Tutorial - How to make your online-karaoke sounds great

[small egret]

Tonight I will teach you on "How to make your online-karaoke sound like it comes from a studio".Basically it's about recording,mixing and mastering your song before sending the signal to other software like Discord,ROBLOX,etc...

First of all.The software that we will use will be Adobe Audition,for maximum professional sound.

First,We create a new session,name it and you can set sample rate and bit depth like mine at 24bit,48000Hz this is the overall quality of your project/streaming,this setting is good enough but if you have good PC you can choose higher depended on your preference.But for me this is good enough.

Then you will encounter this screen.Don't be panic this is just the start of our journey to perfect singing-streaming

first we need to set-up our microphone and audio-interface

Use ASIO for low-latency and select your audio interface.And you must have the audio-interface to use this low-latency ASIO,Luckily some of the modern-USB Microphone also support ASIO.

you can drag and drop the song you want to sing directly into adobe audition

then after you drop the song you need to regain it because we need to avoid the sound clipping or heavily distort because it reach the peak of digital recording.

like this if it too loud it will distort don't make it peak or go over the red bar.if you see the little red bar over the bar then you need to lower your gain.

to adjust your gain you can double-click the song in the track

adjust your music gain until the right gain bar reach around -15 to -18 this will leave us with a lot of head room

now we come back to our main session page and now we will set up our mic,most vocal-recording microphone will be mono so we will select select our mic-input as mono.

After you select your mic press R at the track you want to record to recording the sound.Press I to monitor your sound through headphone from Audio-Interface or headphone jack on usb mic.Remember your input mic gain must be around -12 to -18 on the right bar to leave a lot of headroom,but don't worry ,now,it may sound too quiet but the overall sound will be increase when we reach the mastering phase.

I forgot the part that you can adjust the sound in real-time and don't even need to record .The sound can be sent to the output in the master track in real-time.

By doing so,just select the output device in master section and select the output in the end we will choose the vc out but for now we will use our headphone first

ok come back to the mixing part.first,most plugin that i use isn't free but you can get it free on....cough cough,ok I will leave this part and let you all figure it out by yourself on how to get it.But anyway I will tell you which is which and how do these pluginS work.then you will know the fundamental and can adapt to any other similar plugin which you can get for free legally.

The first one is noise gate,as it name suggest it will suppress the noise.it work by let the louder sound from the point that we set pass through the final mix and the quieter part than that point will be suppress.This is good and Bad at the same time .The good thing is most noise like air conditioner is quieter than our singing but the noise gate will also suppress the nuance of the sound we record a.k.a. it makes the sound too dull if set the threshold to suppress the sound too high.So most of the time I don't use it to retain the nuance of the sound capturing from my microphone.

the Noise gate mostly compose of

Threshold-The point where you set where the louder part will be on the mix and the quieter part will be cut out

Ratio-The Ratio of the sound that will be suppress example if the noise is 8dB.A threshold of 8:1 is like the noise will come into the mix only 1 dB.Be careful!!set too much ratio and the sound can be unnaturall

Hold - How long after the noise gate will continue to 100%work after the noise are going below the threshold

RELEASE - The period of time the noise gate gradually-release the suppression after it goes down the threshold.

the second one is the compressor,most of the time I use Universal Audio LA2A PLUGIN.the compressor is crucial to your final mix not only it's managing the dynamic of your vocal but sometime the certain compressor can shape the character of your vocal,some compressor even have minor-distortion function that can shape your vocal in itself.To use LA2A set the peak reduction to reach about -3to-5dB OF GAIN REDUCTION WHEN YOU SING QUIETLY and set to reach around -7to-10dB when you reach the loud part when singing.But to be frank,my teacher always said there is no 1-complete recipe in mixing and mastering sometime even too much compression can get a good tonal and you have to experiment it by yourself in every song the recipe that i give you is just the basic guide that will mostly work on anysong.

ok after the peak reduction you will notice that the sound will get quieter .now adjust the gain,the left knob to get the volumn back

Be careful.Set it up too much can make you think it sound better but in reality it just louder,and that louder part is fooling your brain.Even the professional can get fool by this adjustment!!!

the next part is equalizer

first we need to low-cut our vocal,because when mixing with the other instrument your lowest frequency which sound like HMMMMMMM will get in the way of the final mix.Most of the time,for my vocal,I cut at around 125Hz.But I need to inform that I have a Baritone voice so it will sound best if I start low-cut around here.But your voice will be different.So to figure it out try low-cut around 100-150Hz and find the point that your vocal is not too muddy or too thin find the balance on it.

next adjust the frequency around 180-200Hz this part is the body of your sound adding this part will make your sound fuller but don't adding it too much every microphone when reaching the certain level if you boost it up more it will not be fuller but instead got muddier

the next frequency is at around 700Hz ,try reduce this range a little bit like-0.5 to 1 dB because in this range it will make your sound nasally cutting it out a little bit may help it get better.Greatly effective on Microphone like Shure MV7+.

Next is around 3,000 to 3,500 Hz(3-3.5kHz).try boosting this part will make the sound up present in the front.Significantly make the vocal stand out in the mix.

The last part is at around 11,000Hz (11KHz) this will be the air frequency.If you know about microphone this is the area that Modern High-End Condenser Mic will shine it will make your vocal more airy,more open

After that my trick is to use parallel compression by using the second compressor from this plugin with a suble reduction of 5:1 ratio and around-3dB gain reduction you will notice that your vocal is now tighter

next I will use the technic call DELAY-DISTORTION-REVERB by using plugin in these order you will get a tone that will greatly improve the vocal it will make the vocal sit better in the mix

it's getting late so i'm going to rush now LOL

Normally,there are many types of reverb but I really love the Plate Reverb so much it's always work great on the jazz genre that I sing most of the time.

now it reach the reason that I always use adobe audition and can't get away from it.Adobe Audition has one of the greatest Chorus and Exciter that comes along with the software it self because it can set the dry part to 100% and increace the wet in addional to the dry part and this is the reason that made it special.Everytime After I mix ,I feel That my vocal is a little bit floating over the instrumental but after using a bit of chorus it comes back to the place it should be like any other final-mix from other producer.and the exciter is impeccable it make your sound more shining by adding presence and air with out a touch of additional equalier adjustment.

the last plugin in the vocal chain is automation,it will compliment the role of compressor it will adjust the volumn of your mix in real time this help a lot to get a great exciting vocal volumn level across the song.I always set the loudest part to be 0 or-1 dB and the quiet part to increase around 3-4 dB

here we reach the mastering part

its fundamental is like mixing part but with subtle adjustment.Normally,The mixing is the adjustment of an individual track so it can adjust as much as you want,but when we reach mastering it will be apply to every single vocal every single instrument and that's mean you are 80-85% of the way if before mastering it's sounds bad don't mastering it,go back to your mixing first there must be something wrong there.

in mastering first you eq it

if you want the kicking drum to sound upfront try boosting at around 90-100Hz ,more clarity on istrumental and vocal then around 3-4kHZ.MORE AIRY AND OPENNESS IN THE HIGH then around 10kHZ

then it is mastering compressor you can set it like mine.mastering compressor must be subtle and usually make a gain reduction only 0to-2dbB to glue the mix together.

then it is mastering exciter this will give a type of eq and distortion to the sound of your final mix.

next is imager.this will make your final song wider you can select the band to seperately how wide which frequency will be.

But Becareful use it too much it will make your song out of phase and it will be destructive when your mix played on mono-speaker.

Last one.Maximizer.Maximizer is a type of limiter that also have a function to shape your vocal in the final part.some will give you thick and warm sound.Some will give you crispiness sound.some will give you balance sound across spectrum.Some will you the vibe of those modern record on streaming platform.

after this you need to routing you sound to voicemeeter

sending it out from adobe audition via virtual cable from audio-interface

setting your input to your virtual cable in voicemeeter and output as your headphone jack on audio-interface and you now good to go now you will here both your singing your instrumental and other people on discord,Roblox or any other software that you streaming your beautiful vocal on

Here is the example of the result you will get.

Anyway you also need a Decent Microphone to reach this level of quality.I use Rode NT1 Signature Series($159) pair with a Maono PS22($120) to get this result.