Hi Winy.
First, let us know whether you are using CakeTalking or JSonar. If
you're using CakeTalking, we can direct you to reading specific
sections of the CakeTalking tutorial which can help.
I'll take your questions one at a time below.
At 02:28 PM 9/11/2011, Winy wrote:
1. I want to EQ the vocal back up tracks. My teacher said that he
can EQ all of them at once, by creating FX channel and EQ-ing them
from there. Can we do that in Sonar?
Absolutely you can do that.
1. Add a bus to your project called Vocal EQ, VOX EQ or any name
that makes sense.
2. Go to the output column for your backing vocal tracks and change
their outputs from master bus to your new vocal EQ bus.
3. Last, go to your new vocal EQ bus and either use the four bands
of EQ available in the inspector, or insert the Sonitus EQ plug-in
in the bus's effects bin and adjust its parameters.
Note: The four bands available in the inspector are very handy,
already set up for some vocal adjusting. The first band rolls off
unwanted low frequencies. The second band boosts or cuts the low
midrange. The third band boosts or cuts the presence, and the
fourth band rolls off or adds higher treble or brilliance.
Usually, you want to carve out some tonal space in the backup
vocals for your lead vocal to sit comfortably. Usually this
involves reducing some midrange in the backing vocals. Think of it
as tonally rapping the backing vocals around your lead vocal.
2. My teacher uses D'Asser to clean the sibulance. What pluck in
that we can use to clean sibulance in Sonar?
You are meaning de-esser here, which is the name of a process, not
really a specific plug-in, although some companies sell specific
de-essing plug-ins for this purpose as well.
Phil Muir was going to work on some hot spots for the VX64 vocal
strip plug-in that comes with Sonar. It has a de-esser included in
it. Phil, what's the status on that?
If that isn't an option, you'll need to build your own de-esser.
Doing this by hand will help you understand what's going on. Be
sure to save it as a template for future projects!
Briefly, de-essing involves equalization and side-chain compression
used together. The equalization step targets the problem
frequencies where the S sounds are. The side-chain compression
compresses your vocal and is triggered by the equalized S sounds
discovered during the equalization step.
This gets a little involved. I'll be brief here, and then add more
once you ask questions. Brian Howerton just did this in a mixing
course, so hopefully he will speak up here as well. Actually, I
hope lots of people join in here, since it looks like you need to
learn a heck of a lot for this project.
Building a de-esser:
1. Add a new bus to your project called De-Esser and make sure it's
output is set to the Master Bus.
2. For EQ, we'll just use the four bands available through the inspector.
3. For compression, insert the Sonitus Compressor plug-in on your
De-esser bus's effects bin.
Setting Up The Routing:
4. Add an AUX Send to your vocal track. You want to send a copy of
the vocal track to the new DE-esser bus you created in step 1.
5. Go to the Output column of your vocal track. We want to set this
to the side-chain input of the Sonitus Compressor. IN the list of
available outputs, you'll see an item called something like Sonitus
FX Compressor Side Input, De-esser. That's the output you want to select.
Equlizing for the Problem Sounds:
6. Now we're goign to very heavily equalize the vocal. We want to
find the sibilance, the nasty S sounds we want to reduce with the
compressor. These sounds are usually somewhere between 6,000 and
8,000Hz. You want to add a high-pass filter just below the problem
frequencies, and a low-pass filter just above them. Adjust band
1's frequency to something around 2KHZ with gain set to -18dB. Set
band 4 to roll off a lot above 10KHZ or so.
What you should end up with is a nasty sounding vocal that contains
no melody really, just the sibilant sounds.
7. With the two filters in place, bands 1 and 4, set a peak filter
between them, with band 3, say around 7,000 HZ, with a high Q and
with the gain boosted by a large amount, at least 12dB. Sweep the
frequency up and down. You want to find where the sibilance jumps
out at you the most!
Adjusting the Compressor:
8. In the Sonitus Compressor, try these rather extreme settings for a start.
Threshold: -18dB
Ratio: INF or something very high, at least 10:1.
Knee: hard
Makeup Gain: 0dB
Attack time: minimum (you want a fast attack)
Release: slower than attack, at least 100 or 150 MS (MS means milliseconds).
Again, the EQ targets the problem frequencies. The compressor
squashes them, makes them quieter.
3. Can we add reverb for some tracks simultaneously? How to do it?
Yes.
1. Create a new bus called reverb,
2. add the Sonitus reverb plug-in on its effects bin,
3. Select a preset that is entirely wet, meaning you hear all
reverb, and no dry original signal. Or pick a preset you like, and
then turn down the dry volume, and make sure the reverb volume is
high. You want to hear only echoes, no original sound.
4. Add AUX sends to whichever tracks you want to add reverb to.
5. Use the volume control for each Send you added to adjust the
amount of reverb added to your tracks.
4. Do you have frequency range for EQ-ing male and female voices,
from soprano, alto, tenor and bass?
You need to play with an equalizer and figure out where the bass,
midrange, and high frequency sounds are. This only comes from
experimentation and listening!
Since you play piano and are probably more comfortable thinking in
terms of octaves and notes, rather than frequencies in Hurtz or
KiloHurtz, here's a handy chart that shows the frequency values for notes.
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
Let's start at the bottom of a standard 88-key piano. the lowest
white key, note A, has a frequency of 27.5HZ. HZ pronounced Hurtz
means vibrations per second. A string vibrating 27.5 times a second
produces that very low pitch.
Doubling the frequency value gives you the same note an octave up. So we get:
1st octave A: 55 Hz
2nd octave A: 110 hz
3rd octave A: 220 HZ
4th octave A: 440 HZ (this one should sound familiar, it's the A
note the obo sounds for the orchestra to tune to.)
5th octave A: 880HZ
6th octave A: 1760 HZ
This continues on up. To give you another reference point, middle C
on the piano, C4, is the frequency around 261 HZ.
Double that a few times and you get the highest C on the piano. 8th
octave C is the frequency 4186.01 Hz.
Vocal sibilance, the sizzle of cymbals and other high frequency
sounds are 7,000 and above, very generally speaking.
5. What do we use to tune vocal tracks in Sonar? My teacher uses
Melodyne, and I found it is not accessible for the blind. Suggestion?
You can use either V Vocal or Autotune 5. V Vocal is supported in
CakeTalking, and Autotune 5 has had some hot spots developed for it.
Woe. This is a heck of a lot to learn before next friday!
One more thing: When you get your de-esser set up, or any settings
that you might use on other projects in the future, save it as a
Cakewalk template or track template to recall later. You definitely
don't want to have to rebuild things again, if you can help it.
Good luck!
Chris
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