You've heard these songs on radio and TV, but how did the producers and engineers get that ultra-pro vocal sound? We dispatched Lisa Roy, who met up with the producers and engineers to get the lowdown.
NORAH JONES
"Don't Know Why"
Producer: Arif Mardin
Co-Producer: Jay Newland
Engineer: Jay Newland
Arif Mardin walked away with several Grammys this year for his work with Norah Jones - one of which included Producer of the Year (non-classical). The legendary producer had this to say about his tone objectives for Norah's vocal on her multi-platinum recording: "We picked vintage microphones which would preserve the natural beauty of Norah's vocal sound. We did not go for microphones that add coloration."
Jay Newland co-produced along with Mardin, engineered, and mixed "Don't Know Why." He earned a Best Engineered Album (non-classical) Grammy for Come Away With Me , from which "Don't Know Why" was a single. "The objective for the vocal was to take what is clearly a beautiful voice and have it sound as natural as possible. At the same time it needed to seem very close to the listener, with all the subtleties intact."
Signal Path: Tracking
"The first time I heard Norah Jones sing at a rehearsal before our initial sessions, I knew she had a truly great voice," says Jay. "I only mention this because it's the crucial first link in the chain. The recording chain for 'Don't Know Why,' as well as most of the rest of the record, was a Neumann M 49 microphone into a Manley tube mic pre. We tried other mics, a [Neumann] U 47 and a [AKG] C12vr, but the M 49 had the right amount of 'air' while maintaining a real fullness and warmth. The tube pre was also warm but a little less colored than, say, a vintage Neve pre, which I love in many cases. This went into one side of a Manley Vari-mu compressor with a fast attack and release setting. The threshold was high so it was barely hitting the compressor. The Vari-mu can also be very transparent, which is why I liked it for this application. This went to BASF (Emtec) 900 analog tape at 15 ips on a Studer A820 with Dolby SR. Although I like Pro Tools HD, we did not use Pro Tools on this session. No Auto-Tuning. The console is custom built by Al Fierstein, owner of Sorcerer Sound, and is called Acoustilog."
Signal Path: Mixdown
"In the mix stage, the voice went through a new Universal Audio LA-2A. Again the threshold was set so that compression was minimal."
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE
"Cry Me a River"
Producer: Timbaland
Engineer: Jimmy Douglass
"Justin came to me with his microphone in his case, and didn't actually take it out because he decided to see what I could do first," says Jimmy of the first session. "He was very happy, so he didn't get into that. I guess he has his mic with him just in case he runs into trouble. He works with a lot of different engineers and everybody has their secrets about their great mics. The thing about the [Neumann] U 87 - I used it because it's really kind of a neutral mic. All the other microphones have characteristics to them that don't work on everybody's voice. The U 87 seems to work on everybody."
"I look for Jimmy to tweak my vocals and make them crisp," adds Timbaland. "That's what I look for - that tone. With Justin, his vocal tone just came. Justin does his own thing."
Signal Path: Tracking
Jimmy explains: "The U 87 went to the Neve VR channel strip in mic position - I used the preamp on the board, and then inserted the [Universal Audio] 1176 across that particular path and then I sent it out to all my individual buses. I tracked Justin's vocals to Pro Tools. That's it. I've found that this is the chain of least resistance; it doesn't effect the vocal as much, and you can always do more creative things later in the mix. It's the most natural signal path I can find. I use the 1176 because it's a very fast limiter and it works well as a limiting tool as well as compressor.
"The reason I don't do anything coming in on the EQ side," he continues, "is because you can always EQ it later, but you can't take away EQ you've messed with on the way in. That gets recorded and you can never take it away."
Missy Elliott received the exact same signal treatment for her Timbaland-produced hit "Get Ur Freak On", as did Aaliyah on "Try Again," Jay-Z "Big Pimpin'," Snoop Dogg "Last Meal," Lil' Kim "The Jump Off," and Bubba Sparxxx "Deliverance," among others.
Signal Path: Mixdown
"I basically added a Teletronics LA2A across the chain," says Jimmy, "and I used the EQ on the VR. I just added a little bit of top and took away a little bit of the low bottom. I put a little bit of high-end just for shimmer.
"The vocal to me is God. The vocal sells the record. I've always felt that way. That comes from working with a long line of great singers: Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Donny Hawthaway, and Lou Gramm [Foreigner]. I came from the school of having the vocalist be the most important part of the record. If you listen to the early records Lou did, the vocals are really out there, it's very clear, it's very transparent. I look for transparency in vocals. And I also try to keep them very dry."
KORN
"I Did My Time"
Producer: Jonathan Davis of Korn
Engineer: Frank Filipetti
"It's about clarity," says Korn frontman/producer Jonathan Davis, "especially with my stuff cause there's so much low-end and sh-t going on. A lot of mixes can come out not really that clear, and that's one of the reasons I love Frank, because he records great vocals. So any vocals that I do or produce, it has to be about clarity. I have a couple mics that I really like to use; the Sanken is one of my main ones. It's all about not f--kin' with it - just a little bit of compression, that's it."
Signal Path: Tracking
"I was out on the road at the time writing the lyrics," says Jonathan. "I sang a verse in New Orleans and shipped it off to Frank on Pro Tools, so actually we used two different mics when I recorded that. The first was a [Neumann] U 47 with my chain, my preamp [Tube-Tech MP 1A], and the stuff I did at the house [ElemenTree Studios] with Frank was a different process. We used the Sanken [CMU-44]. But with Frank, he totally knows. I listen to it and I really don't have to say anything, 'cause Frank knows me."
"The vocal signal path I used for Jonathan is a Sanken CMU-44, into a Tube-Tech MP-1A mic pre," adds Filipetti. "From there it went to a Neve 1073, then into the [Universal Audio] 1176, and from there to a GML EQ. Then I brought it into the tape monitor on the SSL 6000, then to the Euphonix R-1. We also used the dbx 160SL on the return on playback to vary the levels slightly, but we didn't record with it. That was part of the chain as well. It's about 85% of what we came up with on the last record with some slight modifications. It's a different console to begin with and a different microphone. The mic we used the last time was an M 49. We chose the Sanken because it just has the best overall combination of lows and highs.
"Jonathan has a very powerful voice," he continues, "especially when he starts to get into it. Some mics pick up the low level detail very well and some mics can hold themselves with screaming really well, but this seemed to have a good combination of both. We were able to get a nice quality between Jonathan singing softly and Jonathan screaming out full-bore. After comparing a lot of other mics, we ended up with the Sanken. In fact the top two mics were the Sanken and the [Audio-Technica] AT4060."
As for the other key components in the chain, Filipetti explains: "The Tube-Tech provides the presence. It has more presence than any other mic pre that I've used and it has an incredible midrange. The 1073 was there just to add a little bit of that Neve crunch - we ran it pretty hot. And I also used a tiny bit of the low frequency and the high frequency EQ. Then I went to the 1176; after trying out a bunch of compressors on Jonathan's voice, the 1176 worked out best. It just seemed to hit him properly. We used that real high-end stuff on the GML, which added that over-end air, which it does incredibly well, and then brought it into the console. On some tracks at the end of the chain we added a dbx 160SL. On a couple tracks that just added a punch that worked out really nicely."
Vocal Philosophy
"My objective with Jonathan is what it is with everybody," says Filipetti. "Basically, the song lives and dies with the vocal. I tend to gravitate toward and work with singers who have real personality. I'm not looking for dancers who are singers. My approach is to make sure that all of that personality comes out; I don't want anything to get lost. I'm looking for all the little quirks and the harmonic things in their voice that make them special, and I look to bring that out. Sometimes it's a matter of just putting the proper mic in front of them. Sometimes it's a matter of adding more things in the chain, but basically, like I do with everyone, I always listen in the room to the singer and then try to capture as much of that as I can through the vocal chain."
50 CENT
"In Da Club"
Producer: Dr. Dre
Engineer: Vito (Mauricio Iragorri)
"With 50, he's an artist with such an amazing voice," says Vito. "You just put him behind a microphone and it just sounds good! My job is make sure it doesn't distort and it's not overloading. While he's vibing and doing his thing, I'm scrambling to make sure nothing is going wrong with the signal path."
"Recording vocals with Dre is a meticulous process," Vito reveals. "There are some exceptions, like 50 is an exception. There are some people that just do it, and there's not much punching involved. And there are other people who need a lot of punching, and that means maybe a couple words at a time until all the rhythm and the pockets are correct. Dre has an amazing sense of rhythm. He hears all these crazy rhythms in the vocal and, because he's a rapper as well, he knows how it should be performed. As a producer he's great, but as a rapper he knows what pocket they should be hitting and he can really coach someone well. Working with Dre on vocals is cool because you get to see how he directs someone and they actually sound the best they've ever sounded."
Signal Path: Tracking
"I like my vocals to sound 'crystal,'" says Dre. "I use the Sony C800-G for vocals because it has a clean sound and about 85% of the people that get behind it sound great. My main objective is that the vocal sound is present and clean and ultimately does not distort. I get the sound I want out of the EQ on the SSL. We've used it forever and have made many hits on it, including 50's 'In Da Club.'"
"We come from the Sony C800-G and out of that into the Neve 1073 mic pre," explains Vito. "We don't use the EQ, because most of the time it sounds good flat. If there's a need for it we'll engage it, but for 50 Cent on 'In Da Club' we didn't use any EQ. Then we took it out of the Neve mic pre into the Avalon 737-SP compressor. It's a mic pre with EQ, and it actually has a compressor, but we're not using any of the mic pre on the Avalon - we're just going straight into the line input. From the output of the Neve it goes into the line input of the Avalon, which allows you to use the compressor alone. We set the compression ratio around 7:1 and the threshold usually hovers at around 0. I set it at a medium attack and fast release. I'd say we're using around 3 or 4 dB of compression, sometimes up to 7 dB. On 'In Da Club' it was about 4 or 5. Then it comes back into the SSL 4000 G with E modules (at Encore Studio) and we bring it back on the insert.
"There's a patch on the patch bay that says 'insert return,'" he continues, "and that's where we bring the vocal back into the insert return, because it's the shortest patch before you actually hear the vocal. It has the least amount of circuitry of anything in the channel, so you're bypassing the EQ, the dynamics. You could use it all, but if you really want the shortest, cleanest signal, that's the way to go. Then we bus it out to Pro Tools HD and we use the small fader to send it to PT. That's about it."
Discovery
"The way we came to this chain is - a while ago, when I first started out, I was assisting for Dr. Dre," says Vito. "I noticed how their engineer was doing it and it sounded good. The records sounded amazing, so when Dre hired me to engineer, I told him, 'Ya gotta buy some of these,' and he bought some 1073s. I had heard for a long time that they were really good mic pre's to run vocals through. At Encore, where I was assisting, they had one there, and anytime we were doing a session we would always run vocals through it. So when I saw Dre doing it, it was just cool seeing a rap guy using a 1073! That's how we came up with it. As for the compressor, it's just a good tube-sounding compressor. Sometimes we use the dbx 160 - the original - as an alternate compressor; it sounds good and we've used that on a lot of records."
Signal Path: Mixdown
The Yamaha SPX-1000 played a prominent role in mixdown. "We used a REV-5 room setting," says Vito. "There are a couple patches in there that sound really good. They're old reverbs and they're not the best nor most expensive, but they sound good, they're reliable, and that's all that matters! For R&B the Lexicon reverbs sound great. They work good for R&B, but for rap the SPX works good. We've used Lexicon's before too and they work okay. It's depends on the song and the artist and what you're looking for in the song. Like on Eve's stuff we used the SPX-1000, too."