Rich vocal recording made with Ardour

Check out my latest song release “Late in the Day” here: https://punch-up.art/late-in-the-day.html. Web page details all the software used to make the audio recording (I.E. Ardour plus lv2 plugins). Web page also contains links to video version (Odysee and Youtube), audio only on BandCamp.

Vocal recording workflow. I am not a professional singer. This song’s lyrical arrangement was a challenge for me. The song’s tempo was just too fast for me. I did not have the time to enunciate the lyrics, or breathe off mic. So instead of singing the whole song, I recorded myself singing alternating sections. For example, I used one mono track to record myself sing verse 1, 3 and 5. I used a second mono track to record myself singing verse 2, 4 and 6. That gave me enough time to enunciate and breathe off mic.

I set the 2 mono vocal tracks output into a mono bus. I repeated that process 3 times. I then set the 3 mono vocal buses output into a single stereo bus. I panned one mono bus to the right, one mono bus to the middle, and one mono bus to the left. I set the stereo vocal bus output into the master bus.

Finally, I added 2 plugins to the stereo vocal bus:
x42 stereo equalizer https://x42-plugins.com/x42/ and the Dragonfly Hall reverb
https://michaelwillis.github.io/dragonfly-reverb/. I used the equalizer to boost the treble. The Dragonfly Hall reverb blended everything together.

All feedback welcome.
Thank you,
Lorin

Cool! Thanks for letting us in on your workflow. It’s funny how “oldschool tricks” (like duplicating vox with different takes and layering them) still work in our DAW world.

BTW, I had to look up DV8, good stuff (Guns on the Right)!

I used to “yell” for a “hardcore” band, some of my favorite times were “impersonating” Lou K from Sick of it All when we would cover “Step Down”… I can’t imagine getting my vocals (and stamina" back to those days, now. I’m going to have to experiment with the fun vocal trick. Thanks again!

Thank you so much for the reply.

Another little trick is add a gxTubeVibrato https://guitarix.org/ to left and right panned vocal tracks. Calf Studio Gear https://calf-studio-gear.org/ has a Pulsator effect that I am considering for some new tracks (applied the same way as gxTubeVibrato).

If you are interested in what plugins I use, I publish a list (along with what instrument the effect is applied) on website https://punch-up.art. I also have a post this “Made with Ardour” forum on my latest release “Simple Down”. The post is intended folks just getting started with recording and mixing. I detail how I set up the Ardour tracks and buses.

Thanks again for the reply. Really great to know we shared an idea.