How to Record or Mix a Nasal Vocalist

[JonathanCooper]

So I have been recording and mixing on a consistent basis for about two years. Within that time our band that I co-started has been working on an EP/Album for about a year. I have just about finished mixing the whole project but there is one song were our vocalist has a very strong nasal sound. I have tried everything I can think of from EQ, multi band limiters/compressors to mylodyne. We've come to the conclusion that there is not really anything we can do about it as the nasal quality spreads across the whole frequency spectrum.

TLDR, My question is this:

Is there any processing technique or micing technique that could help me with nasal sounding vocals for future projects? Anything at all that could help.

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[Duosphere]

Easy.
Sent him to an otolaryngologist.
We musicians have to prepare our muscles to play, the same with singers.
You could cut some frequencies of his nasal region but still he'd be a nasal singer with less mids.
A singing teacher could teach him how to change that.
All singers I recorded had singing teachers and used to take really good care of their "instruments".
A nasal singer means he probably only spent money buying a mic........probably not even a mic.
We musicians spend money with gear, singers should spend money with a doctor and a singing teacher...........and a mic

 

[Hollowway]

^+1
I agree. Nasal singing means he's resonating in his head, which can make it easier to match pitch, but ultimately short changes him as a singer. There's a reason great singers sound great. As far as mixing it to make it sound less nasally, I have no idea. But yeah, get the man some lessons!

 

[Josh Delikan]

^ +1 +1.

Additionally, some people do tend to have quite nasal voices, even when they use correct singing technique. Check out Avenged Sevenfold; M. Shadows has a very nasal vocal tone despite being an incredible vocalist.

 

[TedEH]

I find there are some mics that make my voice come across really nasal. My voice is a bit on that side anyway, but I used an sm75 for vocals for a long time, and I sound terrible through one of those- it hyped some non-flattering bits of my voice that I couldn't correct with processing after the fact. I ended up getting a condenser (CAD something or other) that played much nicer with my voice.

The above advice is also good though. If you eliminate the singer himself as the source of the problem, I'd look at what mic you're using.

 

[Sumsar]

Yeah, try and have him change the tone of his voice.

For tips and tricks on mix/recording: As far as I understand dynamic mics are usually pretty honky/nasal sounding, so you might wanna skip those and use a conderser mic (my preference for any type of vocal anyway).

For mixing the honky/nasal sounds is somewhere in the mids, so try and make a good cut and sweep it around in the 400-2000 hz region and see if you can find a frequency range that sounds especially bad. The problem with this however is that if his voice is mostly the nasal sound, then there is not much else left, so doing boost in the low or highs just add noise and weird sounds.
So having him get a better tone with his voice is still be best way to go.

 

[russmuller]

Perhaps putting the mic up high so that the singer's head tilts back and their throat opens up will help get a more balanced/less nasally voice? It's worth doing an experiment.

 

[KingAenarion]

Yea I'm sadly going to have to go with everyone else on this.

As a trained vocalist and Engineer.

Tell him to get singing lessons, tell him to work on cleaning up his tone then retrack it...

Or just accept that he's nasal, get a bright microphone with a lack of low mid presence and just take out what notches are the worst.

 

[DavidTheGoliath]

sounds super rough, mate. best of luck!

 

[bostjan]

With the sound of your voice, you can't really upgrade gear to change it. You have three options (probably more, but I'm trying to go with what's viable)

1. Get him some training to change his voice and wait the months necessary to adjust it.
2. Own it. Just have him sing the way he sings and make it part of your sound. Some people might find it refreshingly different.
3. Get a new singer.

 

[Descent]

Try him on a cheapie, sm57 should take that nasality out to a degree. EQ out the rest.

Can we hear a sample?

BTW - what mics are you using on him?

 

[JonathanCooper]

Wow, I wasn't expecting so many replies so fast. Thank you so much guys! Yeah, He have been taking vocal lessons for a while now. However, as a relatively new singers he is improving so fast that when we record one song on this EP, then move on to the next song, his voice is already 4x better than the previous song. We have actually re-recorded the vocals at least three times because of this. I don't see this being a major issue in the future mainly because he got gotten a lot better at controlling those nasal tendencies. Like I said earlier, he only really sounded nasal in one of the songs. I would love to re-record this song again, but the recording place we were using is no longer available to us anymore. And honestly we have gotten to the point were we just need to release this EP because it has been in the works for so long. I was just wondering if there were any quick tips or tricks to "fixing" nasal. Still, I really appreciate all the replies.

P.S. We are using a Rode nt-1a going into a Grace Model 101. We were recording the vocals in a small vocal booth our local Church has.

 

[Descent]

So you want to fix it in the mix or get him to sing it again?

If it is nasal, it is nasal...period. Some eq and tube channel emulation with some mild distortion might lift this up a bit but if the source is bad you can't do much. Try him on a SM57, you might be surprised. I've done that to some singers with tonal issues and the fact that it is not so revealing actually works as an advantage in some cases.

 

[JonathanCooper]

Yeah, so we will just re-record the vocal part. But I will definitely try using the SM57.

 

[4Eyes]

try different mics, certain mics work better with some vocals than others. not sure if sm57 will help with nasal problem. to me sm57 has it's own "signature" nasal voicing which works well on guitars, not sure how it'll work with nasal type of vocals. but I heard good vocals recorded with sm57, though.

 

[PhilT]

Do you really need to get rid of the nasal sound?

Maybe it will sound a bit annoying but that annoyance might be what makes your song to stand out. Think of Ozzy/Mustaine and the many other funny-sounding famous voices

 

[Descent]

Do you really need to get rid of the nasal sound?

Maybe it will sound a bit annoying but that annoyance might be what makes your song to stand out. Think of Ozzy/Mustaine and the many other funny-sounding famous voices

Klaus Meine...Phil Collins...Geddy Lee...Axl Pose

 

[JonathanCooper]

Finally finished the project, you guys can be the judge yourself. Our EP is live on our website: witheverywind.com. The main song in question is track 5 "Look Up" that has the most nasal. But take a listen to the rest of the album and I would love feedback from you guys!

 

[bostjan]

Sounds pretty good, but I hear what you're saying. It works with the music, IMO, but there are a few of the notes he could be hitting with a chest voice rather than head voice to give them some "oomf." It does actually sound good, though. I like the production, too.

 

[TedEH]

If I had any criticism, it wouldn't be that the vocalist is nasal sounding, it's more that the high end of his voice sounds hyped up a bit. Could be the mix, could be the mic, who knows.

Not bad though.