse represent an incredibly authentic emulation of the sound they were trying to capture. I think I'd start with finding a singer who meets that criteria, and record them over music that complements the style. Standard studio recording techniques for vocals and effects that can be done in Reason easily will get you the audio quality you're looking for (a little bit of compression, a little plate reverb, tad bit of echo; you'll be right as rain)!

[stephensmattlee]

Theres a nice little article here from MusicRadar that gives a few tips with processing vocals to get a more vintage sound... http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/ ... als-432250

Hadn't really thought of trying the doubling/parallel processing technique that they do myself before, but trying to emulate some of the gear that they would have used at the time might help get the sound your after. i.e. Tape saturation, Chamber reverb and some vintage style compression One of my favourite styles of reverb to use on vintage sounding tracks is definitely Spring reverb, I really like the Softube Spring Reverb plugin/rack extension and find myself using it quite a lot on certain parts.

[normen]

To get a vintage vibe
1) Put a high cut (or high shelving) on, as far down as you can get without getting too dark
2) Put a bit of tube or tape distortion on (e.g. using Scream)

[selig]

Thank you very much for your responses so far, unfortunately it is not possible for me to watch the video, because I'm in germany...

Here are two examples of what I mean with "Vintage Vocals", I might be wrong, but I think the following songs have something in common regarding the vocals:

I agree, and what they have in common is a great vocalist with what some would call a "vintage" style or sound. I think that on some level it's more coming from the singer than the gear, and you just put a decent mic in front of them and there you go. I don't hear any particularly "dark/filtered" sound or any real sign of distortion there. It's more a state of mind than a particular piece of gear (read about the specifics on Back to Black below).

When you ask the guys who were there (back in the 50/60s) one thing you don't hear them say is "we were going for a vintage vocal sound". They were going for the best sound they could get, plain and simple! That is something that should definitely be considered IMO - they were not filtering the vocal nor distorting it, and they were in most cases trying for the cleanest sound they could get with the gear at hand. That is all to say, the "sound" HAS to first come from the singer's mouth. Second, don't try too hard to make it sound "vintage" or you'll end up with a dark distorted vocal!

You can read about mixing Amy Winehouse here:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/a ... k_0807.htm

This is the microphone said to have been used on her voice for Back to Black:
SE Electronics sE2200a II C

This is a $300 microphone, and you would quickly find that using this mic does NOT make you sound like Amy Winehouse - again the FIRST thing to do when going for a vintage sound is select a vintage sounding voice!

[ryanharlin]

If you haven't seen the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, do so at your earliest chance because it's a phenomenal documentary about phenomenal players.

But one of the points that documentary makes, though it sorta gets lost in the other compelling story of the Funk Brothers, is this: Those classic motown songs are good, sure... but the players and production is what made that sound. You could put almost any singer on top and it would've been a Motown hit. It's not that The Four Tops were irreplaceable singers. It's the band behind them.

Here's a small clip from the documentary where that point is made at 3:10. And to drive the point home, they have the Funk Brothers play with two other singers and, surprise surprise, sounds like Motown! So don't underestimate the production behind the vocal. It's VASTLY more important. What Giles said is totally correct too. They were striving for perfection back then.

[selig]

If you haven't seen the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, do so at your earliest chance because it's a phenomenal documentary about phenomenal players.

But one of the points that documentary makes, though it sorta gets lost in the other compelling story of the Funk Brothers, is this: Those classic motown songs are good, sure... but the players and production is what made that sound. You could put almost any singer on top and it would've been a Motown hit. It's not that The Four Tops were irreplaceable singers. It's the band behind them.

Here's a small clip from the documentary where that point is made at 3:10. And to drive the point home, they have the Funk Brothers play with two other singers and, surprise surprise, sounds like Motown! So don't underestimate the production behind the vocal. It's VASTLY more important. What Giles said is totally correct too. They were striving for perfection back then.

Since you mentioned Motown, and to add to this with a paraphrased quote from my friend Bob Olhsson (who worked at Motown in the late 60s to early 70s); when asked how to get that "vintage" sound he would answer "use vintage players playing vintage instruments". He makes a point of not giving too much credit to the vintage gear, interestingly enough. And again, it's worth pointing out that those guys never went for a "vintage" such as we do today.

I should also say that the gear DOES matter to a degree, but it's less of a factor than we like to believe. It should also be remembered that these songs were being mixed for AM radio, so the midrange was oh so important, and an important part of the sound we associate with "vintage" IMO.

[True]

when asked how to get that "vintage" sound he would answer "use vintage players playing vintage instruments". He makes a point of not giving too much credit to the vintage gear

I know this may not specifically tie in to the OP, but I wonder how many people are saying "vintage" when they mean retro. To me, vintage means true to what came before, whereas retro means reminiscent of what came before.

For example, a few years ago I heard the newly restored Beatles recordings and thought they sounded absolutely amazing, but they still sounded like recordings from the 1960s. One reason was the gear: the amplifiers had the sound of paper cones instead of polypropylene. Another example is The Drifters; their singer has a very slight harshness to his voice that I never noticed before CD technology came out, and it certainly would be filtered today, but the gear of the time either made it unnoticeable (due to analog "warmth") or impossible to adjust. You also have the fact that a great many commercial recordings of the mid-'60s experimented with lots of overdubbing on 4-track recorders, resulting in some amount of signal degradation in the final product. So gear can play a part, if by "vintage" you mean the raw and relatively low-fi (but not truly low-fi) sounds of the time.

But is that what people really want? Or do they want something that is more reminiscent of older recordings, with channel bleed, doubled unprocessed vocals, all the lead and background vocalists singing together and into a small number of mics, an audible noise floor, etc. ... but still with the tone quality and audio fidelity of modern technology?

[OldGoat]

Thank you all very much for your help and your suggestions, you're amazing!
My scenario is a little bit different: I want to make a recorded voice ( that has been compressed to death ) sound more "vintage".
Now I know that this might not be feasible, but I will try the suggestions mentioned by some of you.

[selig]

Thank you all very much for your help and your suggestions, you're amazing!
My scenario is a little bit different: I want to make a recorded voice ( that has been compressed to death ) sound more "vintage".
Now I know that this might not be feasible, but I will try the suggestions mentioned by some of you.

I would start with what Normen mentioned, since the other options are not available as the vocal is already recorded.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Vintage to me means: let it breath, using natural dynamics, using human feel, don't quantise, don't make/edit it too perfectly.

Amy has a great voice who's trying to sing soulful lines. Let it breath. Groove 'till you drop. Play instead of edit.

[Ostermilk]

It's not just one thing or another, there's plenty of old records made with mediocre performers or performances, some with good gear and plenty with crap gear, that are actually fantastic records that have stood the test of time.

I think to process of 'making records' has turned into an engineering excercise so although we get some fantastic recordings which although through spectral analysis and other mighty fine forms of measurments these recording can be judged in some way as to their correctness but may contain very little in the way of vibe.

So for me there's always a holostic approach that should be taken toward old school record production rather than the audio engineering that takes place today. I don't think you'll ever re-create the whole thing because how and where music was listened to has changed so you're never going to re-create the sound of ELO being played over a tannoy sytem in a large noisy factory or the Small Faces on a portable mono record player and remember many of those records were mixed with what they were going to be played on in mind.

Today for example we pay a lot of attention to the extreme lows and highs, simply because we can but if you remember that most of what was good on old records happened in a frequency range between 250hz - 6kHz, and often over a bunch of noisy machinery, it should remind you where most of the good stuff should happen.

Also if you want to work out what was being done, go back to the source rather than your Amy's and Duffy's or if you are after a more contemporary sound study who the producers were, such as your Mark Ronson's and the team on the Duffy album and listen to the clues in their other work as these are the guys that are the equivalent of your old style record makers rather than the performers themselves.

As for going back to the source here's a good place to start and you'll notice it's not just down to an effected vocal it's a bit of everything in equal measure that makes a 'signature' sound that people end up wanting to emulate alll these years later.

http://www.joemeekpage.info/essay_03_E.htm

Somebody mentioned the Funk Brothers as being a major part of the signature Motown sound, but what if Phil Spector had been producing them would they have produced what we know as the Motown sound then? Nope, no more than they'd have ended up sounding like the Ramones, so you see you change one thing and you end up with a different recipe, so it's everything combined in the correct measures that creates the flavour not just keeping a singular thing like the vocal treatment in focus.

[Marco Raaphorst]

And anyone who has seen the Amy documentary knows that she knew a lot about music. I saw her playing guitar doing some serious jazz comping, playing all kinds of flat or sharp fives, minor 13, minor 9, all that stuff. I grew up doing that too, playing jazz. Still love that. Very intense harmony.

Today we have more control over the sound. Same as for movies. Movies are not theater pieces put to film. And music no longer is a recording a band playing live in the studio. Music is abstract, just sound.

In the end, it's a way to express yourself as a composer doing fiction. There are no rules. If you feel it, maybe someone else will too.