Pro Tools 11 - #16 - Vocal Comping Video Lecture | Pro tools Tutorial: Basics to Expert - Video & Sound Editing

hello this is music tech help guide and
welcome to episode 16 of my Pro Tools 11
video tutorial series in this episode
I'm gonna go over vocal comping and
creating a composite take out of
multiple vocal takes if you're not
already familiar with playlist recording
and editing you might want to check out
the previous video which was episode 15
where I showed how to record takes to a
playlist and then Comp them together I'm
gonna essentially do the same thing
today - the recording part and just
doing the comping for vocals because
it's probably one of the most useful
things you can do for vocal recording
and it helps expedite the the recording
process because you're not sitting there
having to try to make decisions on what
was the best take on-the-fly although
some people prefer the prefer to work
that way but when you're on a tight
deadline and you have to spend as little
time possible tracking the vocals I
prefer to take five or to get you know
five or six decent takes and then just
worry about you know comping them
together later so this is the tune I got
for you today I've got bass drums
guitars and synths they're all sort of
just stemmed down from multiple tracks
just to keep the screen looking less
cluttered for the video and then there's
a blank vocal track down here but
there's actually some playlists hidden
in the track so here's here's just what
the the the part of the song sounds like
without any vocals it's just the it's
like the first verse of the song
all right so if I go to our go to our
lead vocal track here and switch from
waveform view to playlist to you what
we'll find is that there's a whole bunch
of takes in here on our playlists so
when she recorded for me she did five
takes of the first verse several takes
of the bridge several takes of the
second verse this is all the chorus and
then another bridge so I just had her do
you know somewhere between like four and
six takes of everything then I was gonna
you know just worry about putting them
together later so let's take a look at
our takes for the verse now in order to
hear these takes along with the song
what you need to do is use solo whatever
playlist you want to hear so let's start
the first one now I can tell you right
now that this first take is a little
lackluster a little lazy she's sort of
warming up probably not the best take
these are the ones on the top are the
most recent takes or the the last takes
that we did which are probably going to
be the better one so most of the
material we're gonna pick is probably
from these top through your top two but
the bottom and sort of a warm-up take so
let's just listen to this so solo the
playlist and hit play and by the way
when you click something with the
selector tool to audition these
playlists if you want the playhead to
keep going back where it was before make
sure that you turn off the the what's it
called what is it called insertion
follows playback yeah the instruction
follows playback so make sure you turn
that off alright so let's listen to this
warm-up take
if I had another way I spend it yeah
it's awful it's very flat out of time
it's listening this next one I have
another day if I had another way I spend
it right here with you trapped in Nice
um just asleep that was not too bad
listen listen
day if I had another way I'd spend it
right here with you
all right so they get they get a lot
better after you get past this first one
I'm gonna go ahead and just delete that
one now the goal isn't to just grab one
of these takes and bump it up there it's
to listen to each section and hear what
the best take from each one is or listen
to listen to see what each listen for
each phrase and see which take sounds
the best there you go
so let me just zoom in on just this
first phrase here and what I always like
to just make a selection over the phrase
and then just solo one of the takes hit
play alright here's the next one
if I had another way i spended next one
if fun had another way I'd spend it if I
had another day if I had another way I
spend it now this top one is a little
she rushes it a little bit actually that
one she's the most in time these three
she's sort of behind so I'm just gonna
drag over this take I'll live to hear
and he's hit the UP button what that
does is it bumps the take up into the
main playlist now I skipped over this
last little part here because I actually
thought this one sounded the best
spending i spended actually looked that
one the most
so we're gonna bump that up as well just
hit the UP button and that just puts
both of those takes up there so now as
long as I don't solo on the playlists
down here if I hit play we'll hear this
and this let me listen this very first
part on one of these the word hads a
little flat let's see if we can find it
better better part there yeah I like
that one better so just drag over that
part pull that up and so now we've got
three different takes up here we're
gonna worry about editing this later so
alright let's move on to the next phrase
the goal here is to learn to do this so
you can do it quickly you know so you're
not wasting all day at comping vocals
that's pretty good right here yeah I
like the energy at the top one better
right here with right here
right here with you I kind of like this
part of this one bump that up but I like
this part or this part right right right
almost identical I'm gonna bump this one
up I didn't like this because it just
sound like she over modulated the mic a
little bit let's go to the next section
here trap deny some justice Chaplin
trapped in I some justice
trap deny some just asleep
trap-trap deny some just asleep check
the top on the most trapped in dream
yeah definitely like that one next
section in jeans I can't escape in
dreams I can't escape trapped in dreams
I can't escape trapped in dreams I can't
escape definitely not this one's a
little flat I can see there's a little
bit of like a plosive in there this one
doesn't have the pilosa but the only
three does that do have the plosive she
probably just sang well too close to the
capsule I'm gonna go ahead and grab
trapped in dreams I can't escape they
want to take this part it's just the
word trapped for me isn't it working on
that one
let's see if this one sounds like like
the way she says it there so again like
sometimes we're talking about like 5%
improvements and quality from take to
take if they're a really consistent
singer which can be really difficult to
you know that you pick and choose
consciousness
fading away consciousness is fading away
not that one's flat consciousness is
fading I kind of like how she tails off
on this one but I like the energy and
these top two let's see if I could take
this and make it work with one of these
up here yeah let's do that all right so
now I've got a complete take up here I'm
gonna go ahead and hide my playlists go
back to waveform view it's gonna pull
this up to the top so you can see a
little better there we go
and what generally what I like to do is
I go in here and I just tighten up and
clean up the edits so I just used my
trimmer tool and my selector tool to get
the edits as clean as possible trying to
edit in areas of low volume rather than
areas of high volume when I can avoid it
trying to avoid you know cutting off
syllables like this editing before the
syllable
let's try it was just that one word
wasn't that yeah and sometimes when you
do this I mean you lose the flow you may
end up having to nudge notes around to
make the flows work or just you know go
with a different take just to you know
keep the flow of the whole take cuz
obviously some of these takes she's a
little behind to be sometimes she's a
little head of the beat so before I even
go and try to add fades to this let me
just listen to it if I had another way I
spend it right here with you
trapped in nice um just asleep trapped
in dreams I can't escape conscious
dissipating
yeah we may have to do some like nudging
in there later to kind of make some of
the the rhythms line up a little bit but
overall I like that just do a heads
heads and tails I don't know actually
the very first thing I'm going to do is
I'm going to drag over all of this
whoops oh hang on keyboards freaking out
at me all right you drag over all this
this good lord
okay it's my mouse that's freaking out
on me try this again he dragged over all
this with your selector tool and as long
as your key focus mode is on you just
hit F and what this does you probably
didn't even see it but what this does is
it creates a tiny little fade at each
edit point so you don't have to go
through and add manual fades now
sometimes you may find that a larger
fade and some sounding better but in
this case I'm gonna leave him small
fades and I'm just gonna heads and tails
the end dragged over the whole thing and
then hit shift option three to
consolidate and let's see if this sounds
like now i spended right here
you
trapped in ice um just asleep trapped in
dreams I can't escape conscious this is
fading
and of course now we can you know worry
about adding EQ and compression and you
know beefing up her voice a little bit
to just make it sound a bit better here
and that's the thing about like when
you're in the editing stage I try not to
add plugins really at the editing stage
just because it gives you sort of sort
of a false sense of how good a take is
or how bad it take is you can think it
take that was totally just bad just a
bad take can sound better if you add EQ
and compression to it while you're
editing it so I usually say the EQ and
compression for afterwards if I had
another day if I had another way I spend
it right here with you
trap tonight some justice slave trapped
in dreams I can't escape consciousness
is fading away and there you go so
that's comping vocals with playlists
probably one of the most useful things
for playlists and and the other great
thing about the playlists is you know
they're still there so if the singer
says hey I didn't like how this part
sounds or I don't like have the sounds
you can go back and punch in a different
take alright so this is just some ideas
to get you going with vocal comping I
hope you enjoyed the video and thanks
again for watching