| |
Getting
sick of the cliche distortion mush
voice in industrial music? Find
out new ways to improve your recorded
vocals and still keep them aggressive. |
I
don't
know about you but I'm getting a little
tired of endless numbers of industrial
artists running their vocals through
distortion in order to sound "aggressive."
Not only is this trend becoming tiresome,
it ruins the dynamic range and depth
of your vocal line. However, traditionally
the vocals in industrial music has been
processed (sometimes quite heavily);
what is an aspiring rivethead to do?
For
starters think about the human voice
for a moment and how it sounds recorded
on a professional album. In 99% of all
well-produced music the vocal line is
the most prominent feature of the song
and will have the loudest overall volume.
This isn't a coincidence—people
like to hear the human voice
in their music; with rare exception
most popular music and songs contain
singing. David Byrne, of Talking Heads
fame, has quoted to the effect that
singing is used to trick the audience
into listening to the music for longer
than they would normally. So, unless
you want your music to sound poorly
produced or sophomoric—MIX YOUR
VOCALS UP.
"But
wait a minute!" you say; "I'm
an industrial musician and do non-commercial
music! I can't (won't) turn my vocals
up." My advice for those of
you that think along these lines is
to re-listen to some industrial classics
by Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Front 242
and others; notice that the vocals are
very prominent, in fact, they are the
most prominent feature of the song.
If you wan't people to pay attention
to your music you must showcase your
vocals (and lyrics).
Okay
now that we have that settled, I hope,
let's take a minute to review some facets
about the human voice to better understand
the problem faced by industrial musicians.
First off, the human voice is rich with
harmonics. Harmonics are frequencies
related to the fundemental (base) frequency
of the note being sung. Harmonics are
present in almost all sound, aside from
sine waves which only feature the fundemental
frequency. To be somewhat simplistic
about it, harmonics are a large part
of what makes something sound the way
it does; in other words it gives sound
a timbre or tone that is unique.
Don't
make your songs sound like the
Cookie Monster stopped in to cut
a track with you.
|
|
To
better understand harmonics you should
also realize that there are two general
types of harmonics; even-ordered
and odd harmonics. Even-ordered
harmonics are mathematically related
to the fundemental frequency; thus,
if singing a concert pitch A, which
is 440 hz, the 2nd harmonic would be
880 hz, and the 3rd harmonic would be
1320 hz, and so on. Frequencies generated
that are not related to the fundemental
are odd harmonics, which are always
present, but large quantities of them
can generate a bad tone or sound dissonant.
(Note: absence of odd harmonics would
lend towards a sterile sound and thus
a certain amount can be considered a
good thing.) Harmonics extend far beyond
the fundemental pitch, and for vocals
are very important above 12 khz all
the way to 16 khz or more. Harmonics
that high in pitch are essential for
adding character, breathiness and "air"
to a vocal line.
So,
you are thinking, what does all this
nonsense about harmonics have to do
with industrial vocals? For starters
consider the manner in which the typical
rivethead maven processes their vocals—DISTORTION.
Distortion is an audio effect pioneered
in the 1960's to duplicate the sound
of an electric guitar amp pushed past
its optimal operating limits, which
produces a warm, fat and rich tone filled
with even-ordered harmonics. Many devices,
such as the Arbiter Fuzzface, Coloursound
and Big Muff Pi were developed to duplicate
this effect at much lower volume levels.
Some succeed at various levels, but
generally most distortion devices tend
to produce less than satisfactory results
when applied to vocals. Let's study
why.
| |
The
famous Big Muff Pi fuzz box.
|
The
first thing to understand are how the
various units produce distortion as
not all distortion devices operate in
the same manner. The first units developed
were FUZZ BOXES, which would
take an incoming signal and modulate
its amplitude by a square wave to produce
audio clipping; the amount of modulation
was controlled by the user. Additionally,
some fuzz boxes would incorporate low
pass filter designs to further shape
the tone. Now, clipping produced by
a fuzz box contains a wealth of overtones,
many of which are odd harmonics (hence
the addition of a tone control to eliminate
some of the nasty upper harmonics produced
by the unit). The second type of distortion
to consider is the OVERDRIVE,
which also amplifies the signal to the
point of soft clipping, producing a
rounder and warmer tone than a fuzz.
Finally there is true DISTORTION
that amplifies a signal much more than
an overdrive and introduces a lot harder
clipping. In general, fuzzes sound grittier
than distortion, and distortion sounds
gritter than overdrives. The greater
the amount of distortion produced by
these units, the more destructive an
effect it will have on your harmonics
and upper harmonics. For those interested
in more information about distortion
types check out this page located
HERE.
While
distortion can sound great with
guitar and synth, excessive distortion
can lead to very bad vocal tracks.
Be careful when you choose to
use distortion!
|
|
Okay,
to sum things up: if you use heavy amounts
of distortion your vocal will begin
to take on a very nasty quality, quickly
become unintelligible, and suffer from
being overly compressed as a byproduct
of the clipping. All of this will contribute
to a terrible vocal tone. So what can
an industrial musician do now to get
an aggressive vocal sound?
If
you must use distortion for your vocals
this is how I'd do it:
1.)
Cut down on the amount of distortion
used. A little bit goes a long way for
vocals. In fact, I'd probably not use
more than 20% of the potential distortion
from any unit.
2.)
Avoid digitial distortion devices, which
are unable to effectively generate extremely
high and low frequencies simultaneously.
I've yet to hear a digital distortion
that sounded musical. Use analog. For
35 dollars you can buy a new Boss DS-1
which is an excellent distortion pedal
for guitar, synth, bass or vocals. Suprisingly
versatile and classic sounding.
3.)
If I wanted a more severely distorted
vocals I would use the distortion pedals
at 0% distortion but 100% gain into
an analog mixer. Make sure that you
control the amount of signal going to
any digital recording devices because
you do NOT want to introduce
digital clipping. Console distortion
has a much different sound than using
the distortion built into any device.
The idea is to hit the mixer with a
lot of signal to cause some clipping
to occur.Ogre, of Skinny Puppy, seems
to employ this technique (don't quote
me on this) and I know Trent Reznor
does for both guitars and vocals.
4.)
Some artists don't use distortion at
all but still manage to have a distorted
sounding vocal tone. The most common
way to do this is thru overly-compressing
a vocal. Al Jourgeson runs his voice
thru a number of sequential compressors
to create Ministry's sound. No distortion
pedals involved at all.
5.)
The use of any device that will introduce
a controllable amount of odd harmonics
into a vocal will appear to distort
the tone. Ogre would use a delay module
set to introduce comb filtering to achieve
his early signature vocal sound. Pitch
shifters, sub-harmonic enhancers, ring
modulators, and other devices can be
utilized to achive an effected, aggressive
vocal tone without resorting to distortion.
There
are literally dozens of other ways to
produce a vocal in an industrial style
that don't involve distortion. If you
do have to use distortion try to use
it wisely and preserve the musicality
of your vocal line. Next time you are
recording and begin reaching for distortion
think twice about it and try something
new. You may be surprised at what you
come up with.
-James Meeker
