Vocal Tracking Tips daw- > ot

a few notes re/ recent explorations of making and recording vocal loops from Ableton -> Octatrack.

firstly, Ableton is synced to the time clock and transport from OT (or in my case the OT and Ableton are both synced to the time and transport of the Machinedrum).

to start with, any mic that doesn’t have a low-mid notch filter built-in will need a simple EQ application to remove the “proximity effect” (unnatural low mids get over-captured by the mic) … to do this i put the “EQ Eight” onto the vocal track and just drag down the green line in the 25 percent to the left of the middle range frequency spectrum).

whilst things are playing, record a quick vocal take, 8-16 bars or so.

find a moderately acceptable 4 bar section and set loop accordingly.

before listening back ensure the EQ Eight application is in place on the track so it doesn’t sound immediately dislikeably boxy.

duplicate the track, and set the start point of the second instance to not be at the start, but rather just a few milliseconds before the end. this is a vintage studio trick to give a sense of spaciousness and natural subtle chorus.

select both tracks and Double Keypress Command-G to Group them. Set the output to External and send them through a separate output from the soundcard to the input A of the Octatrack.

Sample and enjoy … try playing with subtle Filter Effect (double click for the Dist option) and some subtle Flanger.