I have been using Samplitude for some time now, with very good success. But, I need to kick it up another notch! I have gone into "Pro Tools" studios and cut tracks with Nashville musicians, bringing the wave files back home to add steel/dobro and record vocals. We have been able to chart several songs in the Christian Country field (one currently #4 on the Country Gospel Music GUild Chart), and have had several radio releases from Southern Gospel Quartets.
I purchased better mics and a mic preamp for the last project, lifting the vocals up out of the mix nicely. But, I need more.
To my ears (not my client's) everything seems strained, for the lack of a better term. I use onboard compression and reverbs.
I can't seems to get 40 tracks like I want them without the compression which I try to keep at a minimum. (Do you compress individually, overall or both?)
I am considering the Auto Tune plug in to upgrade the vocal presentation. What would you suggest would be money well spent on additional software?<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Reggie Duncan on 28 October 2005 at 07:17 AM.]</p></FONT>
VST Plug-ins
Moderator: Wiz Feinberg
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Michael McGee
- Posts: 894
- Joined: 8 Dec 1998 1:01 am
- Location: Everton, Missouri, USA
Reggie, I empathize with you, as there seems to be for me a never-ending search for that golden perfect mix. The successes that you've had tell me that you cannot be too far off, if at all! I do not feel qualified at all to offer anything to this except a humble opinion or two, and I feel sure that these are things you already know. But feel free to disagree - iron sharpens iron.
I have come to believe that you have to have at least 1 'great' mic, a great mic preamp to go with it, a set of 'great' monitors, and a room with decent natural sound, and last, and most important, make sure what's going into that mic is of great quality :>). These 5 things I can never fake or find a way around. But if I can get all those going, and capture the output to tape/disc, I can work with it and it seems to mix more easily.
Yes, I'm a big believer in compression, but many times a multi-band compressor is a better tool, especially in mastering the final mix. I used to try to minimize its use, but I no longer have any qualms about using it. And, of course, it can be abused also, but your ears should tell you when this is happening.
One of my mentors gave this explanation. On the average, good ears CAN hear a pin drop. If an explosive thunder clap immediately follows that pin's fall, somehow our ears don't explode. He says that there's some type of compression going on there, and it's 'natural'. If we set a mic to record the pin at a decent level, the thunder will peg the meters. So, he says a mic is a very poor ear and needs a compressor to even approach the wonder that is the human ear. I like that explanation.
Autotune is a tool - a great tool - but not an automatic guaranteed success. It works miracles for a great vocalist who had a great take, but sung a few notes flat. It's of little/no use to a sucky voice like mine that's off from start to finish.
Finally, I always want a great reverb, but your definition of great and mine will likely differ. I suspect samplitude has some great reverbs.
Maybe we can discuss this further in the chat room, if we can get those darned steelers out of there :>)
I have come to believe that you have to have at least 1 'great' mic, a great mic preamp to go with it, a set of 'great' monitors, and a room with decent natural sound, and last, and most important, make sure what's going into that mic is of great quality :>). These 5 things I can never fake or find a way around. But if I can get all those going, and capture the output to tape/disc, I can work with it and it seems to mix more easily.
Yes, I'm a big believer in compression, but many times a multi-band compressor is a better tool, especially in mastering the final mix. I used to try to minimize its use, but I no longer have any qualms about using it. And, of course, it can be abused also, but your ears should tell you when this is happening.
One of my mentors gave this explanation. On the average, good ears CAN hear a pin drop. If an explosive thunder clap immediately follows that pin's fall, somehow our ears don't explode. He says that there's some type of compression going on there, and it's 'natural'. If we set a mic to record the pin at a decent level, the thunder will peg the meters. So, he says a mic is a very poor ear and needs a compressor to even approach the wonder that is the human ear. I like that explanation.
Autotune is a tool - a great tool - but not an automatic guaranteed success. It works miracles for a great vocalist who had a great take, but sung a few notes flat. It's of little/no use to a sucky voice like mine that's off from start to finish.
Finally, I always want a great reverb, but your definition of great and mine will likely differ. I suspect samplitude has some great reverbs.
Maybe we can discuss this further in the chat room, if we can get those darned steelers out of there :>)
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Kiyoshi Osawa
- Posts: 285
- Joined: 23 Mar 2004 1:01 am
- Location: Mexico City, Mexico
- Contact:
If you are considering Antares' autotune. (laying aside all pro/con discussions about using autotuning), do yourself a favor and check out Melodyne. It is like autotune on megasteroids.
But from what I read, it doesn't sound like you necesarilly need to add anything more to your rig. Although expensive equipment is obviously a factor, the reason that mixes from big facilities sound huge is because they have the time and the money to nit pick every little detail of the track. Big names like bowie or the rolling stones are known to record only a frase or two a week! Imagine how many takes they do until they have a perfect, 100% performance!
Here's my take on production values:
Let's say my vocalist comes in and performs at, say, 90% of her potential. The bassist played a so-so 80% performance, but the guitarrist laid a 95% awesome track, so that covers it. Then when mixing, I let a couple of peaks slip by, and forgot the noise gate on the hihat channel, I didn't take the time to "ride the levels" on the bass track, and just assigned a sidechaining compressor, making my mix an OK 85% job.
What overall percentile would you give the recording? 87.5% ? (from adding the percentages), well you would be mathematically correct, but that's only IF each factor were a percentage of the total, which they ARE NOT. All the elements constitute one single whole. This means, for example, that if the vocals are at 90%, the rest of my track will NEVER BE BETTER THAN THAT!
So, if you think about it, the bassist only has 90% of excellence to work with. Even if he plays at HIS 100%, the track will never be perfect. But the bassist gave only an 80% performance, so now the track is down to 72% of excellence! Ahh, the guitarrist, he allways pulls through right? WRONG!!! his contribution, a very impressive 95% of his personal best, turns my production down to 68.4 of it's potential. I don't even want to think about the mix, which I know I could have done better!!! sheesh, my procrastination brought my total down to 58.14% of the potential of excellence in my work.
Although the end product would probably be of acceptable quality, (the original 87.5%), what sucks is that I only squeezed 58.14% of the POTENTIAL excellence of the track!
You can argue all you want about the math. It's probably not the correct way to grade a recording. But it certainly put things into perspective for me!
Now I gotta get outa here before all the mathematical minds destroy my argument!
bye,
------------------
<img src="http://static.flickr.com/33/47545505_ac71b7ed26_s.jpg" />
The Steel guitar Podcast
But from what I read, it doesn't sound like you necesarilly need to add anything more to your rig. Although expensive equipment is obviously a factor, the reason that mixes from big facilities sound huge is because they have the time and the money to nit pick every little detail of the track. Big names like bowie or the rolling stones are known to record only a frase or two a week! Imagine how many takes they do until they have a perfect, 100% performance!
Here's my take on production values:
Let's say my vocalist comes in and performs at, say, 90% of her potential. The bassist played a so-so 80% performance, but the guitarrist laid a 95% awesome track, so that covers it. Then when mixing, I let a couple of peaks slip by, and forgot the noise gate on the hihat channel, I didn't take the time to "ride the levels" on the bass track, and just assigned a sidechaining compressor, making my mix an OK 85% job.
What overall percentile would you give the recording? 87.5% ? (from adding the percentages), well you would be mathematically correct, but that's only IF each factor were a percentage of the total, which they ARE NOT. All the elements constitute one single whole. This means, for example, that if the vocals are at 90%, the rest of my track will NEVER BE BETTER THAN THAT!
So, if you think about it, the bassist only has 90% of excellence to work with. Even if he plays at HIS 100%, the track will never be perfect. But the bassist gave only an 80% performance, so now the track is down to 72% of excellence! Ahh, the guitarrist, he allways pulls through right? WRONG!!! his contribution, a very impressive 95% of his personal best, turns my production down to 68.4 of it's potential. I don't even want to think about the mix, which I know I could have done better!!! sheesh, my procrastination brought my total down to 58.14% of the potential of excellence in my work.
Although the end product would probably be of acceptable quality, (the original 87.5%), what sucks is that I only squeezed 58.14% of the POTENTIAL excellence of the track!
You can argue all you want about the math. It's probably not the correct way to grade a recording. But it certainly put things into perspective for me!
Now I gotta get outa here before all the mathematical minds destroy my argument!
bye,
------------------
<img src="http://static.flickr.com/33/47545505_ac71b7ed26_s.jpg" />
The Steel guitar Podcast
-
Steinar Gregertsen
- Posts: 3234
- Joined: 18 Feb 2003 1:01 am
- Location: Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.
- Contact:
Here's how I see the road to a great end result:
Good song -> good arrangement -> good musicians who knows how to make the best of the song/arrangement -> good recording engineer who knows how to capture the sound and energy of the musicians -> good mixing engineer who knows how to preserve and enhance the quality of the recorded tracks -> good mastering engineer who knows that his job is to "clean windows", not squeeze the life out of the performance/mix.
What does plugins have to do with this? Very little.........
Steinar
PS - If you want a plugin recommendation,- get the UAD-1 card. It's expensive, but the closest to the analog hardware gadgets I've ever heard in plugins. You can read more about them here - http://www.uaudio.com/products/software/index.html
------------------
www.gregertsen.com
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 28 October 2005 at 01:45 PM.]</p></FONT>
Good song -> good arrangement -> good musicians who knows how to make the best of the song/arrangement -> good recording engineer who knows how to capture the sound and energy of the musicians -> good mixing engineer who knows how to preserve and enhance the quality of the recorded tracks -> good mastering engineer who knows that his job is to "clean windows", not squeeze the life out of the performance/mix.
What does plugins have to do with this? Very little.........
Steinar
PS - If you want a plugin recommendation,- get the UAD-1 card. It's expensive, but the closest to the analog hardware gadgets I've ever heard in plugins. You can read more about them here - http://www.uaudio.com/products/software/index.html
------------------
www.gregertsen.com
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 28 October 2005 at 01:45 PM.]</p></FONT>
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Gary Shepherd
- Posts: 2490
- Joined: 3 May 2004 12:01 am
- Location: Fox, Oklahoma, USA
- Contact:
Ditto on Melodyne. AutoTune is good for a "quick fix". But if you really want to fix the vocal (or any other tracks) Melodyne is where it's at.
Now I just got Sonar5 and it's supposed to have some new V-Vocal thing like Melodyne. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but hopefully, it will be as cool as Melodyne but without all the extra hassle of importing/exporting files between the two programs.
Another investment you might like to make is a Studio Projects C1 large diaphragm condenser mic for vocals. I don't care what kind of mics you already have. If you don't have a C1, you need to get one. They are GREAT on my vocals. Brings the vocal up front without having to do any EQ, compression, reverb, etc. Your mileage may vary but you NEED to have at least one of these mics.
I'm not a big fan of ProTools because of the Proprietary format but that's another issue. If you like ProTools, then go for it. A buddy of mine recorded some tracks in California at a ProTools studio. He wanted me to add pedal steel tracks. So I too his hard drive with all the individual tracks and remixed it (with pedal steel) in Sonar4. Came out fine - other than my less than perfect steel playing.
Use compression as little as possible. You'll need a good mastering compressor for the final mix. Waves makes some good individual track compressors. Maybe check out the Sonitus Suite of FX too.
------------------
Gary Shepherd
Carter D-10
www.16tracks.com
Now I just got Sonar5 and it's supposed to have some new V-Vocal thing like Melodyne. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but hopefully, it will be as cool as Melodyne but without all the extra hassle of importing/exporting files between the two programs.
Another investment you might like to make is a Studio Projects C1 large diaphragm condenser mic for vocals. I don't care what kind of mics you already have. If you don't have a C1, you need to get one. They are GREAT on my vocals. Brings the vocal up front without having to do any EQ, compression, reverb, etc. Your mileage may vary but you NEED to have at least one of these mics.
I'm not a big fan of ProTools because of the Proprietary format but that's another issue. If you like ProTools, then go for it. A buddy of mine recorded some tracks in California at a ProTools studio. He wanted me to add pedal steel tracks. So I too his hard drive with all the individual tracks and remixed it (with pedal steel) in Sonar4. Came out fine - other than my less than perfect steel playing.
Use compression as little as possible. You'll need a good mastering compressor for the final mix. Waves makes some good individual track compressors. Maybe check out the Sonitus Suite of FX too.
------------------
Gary Shepherd
Carter D-10
www.16tracks.com
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Jeff Hogsten
- Posts: 688
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: Flatwoods Ky USA
Hi Reggie
first I would like to know a little more about your set up, what kind of sound card do you have, what kind of mic and pre, what are you using for a/d converters. I seriously doubt that any of the problem is in what you already have.I have learned a lot about digital the past year. First off I suggest you get a uad-1 card. You may find one on ebay that was distibuted by mackie and it is the best deal. YOu wont ever need another compressor. It has a ll76, a L2 and a fairchild< I think this is a $75 option> and you cant tell them from the real thing. There have been a lot of reviews on them and they all come to the same conclusion. It will be the best money you have spent, the pultec eq is great to, they have a new reverb which is Killer that emulates a emt plate. The best thing about it is that it doesnt use any of you cpu power. Reverb sounds like it may be another problem. Use outboard the plugins are getting better but not there yet, I see yamaha rev 7's for around $200 on ebay and it will still hold its own with most anything. You can also pick up some good deals on older lexicon units. NO you dont have to have spidif on the unit to use it, I do it everyday. If you need any help call me or email and Ill tell you anything I can. Another word on mics. I picked this up from Klauss Hynes whose mics go for 10000 so he knows his stuff. A lot of mics that are well known were desingned when we were using analog and had to cut through 48 channels of tape. with the improvment in converters the differerence between analog and digital has narrowed to where most hi end engineers think digital sounds just as good now. what they arent telling is the reason a lot of people still think digital is harsh is one, cheap converters and two mics with a hyped hi end that were designed like the c1 the previous fellow mentioned and I have one, to cut through 48 channels of tape.The u87 is a good example. Why do you think you are seeing such a revival of ribbon mics, they sound natural. The c1, u87, ect are good on some vocals but they were copied after the orignal u87 and have a very hyped hi and and midrange basically not what you want for digital.This however is what a lot of people are using because of the price. All of these mics like marshall and studio projects are made in the same factory in China and a lot of them have a very hyped hi end. Somoe of them are very good like the c1 but that hi end presence isnt what I want on digital now.You can get you stuff sounding harsh gradually and not even notice it. Look for a mic with a more nurtral sound, not dark but nuetral. Some examples would be the 4047, by audio tech, the new mojave by dave royer. There are some copies of the elam 251 now that are hard to tell from the real thing like the peluso. Also peluso sells capsule replacements. You can get a apex 460, change the tube and put in a peluso capsule and for under $600 have a mic you wont hardly be able to tell from the real thing. John Peluso does mods on these as well. Find a marshall v77 tube mic send it to him and for $300 you have a 251 in cardiod pattern. I can tell you some tricks on a oktava 219 that turns it into a mic that will compete with the best of them and you can buy it all day long on ebay for under $100. Read Paul Whites review on this mic on sound on sound mag. So the first thing you need to do in my opinion is make sure you have good converters, you say you have a good preamp and mic. I think the Uad card and a good reverb will solve most of your problem. Hope this helps
Jeff Hogsten
first I would like to know a little more about your set up, what kind of sound card do you have, what kind of mic and pre, what are you using for a/d converters. I seriously doubt that any of the problem is in what you already have.I have learned a lot about digital the past year. First off I suggest you get a uad-1 card. You may find one on ebay that was distibuted by mackie and it is the best deal. YOu wont ever need another compressor. It has a ll76, a L2 and a fairchild< I think this is a $75 option> and you cant tell them from the real thing. There have been a lot of reviews on them and they all come to the same conclusion. It will be the best money you have spent, the pultec eq is great to, they have a new reverb which is Killer that emulates a emt plate. The best thing about it is that it doesnt use any of you cpu power. Reverb sounds like it may be another problem. Use outboard the plugins are getting better but not there yet, I see yamaha rev 7's for around $200 on ebay and it will still hold its own with most anything. You can also pick up some good deals on older lexicon units. NO you dont have to have spidif on the unit to use it, I do it everyday. If you need any help call me or email and Ill tell you anything I can. Another word on mics. I picked this up from Klauss Hynes whose mics go for 10000 so he knows his stuff. A lot of mics that are well known were desingned when we were using analog and had to cut through 48 channels of tape. with the improvment in converters the differerence between analog and digital has narrowed to where most hi end engineers think digital sounds just as good now. what they arent telling is the reason a lot of people still think digital is harsh is one, cheap converters and two mics with a hyped hi end that were designed like the c1 the previous fellow mentioned and I have one, to cut through 48 channels of tape.The u87 is a good example. Why do you think you are seeing such a revival of ribbon mics, they sound natural. The c1, u87, ect are good on some vocals but they were copied after the orignal u87 and have a very hyped hi and and midrange basically not what you want for digital.This however is what a lot of people are using because of the price. All of these mics like marshall and studio projects are made in the same factory in China and a lot of them have a very hyped hi end. Somoe of them are very good like the c1 but that hi end presence isnt what I want on digital now.You can get you stuff sounding harsh gradually and not even notice it. Look for a mic with a more nurtral sound, not dark but nuetral. Some examples would be the 4047, by audio tech, the new mojave by dave royer. There are some copies of the elam 251 now that are hard to tell from the real thing like the peluso. Also peluso sells capsule replacements. You can get a apex 460, change the tube and put in a peluso capsule and for under $600 have a mic you wont hardly be able to tell from the real thing. John Peluso does mods on these as well. Find a marshall v77 tube mic send it to him and for $300 you have a 251 in cardiod pattern. I can tell you some tricks on a oktava 219 that turns it into a mic that will compete with the best of them and you can buy it all day long on ebay for under $100. Read Paul Whites review on this mic on sound on sound mag. So the first thing you need to do in my opinion is make sure you have good converters, you say you have a good preamp and mic. I think the Uad card and a good reverb will solve most of your problem. Hope this helps
Jeff Hogsten
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Bob Martin
- Posts: 1871
- Joined: 27 Feb 1999 1:01 am
- Location: Madison Tn
Hi Reggie, in my opinion as far as compression goes nothing should ever be recorded without some sort of light compression/leveling with more emphasis on the leveling. Nothing ruins a track or mix quicker than a spike or drop out.
Consistancy in tracks is a must.
As far as pitch correction goes the best bet is make the singer keep singing until they get it and only after many trys to obtain a vocal trk in tune try pitch correcting. There are several apps that will do it so you'll just have to try them and decide which one works for you.
If you meant outboard effects when you said onboard well then I would try some realtime plugins. There are several verfy convincing plugin reverbs by different companies such as lexicon and TC electronics.
Now on the other hand if you actually meant plugins and you're not satisfied with them well try some other plugins or even try some outboard gear.
But the point has already been made about only being as good as 3 things
1. Mic pres
2. DAC/ADC's
3. Mics
When you have the best of these 3 that you can possibly afford you will then be ready to record and mix the best possible tracks that your equipment is capable of making.
The rest is all up to your ears
Consistancy in tracks is a must.
As far as pitch correction goes the best bet is make the singer keep singing until they get it and only after many trys to obtain a vocal trk in tune try pitch correcting. There are several apps that will do it so you'll just have to try them and decide which one works for you.
If you meant outboard effects when you said onboard well then I would try some realtime plugins. There are several verfy convincing plugin reverbs by different companies such as lexicon and TC electronics.
Now on the other hand if you actually meant plugins and you're not satisfied with them well try some other plugins or even try some outboard gear.
But the point has already been made about only being as good as 3 things
1. Mic pres
2. DAC/ADC's
3. Mics
When you have the best of these 3 that you can possibly afford you will then be ready to record and mix the best possible tracks that your equipment is capable of making.
The rest is all up to your ears
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Reggie Duncan
- Posts: 2257
- Joined: 17 Dec 2001 1:01 am
- Location: Mississippi
What great information! I don't know that I can even digest it all! As usual, the forum guys come thru. Thanks!
The AD/DA converters aren't within the sound card? (ignorant question) I use a Terratec producer, 8X8, along with a mic preamp.
Another question.....how do you get "that sound" on bass guitar.....that sound that is full yet soft, one you can feel? Sometimes I think I come close, but at other times, not so close. What is your secret?<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Reggie Duncan on 07 November 2005 at 01:46 AM.]</p></FONT>
The AD/DA converters aren't within the sound card? (ignorant question) I use a Terratec producer, 8X8, along with a mic preamp.
Another question.....how do you get "that sound" on bass guitar.....that sound that is full yet soft, one you can feel? Sometimes I think I come close, but at other times, not so close. What is your secret?<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Reggie Duncan on 07 November 2005 at 01:46 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Bob Martin
- Posts: 1871
- Joined: 27 Feb 1999 1:01 am
- Location: Madison Tn
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Jack Stoner
- Posts: 22087
- Joined: 3 Dec 1999 1:01 am
- Location: Kansas City, MO
I just completed a CD project, for a singer, and finally got a decent bass track down. Usually it seems I come up too "boomy" on the bass tracks. This time I used our old Ibanez Blazer bass and set the tone control about half way (maybe a little more than half way to the treble side) and then recorded direct with no addtional EQ. It seems to have come out the way it should (or at least the way I think it should - especially since I was the Producer, Musician and did the Mixdown 
). There was no addtional EQ'ing done to the bass on the mixdown, either. I did add a very small amount of compression to the mix using Goldwave.
We also have a 5 string Yamaha with two pickups and active electronics and it doesn't seem to record well, although it's great on live gigs.
). There was no addtional EQ'ing done to the bass on the mixdown, either. I did add a very small amount of compression to the mix using Goldwave. We also have a 5 string Yamaha with two pickups and active electronics and it doesn't seem to record well, although it's great on live gigs.
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Jeff Hogsten
- Posts: 688
- Joined: 4 Aug 1998 11:00 pm
- Location: Flatwoods Ky USA
Reggie,
I think a lot of what you are missing on the bass is compression and again get the uad1 card and run the bass through a 1176 which is what a lot of the guys in nashville are using. A word about vocal tuning, a lot of nashville engineers are doint it even when they record but it is giving them a effect not a natural sound which is what I want, for one the vocal has to be relatively close, they cant be as flat as a board. I had a track I did on DIana Gillette the other day and as you know flat notes for her are indeed rare but on this song she hit one, I just used the vocal tuner on that one. something Terry Manning suggested to me that I havent tried yet but makes a lot of sense, instead of punching a vocal in in a bad spot do several takes and edit them together and that would have been a better solution on the tracs I just did for her. I know if you have a good cut with maybe one bad spot that would not be the best solution. In the end for a natural vocal which is what you are after vocal tuning is not going to work miracles, it wont take someone that is singing flat all the time and bring them up to where they sound perfect. A work about your converters, you need to upgrade them if you want a top notch sound and probably your preamp, some suggestions, for under $1000 the new mackie is great for 8 channels with built in conversion. Since you are mostly doing overdubs if you can afford close to $2000 you can get a focusrite 428, four channels of pre amp with 80 db of gain which is unreal and built in compression and 8 channels of a/d converters which means you could later add four tracks of any kind of another analog pre. this will give you the bass sound your after, it has enough gain to run a ribbon mic, which most pre amps dont and sounds great, it is actuall a never pre.This is all things I had to learn the hard way but for the quality of work you are trying to do and that I know you are capable of it wont happen untill you upgrade your converters and pre, get that right and a lot of mics will work, you could use sm57;s. I had a funny thing happen the other day, a bunch of hi tech engineers on a forum I belong to were arguing what mics Frank Sinatra used in the studio, most of them were saying rca ribbons. Well the engineer that engineered his session in the middle and late 50's talked to one of the guys on the forum. He said although Frank always had his picture made with rca's and did indeed use them in the 40' and into the 50' that he indeed kept using them for pictures that the actual mic he recorded with was a hand held what we today would know as a sm 57, it just goes to show you if you dont have the singers and the musicians hang it all.
I think a lot of what you are missing on the bass is compression and again get the uad1 card and run the bass through a 1176 which is what a lot of the guys in nashville are using. A word about vocal tuning, a lot of nashville engineers are doint it even when they record but it is giving them a effect not a natural sound which is what I want, for one the vocal has to be relatively close, they cant be as flat as a board. I had a track I did on DIana Gillette the other day and as you know flat notes for her are indeed rare but on this song she hit one, I just used the vocal tuner on that one. something Terry Manning suggested to me that I havent tried yet but makes a lot of sense, instead of punching a vocal in in a bad spot do several takes and edit them together and that would have been a better solution on the tracs I just did for her. I know if you have a good cut with maybe one bad spot that would not be the best solution. In the end for a natural vocal which is what you are after vocal tuning is not going to work miracles, it wont take someone that is singing flat all the time and bring them up to where they sound perfect. A work about your converters, you need to upgrade them if you want a top notch sound and probably your preamp, some suggestions, for under $1000 the new mackie is great for 8 channels with built in conversion. Since you are mostly doing overdubs if you can afford close to $2000 you can get a focusrite 428, four channels of pre amp with 80 db of gain which is unreal and built in compression and 8 channels of a/d converters which means you could later add four tracks of any kind of another analog pre. this will give you the bass sound your after, it has enough gain to run a ribbon mic, which most pre amps dont and sounds great, it is actuall a never pre.This is all things I had to learn the hard way but for the quality of work you are trying to do and that I know you are capable of it wont happen untill you upgrade your converters and pre, get that right and a lot of mics will work, you could use sm57;s. I had a funny thing happen the other day, a bunch of hi tech engineers on a forum I belong to were arguing what mics Frank Sinatra used in the studio, most of them were saying rca ribbons. Well the engineer that engineered his session in the middle and late 50's talked to one of the guys on the forum. He said although Frank always had his picture made with rca's and did indeed use them in the 40' and into the 50' that he indeed kept using them for pictures that the actual mic he recorded with was a hand held what we today would know as a sm 57, it just goes to show you if you dont have the singers and the musicians hang it all.