JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Microphone and Vocalist Forum Need advice on effects for vocal compression

wow, heated topic! fun!

So, I have had the pleasure of being in some pro studios, but I've also been a producer on the recordings. So I've always received the engineer's advice, then gone ahead doing it "my way." Which has actually included both with and without FX, believe it or not! For me it depends on the situation. When I lay guitar tracks, I often put FX on tape. As a guitarist, I just prefer it that way. It feels more "live" and "real" to me, and I react to the FX during the recording process just as I would onstage. This is different then if I recorded clean guitar, and added distortion or what-not during the mixing phase. Especially because I like that natural tube overdrive, which just creams all over the tape. Wah-wah is another example; you just can't do that after-the-fact.

Vocals, however, I never record with FX. I always let the engineer add reverb and whatever else they use, on their own. This is because engineers these days can literally shape and fine-tune reverb with incredible accuracy. You'd be amazed (or perhaps you wouldn't?). I don't know the extent of y'alls experience but I just love watching engineers in the studio, dragging and dropping different parts of the reverb waves, with 3-D graphs and stuff. It's mind blowing to me. I could never do that on-tape by myself so I sing "clean"