In this video, Paul Drew and James Ivey look at the microphones and UAD-2 plug-in choices that Paul made to record the band live in his studio. The aim of this project is to record, mix and master the song using nothing but the new Apollo X range of audio interfaces and UAD-2 plug-ins. This is part 3 of 6 for Production Expert, with the support of Universal Audio, in which Paul and James continue the tracking process for a new song called “Thought Of Love” by Belgian band Rooftop Renegades.
Lead Vocals
They say that you listen to the lead vocal but you dance to the kick or bass drum. As we have see in the previous videos the drums are good and solid and the kick sounds fat and ready for dancing too. The band have joined James and Paul at Paul’s studio in leafy Surrey to record the lead and backing vocals for the track. James and Paul talk about microphone choices. For the lead vocal they have chosen the JZ Microphones BH-2 which is a fixed cardioid condenser mic, which they thought just had the edge over some of James’ other mics. It’s a pop track that needs a bright “in your face” vocal sound and the BH-2 was able to deliver that in spades. The JZ BH-2 was connected directly to the UA Apollo X6, no external processing was used. Any processing or dynamic control was being done by a choice selection of UAD-2 plug-ins. In this case the lead vocal was processed by the Manley VoxBox plug-in. This is almost a one-stop shop vocal processor and was able to life and control the vocal. All the processing was being committed “to tape” not just used for monitoring.
Backing Vocals
For the backing vocals Paul and James decided to change the mic to something a little less bright and chose Pauls Blue Rocket mic and processed this through the UAD-2 Neve 1073 mic pre emulation. The Rocket mic paired with the 1073 sounds smooth and allows the backing vocals to sit just behind the leads.
The Files
Below you can listen to the high quality audio files of the vocal tracks as they were recorded to Pro Tool and How they sound after processing and mixing.
Part 4
With the tracking finished it’s time for Paul to mix the track and he starts with the vocals showing us the processing he is using to give the final vocal some added polish, but also add some grit to give the lead vocal an edge all using Pro Tools and the amazing UAD-2 plug-ins running under Hexa-Core power from his Universal Audio Apollo X6.