I mentioned in my last post that a little bit of work on the front end would pay dividends all the way through a project. One of the places this matters most is in audio editing. Unless we’re going for a specific electronic-enhanced sound, we probably want to do our best to keep the project from sounding overproduced. The problem is that each track we receive from our singers carries production sound with it already. From the microphone built into a phone to the codecs that encode the sound to the compression added when the file is emailed or texted, our files come frontloaded with a LOT of baggage. Our job is to find ways to counteract the effects of these things and return the sound of each singer to something resembling an acoustic voice, but that is still viable to mix in digital software. We have a few tools at our disposal that we can try. Since every singer recorded on a different device in a different space with a different voice, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the following things can help.
Clean up the track
The first thing we want to do with a track is clean it up. Anyplace we don’t want to hear singing, we don’t want to hear anything at all. Not only does this eliminate the sound of coughs and page turns, it can also eliminate white noise. A little hiss on one track may not seem like much, but once we stack 24 hissy tracks of nothing else together, it becomes awfully noticeable. We also want to consider how to deal with audible breaths and make an artistic choice about whether to leave them or remove them.
Compressors
A good compressor is a good tool. A great compressor can be a godsend, eliminating peaks and valleys and helping bring a quiet audio track up to usable without just cranking up the volume and bringing all the noise along with it. I have found it to be worth building a few saved presets for my compressors so I can quickly hone in on what is needed depending on the track.
EQ
This is one of those places where we want to think first in terms of countering the already-present electronic sounds. If recording conditions have made a voice sound boomy, nasal, or tinny, we can get a lot of it back with EQ. Think about the sound and which frequencies seem to be too present, and cut them back. Using a sweepable EQ can help hone in on specific frequency bands so we don’t wind up also cutting back big chunks of the sound that is still usable. In a truly tough situation, it can be useful to layer EQs, using each one to counter a specific problem in the signal. Since we’re working in a digital format, this poses a lot less risk and problem that it would have with analog EQs
Panning
To help a track sit in the mix, we often go straight to the faders. But a lot of the time, getting some panning done early in the process can help clarify what we need to do with our mix. Think about positioning singers in a choir. Maybe if we were in real space our choir of 20 would be set up like this:
B B B B B T T T T T
S S S S S A A A A A
We can set our submix pan for our B and S to the left (play with either B or S further to the left and pick the sound you like) and our A and T to the right (again, play with which is further). Then, within the section, we think about where we would have the voices sit, and arrange them on a spectrum from left to right using the whole range. Our submix pan will put the section in the right place. If our sopranos would sit S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 in the room, then that’s how we’ll “sit” them with the faders. If that result isn’t quite right, then it’s time to play and swap one for another, just like voicing any section in a live room.
Faders
A rough mix pre-panning will help find the right spots for the voices, but save the mix fine-tuning for the end of the process. Again, we think of this just like a choir. We have strong and weak voices in every section, and we want to mix that way. Trying to get every voice to exactly the same level will add to the over-produced sound, because no choir sounds that way in the room.
Reverb
APPROACH WITH CAUTION! A little reverb goes a long way. We will rarely use reverb on the individual tracks. One good place to try a reverb is on the submix channel. This will help our section blend a little, smoothing over the rough edges. The other place to try a reverb would be on the whole track mix, but that can often take instruments and other tracks to places we don’t want them.
Final Thoughts
Try some things! Take some chances! But if the technology is scary, remember, at the end of the day our goal is the same as in a live room: put the voices in a position to allow each to work with the total sound. We’re doing in the software basically the same thing we’re doing in the rehearsal. Trust your judgement and make it choir!
Have thoughts on audio editing for virtual choir? Please share in the comments!
Paul H. Thompson 