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[VCasamatta]

Headed back out on the road this Fall with a band I've spent a lot of time tour managing and mixing. This time I'll have the luxury of only mixing FOH. I'll likely be out on a DiGiCo SD8 or Profile. With Waves live bundle I've got some access to a few outboard pieces as well. But the basic problem I'm having is how to achieve some heavy grit/ overdrive on my leads vocals.

He's currently singing through a Sennheiser 945, straight in. I'm looking to get some warmer breakup, with a decent amount of presence in the highs. Nothing too drastic but more noticeable than, say, the built in tube emulation on the DiGiCos. I'd need to turn this on/off or run as a send/rtn loop. Either way is fine. I can also dup his channel and insert if need be.

Any suggestions to that end, would be greatly appreciated.

[Rick Earl]

how to achieve some heavy grit/ overdrive on my leads vocals...

Any suggestions to that end, would be greatly appreciated.

I have had pretty good success splitting the signal and  using an outboard "Tube Chain"  With a tube pre run pretty hot,  analog eq and compression which I then return to the channel adjacent to the clean input.  I can squash the "gritty" channel and bring it up under the other for parallel compression or saturate the tube and run it on its own and a overdrive, depending on the vocal effect.  I use this for one of my students with a meeker voice, she writes some fantastic songs but it is hard to give her voice body over the band.  This method seems to work well.   When she sings solo with just her acoustic, I just use the clean channel.   

[Scott Wagner]

Headed back out on the road this Fall with a band I've spent a lot of time tour managing and mixing. This time I'll have the luxury of only mixing FOH. I'll likely be out on a DiGiCo SD8 or Profile. With Waves live bundle I've got some access to a few outboard pieces as well. But the basic problem I'm having is how to achieve some heavy grit/ overdrive on my leads vocals.

He's currently singing through a Sennheiser 945, straight in. I'm looking to get some warmer breakup, with a decent amount of presence in the highs. Nothing too drastic but more noticeable than, say, the built in tube emulation on the DiGiCos. I'd need to turn this on/off or run as a send/rtn loop. Either way is fine. I can also dup his channel and insert if need be.

Any suggestions to that end, would be greatly appreciated.

I use a old Lexicon PCM 60 (yes, it's a reberb).  With the input overdriven, it makes for a great vocal overdrive sound.

[Dana Sampson]

If you are on a Profile, Sans Amp is good for vox distortion, but my favorite is Massey's THC plug-in.

[Kristo Kotkas]

If you are on a Profile, Sans Amp is good for vox distortion, but my favorite is Massey's THC plug-in.

With Venue your options are wide... SansAmp and LoFi are free with the desk, Massey stuff (if you run demo installers) are free too.. try TapeHead for sure, THC might be a bit too heavy. McDSP has a tool with wide range of distortion called FutzBox, there is AmpFarm from Line6 and of course Eleven from Avid, might come with the desk as well.

[VCasamatta]

I'm familiar with Massey, I use his plugins in the studio with PT everyday. The THC is a over the top, will not handle vocals live. Same issue I've had trying sans amp as well..

I guess what I was thinking may work best is some piece of outboard gear with a seperate input and output, otherwise your downside risk of colossal feedback and bleed rises precipitously. I want to drive a gain stage while limited the output, I don't know if it will work with a singer that moves around and a loud as shit drummer. But I'd love to find out.

But I would love to use the Massey suite with my live console. I was unaware you could instal on live desks. How does that work?

[Kristo Kotkas]

I'm familiar with Massey, I use his plugins in the studio with PT everyday. The THC is a over the top, will not handle vocals live. Same issue I've had trying sans amp as well..

I guess what I was thinking may work best is some piece of outboard gear with a seperate input and output, otherwise your downside risk of colossal feedback and bleed rises precipitously. I want to drive a gain stage while limited the output, I don't know if it will work with a singer that moves around and a loud as shit drummer. But I'd love to find out.

But I would love to use the Massey suite with my live console. I was unaware you could instal on live desks. How does that work?

You should give TapeHead a go... I use it on all vocals, just to get them to pop out of the mix with great results. I guess if driven hard you can get a slight distortion effect out of it and since there is a output trim you can bring the level down.

For installing Massey on Venue you need to get the Windows installers, then you need to boot your desk into Windows, by holding Control when clicking Shut Down and then run the Windows installer from the Win Desktop.

On Profile or D-Show surfaces you will have direct access to plugin insert bypass buttons so it would be easy on these desks to turn the effect on and off on the channel, on SC48 I would probably create a second channel with the distortion. Thinking of it I might do it that way anyway, so I could EQ distorted channel as needed.

I would give LoFi a go as well, as combination of different distortion types it provides might give the best results.

[Dana Sampson]

Yes, Massey's THC is pretty extreme, I guess it depends on what you are after.  Another plug-in to check out would be Sound Toys Decapitator.  The mix function makes it very usable for vocals.  I've not tried it live yet, but I absolutely love it in the studio.

Headed back out on the road this Fall with a band I've spent a lot of time tour managing and mixing. This time I'll have the luxury of only mixing FOH. I'll likely be out on a DiGiCo SD8 or Profile. With Waves live bundle I've got some access to a few outboard pieces as well. But the basic problem I'm having is how to achieve some heavy grit/ overdrive on my leads vocals.

He's currently singing through a Sennheiser 945, straight in. I'm looking to get some warmer breakup, with a decent amount of presence in the highs. Nothing too drastic but more noticeable than, say, the built in tube emulation on the DiGiCos. I'd need to turn this on/off or run as a send/rtn loop. Either way is fine. I can also dup his channel and insert if need be.

Any suggestions to that end, would be greatly appreciated.

[VCasamatta]

Yes, Massey's THC is pretty extreme, I guess it depends on what you are after.  Another plug-in to check out would be Sound Toys Decapitator.  The mix function makes it very usable for vocals.  I've not tried it live yet, but I absolutely love it in the studio.

Good looking out on the Decapitator - I believe that was the exact plugin used on the recording.I'm hesitant to go that extreme live - we'll see!

[VCasamatta]

You should give TapeHead a go... I use it on all vocals, just to get them to pop out of the mix with great results. I guess if driven hard you can get a slight distortion effect out of it and since there is a output trim you can bring the level down.

For installing Massey on Venue you need to get the Windows installers, then you need to boot your desk into Windows, by holding Control when clicking Shut Down and then run the Windows installer from the Win Desktop.

On Profile or D-Show surfaces you will have direct access to plugin insert bypass buttons so it would be easy on these desks to turn the effect on and off on the channel, on SC48 I would probably create a second channel with the distortion. Thinking of it I might do it that way anyway, so I could EQ distorted channel as needed.

I would give LoFi a go as well, as combination of different distortion types it provides might give the best results.

Love the Tape Head, thanks for the install instructions. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

[kristianjohnsen]

I use a old Lexicon PCM 60 (yes, it's a reberb).  With the input overdriven, it makes for a great vocal overdrive sound.

Does anyone know if that is the unit Dave Rat has praised on his blog for exactly this purpose?

[Dana Sampson]

That's the one. http://www.ratsound.com/cblog/archives/2010/07.htmlScroll down.

Does anyone know if that is the unit Dave Rat has praised on his blog for exactly this purpose?

[ProSoundWeb Community]