Vocal Effect

[dan slv-tech]

Looking to you guys for input on this,

 

In 2 months time ive got a high profile concert, and one of the vocal effects been requested by the management is basically without giving too much away a slight distortion like that used by the strokes on the lead vocals

I have been in touch with the studio where the band record and im informed its done via a plug in but the engineer isnt in the country for me to chat too blah blah blah....

 

any how I was wondering if anyone knew of a piece or pieces of kit that could recreat this?- know I realise I could go and hire the piece of kit, but first I need to know what it is im looking for....

 

I had a quick play with kit we currently have and the nearest I could get was to run a valve pre amp on the desks Aux send (FX loop), but I wasnt overly impressed with the results, To be honest I think its more of a fuzz effect im looking after, but needs to be adjustable between a little to a lot- now im happy to knock something up, if someone knows how to create what im after.

 

And know, driving the pre amp on the desk into heavy clipping is not an answer as this will upset the location recording boys, it needs to be something that is run from the desks Aux's-

 

Sorry a new one for me this one- If someone can point me in the right direction that would be great-

 

cheers

 

Dan

[Ben Langfeld]

If I've got the right idea of what you want, the "Vocal Distortion" preset on the Behringer VIRTUALIZER PRO DSP2024P might serve you well. Not that I know anywhere that hires Behringer gear :blink: . However, at only £70, it might be worth having.

[dbuckley]

I use a number of tools for just this sort of thing, but I'll warn you up front - distorting vocals increases the gain as seen by the feedback loop, so you need to be really careful, and you cant send the distorted vocal back to wedges, or it will howl like the dogs of hell.

 

The best tool for the job is an ADA Ampulator, but unfortunately ADA went bust a decade plus ago, so Ampulators are now not so easy to find, but they do come up on eBay. I got mine from a vendor in the USA, so its 110V, so that runs off a stepdown isolating transformer. The Ampulator is a small valve amp plus a speaker simulator in a 1u box. Non-MIDI, you set it up with the controls yourself. This is the best tool as it allows one to create all the artifacts of an overloaded valve amp, such as hum injection, which gives cross-modulation.

 

Read about it here: ADA Depot

 

http://www.adadepot.com/adagear/images/ADA-Ampulator.jpg

 

Also good, but probably easier to get hold of is a decent vocal channel strip with overdrive, I have an (also old an out of production) Focusrite Voicemaster Platinum. Its a much simpler effect, but perfectly adequate.

 

Another good trick is bandwidth limiting to mimic megaphones (and telephones). Run the output of the distrorter through a 3 way crossover, and just use the middle out as your return. The lower and upper crossover frequencies then set the limits of the bandpass. Of course, you could use a bandpass filter, but most sound folk can lay their hands on a crossover more easily. A graphic doesnt do it, nor any parametric I've tried. When I did this last with the Focusrite, I plugged the crossover into the insert point on the back of Focusrite, and it worked a treat. Just the matter of making up a suitable insert lead, stereo insert jack to two XLRs unbalanced :blink:

[RustyBrooks]

Cheap Easy way to do this is to y-split the vocal over two channels on the desk, and insert a guitar distortion pedal on one of the vocal channels, and then mix the two, voila, easy controlled distortion, a little or a lot, depending on the fader positions, you have eq on the channel strip for tuning, and can pic up a pedal for 30quid or less... works a treat, and keeps foh a little tidier.