I recorded my wife singing with acoustic guitar on a song which was supposed to be nothing more than a reference, just so we'd knew what we wrote a few days later. I had up a couple of mics, one on the guitar and one for the vocal. I didn't do any check for phase, in fact I barely did anything but hit record. Of course, as you might have guessed, it was a particularly great vocal performance. Unfortunately, there's considerable vox leakage into the guitar mic, and the phase problem is quite noticable.

This is a serious bummer, and I'd love to salvage this track if I can. I've tried reversing the phase on the guitar mic and shifting one of the tracks up and back a few samples. Neither of these helped at all. Also, it's not the kind of guitar part that she'd be able to do over.

If anyone has an idea of how I might fix this, I'd appreciate the suggestion.

Thanks,

Dan

The first thing I'd try is to line up the vox track with the vox leakage, zooming way in to get it spot on. Just moving things around a few samples or reversing the phase isn't accurate enough.

If that doesn't work - in other words if there's also a lot of guitar in the vocal track - try taking a copy of the vox track, lining it up with the vox waveform in the guitar track, and then reversing its phase.

This should remove a good amount of the vocal in the guitar track, but how much it'll take with it I don't know.

You can also try the reverse to remove guitar from the vocal track.

Thanks Nick,

I'll try these ideas. There's not a lot of guitar in the vocal track. Maybe lining it up more accurately is what's needed. --Dan

What if you delay the guitar track several (10 - 25) milliseconds? That of course would put an "effect" on the vocal, but it might be better than out of phase. Then maybe delay the gtr again, and pan 'em hard!

I think your wife can sing and play it again though.

Given that the vocal performance is the better of the two, why not get another take of the a. guitar

NYC Drew

I'm currently mixing a band where everything was tracked with a 184 on an acoustic and a Rode Classic on the vox at the same time.

What I did to improve the phase or just the overall sound was pan the GTR track to L4 and the vocal to R3. Them put a .6 delay between them. This greatly improved the sound and lessened the hollowness in the vocal. Also adding a small room verb helped smooth it out.

Thank you for your suggestions. I spent a little time on this today but need more. I did zoom way in on the sample and shifted the track and it seemed to help significantly. For some reason the track seems to line up differently at different sections of the song. Maybe because she was moving around, I'm not sure. But I guess I'll break the track down into sections and slide them in place as needed.

The effect on the voice idea is good, but would not be appropriate for this song and setting, which is pretty raw.
And because it's a finger picking guitar part that goes in and out of time, she would not be able to match it.

VocAlign!

Please say more...

I was kinda kidding but who knows.

Vocalign is a time compression/expansion software originaly developed for ADR (automatic dialog replacement). When an actor comes in to re record his/her lines, and they're not in sync with the original recording (and the lip movement on film), Vocalign will compare both waveforms then line up the new with the original. It can also be used for tightening up BGs and vocal doubles (great, more ****ing perfection).
I'm not sure how it would handle an ac gtr part like yours, esp with the vox in the track. It aint cheap either.

If she was moving around, the phase effect will be changing, as you observed. This will be difficult to correct, but it's probably possible if you spend enough time on it. It will be tough to do this, because you'll have to time-stretch the tracks at the points where the change happens. And if she moved around enough, there could be dozens of these points. Eventually it may become a losing battle. (This is as difficult as fixing a drum track where the drummer drifts in and out of time!)

The obvious suggestion is to just record more takes, with greater care toward engineering. If you were charging for your time, she'd go broke. Call this what it originally was: a simple documentation take. The fact that it was a great vocal was an accident; accept it and continue performing. Next time, plan from the start to make it a keeper.

If she's a good vocalist, she'll get another great take. It may not happen for a while (or for several sessions), but it'll happen again.

Consider this: if she has poor mike technique, you'll never be able to make decent progress on a "keeper" recording: she'll move around and you'll hear it in the track. Have her use this as a lesson in the importance of careful mike technique. This skill is almost as important as her ability to sing and play. With this philosophy, you've both learned quite a bit from the recording.

rick,

Good advices.

My motto is: If you did it once you can do it again.

I find it helps to say this confidently whether you believe it or not. The (false) confidence tends to rub off on the performers.

Say it as if its a rule that everyone in music already knows.

JM

I'll give it my best effort to salvage the recording. I think it's possible. There are only a few places where the phase changes, and I think it's a result of good mic technique, as she was likely moving a way from the mic in the louder sections. She's a pro, though when she plays guitar things sometimes get weird. I think in all likelyhood she could do it again just as nicely, but she really loves this version, so making it work would really save a lot of grief.

I have learned the same valuable lesson twice in the past month. Never treat any recording as anything less than record quality. I should have been paying better attention because you just never know when the magic's gonna happen.

The other thing that happened was that we got a song that we wrote and recorded placed on Suzanne Vega's 9/11 Vigil album, a relief project. I had submitted a demo, made in 1/2 hours time, which was accepted, and subsequently recorded a final version for the CD from scratch. When we got a copy of the release we discovered that the scratch version had been used instead of the final!! I almost had a stroke. The mistake will be fixed, but a few thousand CDs with the demo version are out there.

Never again (famous last words). From now on, everything I record is a potential record.

Dan

I was thinking about getting one of those things you put your head into for x-rays of your teeth. It clamps your head into place so you can't move, resting your chin on a plastic mold.

Then setting up the mic in front of that so vocalist can't move an inch. Then wiring a low voltage electrical circut to them, giving them a mild shock everytime they start to sing to loud.

This should reduce any potential phase problems.

Sounds sensible.