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Do you apply a filter to your voice track? To me it seems if you do this than that is no longer your actual voice. Am I wrong?, or are there other reasons for doing this. I never use a filter on my voice......russ

Russ,
Its an vital part of recording . You may think you don't use it but you did.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I dont mean effects or reverb, I mean the use of an equlizer where you can enhance or reduce specific frequencys with the vocal track.....

Hiya Russ I would always just stick to the way it recorded. Till I discovered the compression button . It was so much easier to press that and lift some of the too soft bits and lower the too loud bits to make it a more even vocal track. The only prob was I then had breaths that sounded like I had the beginnings of emphasiema.
So then I used a noise reduction making a noise print of the breath and then applying that to the entire voice track. The end result still sounds like my voice but reduces the ragged breaths that have been increased due to the compression.
So I guess I am guilty of filtering...but it beats the hell out of spending hours boosting little bits and lowering other bits to get the same result

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

one thing I should add is I have learned through mistakes to compress the vocal track before adding efx. Doing it after accentuated the reverb making it sound like I was singing in a barrel

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Hi Russ... If it's not my voice I am recording with equalizer, than who else can I blame if I sound off?  I know, a Hooligan!!
   Joking aside.. if by filtering, it's not your natural voice, what about compression, reverb, delay??  They all play an integral part.. I still recognize my voice, it's just that equalizer keeps it manageable.

Good points that doing other things to the vocal track is changing the way the voice sounds, but what I'm wondering is specifically what does a filter do that say reverb or compression doesn't do. I use compression also Morgan to even out the voice, and I'm the king of reverb, just have never used an equalizer filter before...what does that do or what result does it give exactly????....I just assumed it changed your voice as it eliminates frequencys, when compression and reverb dont do that....

I know; one of the thing I will normaly do is to filter off those LF in the voc track. They do not contribute to the  vox but are just rumble.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Eq/filter have a completely different function from reverb or comp.
Eq is for tonal correction , reverb is an example of an efx, and comp. is to control the dynamic of the recording.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I havent used equaliszer filter either.

Jian what is LH? Help a stoopid witch

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

It should read LF, sorry Low frequency

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

ahhhhh I see. thank you sweety  :hug:

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

There must be a good reason all these levers and buttons are there Russ! You do a lot of experimentation in your subs so I was kind of surprised that you never use the equalizer on your set up.

Hi Michael...yeah, iv'e used the equalizer before, but on a synth track. When I make a guitar song, there are two synths driven by the guitar through Midi. One of the synths gens a base kind of track. I take that and, using the equalizer, up the low base end to max, and cutout all the rest, then after that I hard limit it. This adds a basyness to the guitar that is not normally there with just the guitar.

But for voice, if i did that, then my voice would sound deeper than it is for example. To me it would change my voice, as opposed to compresssion which evens it out but doesnt add or remove any frequency part of my voice....reverb helps to blend your voice into the music better, but doesnt change the way your actual voice sounds..

I'm curious what others are using it for, just to get more ideas. I figure people here will know more than anywhere else....

I am no help then Russ I have never used eq filters just the vocal compression and background noise filter as I have said. Lol the last thing my voice needs is more bass

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Russ.

How do we know how our voice sound like? We can't; unless you can stand in front of yourself when you sing. The recorded voice is just a near approximation of our real voice. The mic we use have limitation; in fact all vox mic have the tendency to color the voice. The frequency response of vox mic are never flat.  It is the same with the speakers.

So what we think is our real voice is actually not the true representation of the real thing but only a very good approximation.

Eq is just a tool in the tool box, if there is no need to use it then don't use it. However there is no harm in experimenting with them.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Electronics recording devices have their specs.  By definition whether you apply low pass filtering or not, a microphone will tend to have its own coloration.  Add that to a few more devices and you ARE filtering aspects of your voice just be running into  a series of electronic devices.. My different Shure microphones each have their own limitations, although this isn't overly significant.. EQ'ing or tweaking the voice is something most do, I'm not certain if many DO sound the same singing without a microphone vs into a PA..  (of course I may also not have a clue as to what I am talking about, and assuming this to be the case, here's an interesting read)

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun01/a ... alsfaq.asp

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

It's like taking your naked body and clothing it properly and then the clothes you wear may look right to you and others and not to some...When I first discovered equalizer, I disliked it and why? because I wasn't using it right.. there are myriads of presets within the equalizer plus different kinds of equalizer: parametric, graphic, etc.. which I don't know technically what it consists of.. I go by the feel..There have been times I use a parametric and a graphic.. not the traditional thing to to do I suppose but I admit to have no technical expertise , just women's intuition.

Good singers that know mic tecniques and can adapt to different mics and conditions hardly need eq and very little FX... That is with good equipt.  Its the remaining 90% you have to use every tool availible to compensate for singer or equipt defects or shortcomings

One could literally ride the desk and tweak it constantly but the secret is adjust it for a good over-all balance...

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Face it though.  We now live in an electronic world, and ALL CD's you hear have been studio produced and engineered/ tweaked on just about all levels to attain the conventionally nicest sound for the listener the engineer can.  This is sort've like asking "Can I appear on GQ or COSMOPOLITAN without being touched up at all, or airbrushed at all, and in some way modified"  because I just want to be natural.   My guess is it's quite unlikely, because we live in a world where everything and it's mother ends up processed at that level.. Seems to me that in most cases the intent in Mastering,  is for the finished product to sound "the best it can"..  Which seldom takes into consideration "perfectly natural"

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".