Posted by Jim Gould on December 26, 2000 at 04:48:54:

After many years of striving to have a clean articulate vocal sound, I find myself in a situation where I need distorted, very processed, vocals. I have been going over in my head how I am going to do it, and would like to hear some suggestions from the folks here.

My idea is to split the vocal or take a line out from monitor world. I would run this signal into a small tube guitar amp. I would then have this amp set up far offstage, or maybe underneath it. I am thinking of mic-ing this amp with a SM57, with this amp set for the proper amount of overdrive. I would then have two vocal channels at FOH, one being standard and one being out of this amp.

I can then add any other effect to this channel at FOH such as flange, phase, or Leslie effect that I need. Any advice and even advice as to what some others use to obtain these modern vocal effects, and what processors you use to get this, will be appreciated. Also, does anyone see any inherent problems with doing it the way I am thinking.



Posted by Scott Allen on January 01, 2001 at 22:02:07:

Haven't read the rest of these other guys comments, but I have always sent the vocal I was distorting into a tube preamp made for recording. Something with a 12ax7. Presonus has a tube preamp called the bluetube $150-$175. It has a pretty decent distorted sound, just crank the pregain and keep the output low.

(Thought that your guitar amp idea is cool! Get even more creative and build a cabinet with a little, tiny speaker that is rated at about 30 watts and run your guitar amp to it and mic that!!!!)

OK! Crazy idea, never mind.

But the tube preamp actually works.



Posted by Harry on December 30, 2000 at 12:31:45:

I used a Rockman sustainer once in a studio. This was the classic Rockman sound, but a bit cleaner (signal to noise, not less distorted) in a half rack unit.

Harry


Posted by Chris Kathman on December 27, 2000 at 05:30:49:

Your amp idea sounds really complicated and difficult to implement, no offense.

Many people use a guitar stomp box on an aux loop. That gets pretty much the sound you are talking about.

I have used the "Radio Blag" (which to me, sounds more like a phone than the "On The Phone" patch) setting on an SPX 990 very successfully. I XLR Y-split the male snake before it hits the desk, and make two channels. The first is "dry" (i.e. normal reverbs/delay) and the second drives the SPX aux, and is EQ'ed to death. The hi-pass goes up to 400, and lots of 1.6K is added, plus a little HF. The LF is cranked all the way down.

Same scenario on the return. On boards with programmable mutes, I would have a scene that activated the processed channel and return, and a "normal" scene that defeated both. You do not want to mistakenly open up two high-gain vocal channels at once!

You can also use the SPX "distortion" patch, and get more of a Ministry vocal with that. In which case, you want to still emphasize the ugliest parts of the EQ, plus overdrive the return until the input is red-light clipping! YEAH! Compress the hell out of it, add some tight reverb, and wear lots of black.



Posted by Clarke on December 26, 2000 at 21:50:00:

Jim,

If you haven't already, check the archives for more info on this. I posted not too long ago about vocal distortion effects and got quite a few suggestions. I ended up splitting the vocal channel at FOH with a ProCo MS-3 splitter and running it through a Tube Screamer stomp box (a la Ministry). It works quite well for what I need it for.

Happy Holidays,

Clarke


Posted by Charley Davidson on December 26, 2000 at 22:24:25:

OK, I've got one for all the efx wiz's out there. How do you recreate the "Robo-voice" effect like in that song by CHER (Do you believe in Love?) or that song "BLUE" that was in heavy rotation on MTV awhile back. It's probly a matter of time now before this becomes a standard effect, but currently it's the ONE effect I don't know how to get! Anyone?
Charley Davidson


Posted by Jan Nandzik on December 27, 2000 at 03:05:18:

Hi Charley,

that's fairly easy - it's just an Antares Autotune ATR-1. A unit that was meant to correct intonation in realtime according to a preset scale, especially for those "slightly sharp/flat" singers. If you set the correction parameters too extreme, the unit will only "allow" the scale tones and nothing in between, so the Autotune'd signal follows input in pitch steps - which is what the cher effect is all about...

http://www.antares-systems.com/products/atr1a.html

Happy jodeling,

Jan


Posted by Bob Cap on December 27, 2000 at 08:28:30:

In Cher's tune, and many others (Mr. Roboto comes to mind) a vocorder is used. A vocorder has a mic input that modulates the sound of a keyboard.

It was popular years ago and like all effects it came around again and is new???

Frampton, on the other hand, used a "talk box". Bob Heil (Heil Sound) used to make one. It's basically an ev horn driver (let me say siren driver) with an amp feed to the driver and the audio out fed into a plastic tube that runs up next to the vocal mic. The guitarist puts the tube into his mouth, plays a guitar riff, and uses his mouth to change to sound fed back to his vocal mic. (Was that clear enough?)

I believe Joe Walsh used this effect quite a bit.

Any questions let me know.

Bob Cap
Advanced Audio


Posted by gus on December 28, 2000 at 12:30:55:

I've got an inexpensive Digitech (S100) that also does the vocorder trick quite nicely. Actually, it does all kinds of bizzarre little tricks (Harmonizing, VCO-ish pitch shifting, etc.) It comes in quite useful at times!

Gus


Posted by Tim Brown on January 01, 2001 at 20:55:54:

It's not the Antares ATR-1 on Cher.
It's a Korg Vocoder.

The Behringer effect unit has a Vocoder built into it-The vocal mic goes into one channel, and the other sound (keys or guitar)goes into the other channel.

The Antares isn't really designed to do that effect, but it will do something similar-I know somebody who's done it with the Antares, but I don't know exactly how they set it.


Posted by Andy Peters on December 26, 2000 at 20:49:50:

Jim,

For distorted anything:

Tech21 Sans Amp.

ooh, baby.

-a


Posted by Frank Czar on December 26, 2000 at 08:28:18:

Hey Jim,

I have an Alesis Quadraverb GT I use in these situations. The GT model has a guitar pre-amp section built in along with a regular quadraverb multi effects unit. I just patch it right into a send and use it like a regular effect. You could probably pick one up for $150 or so, and you can also use it for other effects. Good Luck.

Frank Czar
Concert Works
St.Croix U.S.Virgin Islands


Posted by D. Parker on December 26, 2000 at 07:20:42:

One way I've seen work well live, the singer picks up a cheap small bullhorn and sings into it and aims it at his vocal mike. Takes a little trial and error, but it is effective. Had some trouble with feedback, reflections off the bullhorns horn. One band had it down to a science, they pulled it out and did it without my prior knowledge (I had no warning) and it came off without a hitch. I'd love to know how Jethro Tull did it on Aqualung.

David


Posted by Chip on December 26, 2000 at 07:00:24:

I've done a number of experiments with this and worked with a good number of touring acts that do it. Everyone has a "trick" to doing it. In my experience, nothing beats a $49.00 Rat pedal on the insert loop of the channel. Sounds better (at what it's doing) than any other option I've heard.

Chip


Posted by DT on December 26, 2000 at 07:11:22:

A Tube Works "Blue Tube" inserted in the same manner would work as well.

DT