Boosting Vocals via Cool Edit Pro 1.0

[MyCatKnight]

First of all, I'm thankful to so many of you for the knowledge eagerly shared on this Production forum (the other boards should be so positive).

A dear friend asked me to copy some of her singing CD's recorded over the last decade. I'm quite comfortable w/ radio spots. mixing, & voicing... but that's generally it. Do any of you Cool Edit Pro experts have any suggestions on "boosting up vocals" relative to the band/instrumentals?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Emmett1057]

You've got a major challenge, my friend...Especially with CEP 1.0! That's OLD! You could download the demo of Audition 2.0 and try the Center Channel Extractor. That would be your easiest bet.

The only other way I can think to do it is by using good ol' phase tricks.

First thing is that the recordings must be in stereo, with the voice panned to center...If they're in mono or the vox are not placed in the center of the stereo field, this will not work.

1. Open the original file, invert one channel and then mix the file to a mono sum. The result will be a file with no center channel information. Save a copy of this file.

2. Re-open the original file and the file with no center. Line them up exactly on top of each other in the multitrack. Invert the file with no center channel and mix down the two files. You should be left with a mixdown of only the center channel information. Save a copy of it.

3. Re-open the file with no center, as well as the file with only center. Line them up on top of each other in the multitrack. When played, it should sound identical to the original file, but with the two separated parts, you should be able to boost the center channel information by a few dB, which should be where the vocals lie.

You'll only be able to boost a little before it starts to sound like crap. depending on the way the original songs were mixed, you could have very good luck with this...Or it might not work well at all. The only way to know is to give it a try!

Emmett

 

[Gregg Rivers]

Dang Emmett! I'm impressed bro!

 

[Hart]

oh yeah, Emmett's the man when it comes to this stuff.

While the rest of us were playing with our GI Joes and Transformers I think he was reading DBX manuals and A/B'ing mics.

 

[fresnel]

after you do what emmitt said .....

add one of these steps....

either..

a.- put a multiband compressor and eq on a side channel, tweak to taste... hyping the vocal frequencies slightly... then a extremely hard limiter on the mains. this should help the vocals "pop"


or.... if you dont have a good multiband...

b. - place the file in multiple channels (I generally like working with 8 -16 when mastering like this).... put a HARD limiter on all channels. . . dont squash... just limit without mercy... then EQ each channel to a specific frequency range... with VERY LITTLE cross over between the channels. .... and a soft comp/limiter on the main.

you have created a VERY accurate multiband mastering limiter.... I know quite a few mastering engineers who use this exact technic to pull some pearls out of pigs ears.....

 

[Emmett1057]

While the rest of us were playing with our GI Joes and Transformers I think he was reading DBX manuals and A/B'ing mics.

Optimus Prime transformed into GI Joe's mixing console...Then GI Joe replaced his walkie-talkie with a U87 and a set of K240M's.


Anyhow, I'll add a little more to what fresnel said...Make sure you use a very good EQ for this trick. The graphic EQ WILL NOT DO! Parametric, FFT or scientific is the way to go (when working with CEP). Later versions of Audition have the "band spitter", which makes this job really cool. The program will automatically spit the file into multiple frequency ranges and place each file in the multitrack. Then you can manipulate each frequency range as you please.

Multiband compressors are cool, from time to time...But I've always had much better results from band-splitting. Even though it takes longer, if you've got the time (and the project is worth the effort), the end result is worth it!

BTW, there are some good freeware DX/VST multiband compressors/limiters out there...Worth a look!