Gating vocals - do you use outboard gear or a DP plug?

[bongo_x]

I don't care about bleed at all, unless it's the click in a quiet part.

The main thing I care about is that the performer is comfortable and setup to do their best. After that, that the mic sounds good, I'm not hitting the compressor too hard, eq is right, all the red lights are staying off. Way down at the bottom of the list is that there is no click bleed. Music bleed doesn't even make the list.

I've had people sing in front of blasting NS10's with a hand held 58. Whatever works.

bb

[David Polich]

I'm not opposed to gating vocals going in. If you set the attack, release,
and threshold properly then you should be fine. The real issue is the quality of the gate itself. I swear by Drawmer gates, that is what you find in most big-budget studios anyway.

I once did a session at a studio that was run by Dwight Yoakam's engineer. He
gated the drums, and I asked him why he did that. He said, "Because..you're gonna end up doing it anyway". From then on I've always insisted on gating a live kit...at the very least, the kick and snare. It's all a matter of knowing
whwere you're going with the production.

[newrigel]

That's another thing you need to be careful with: how much volume is going to your vocalist's headphones. If it's too low, the vocalist usually sings more quietly to mentally try and match the volume in the cans. If it's too high, no matter how good of a seal your headphones have, you'll get some headphone bleed. Right after I get levels and placement, I usually run the instrument track without the vocalist singing and make sure I'm not getting bleed from the phones (or as little as possible). Well ... I do that NOW. I learned to check the hard way.

If you're working with a hip-hop artist (or especially a rapper) who needs to hear a beat prominently in the monitor, try turning up the whole mix to an optimal volume that isn't leaking out of the phones, yet loud enough for the talent to comfortably perform to, then dial back everything but the drums and bass. In fact, most personal headphone monitor systems work this way: you have several stems being distributed to a personal mixer that allows the performer to turn up or down certain parts of the mix. The only problem with this is, you could wind up with a performer cranking up monitor volumes to the point where there's headphone leakage. I prefer having ultimate control over the levels when it's a solo performer, especially a vocalist, and then having a personal mixing system for a band recording all parts simultaneously, where leakage isn't an issue.

Plus I used to DJ so I used accapellas. Artists will bring accapellas from another studio and they sound so damn clean - absoutely no bleed whatsosver. I talked to the owner and he said he uses an outboard gate - not sure if he is using it pre or post though. I'd imagine post is better since, as one person mentioned, you can never get it back once its gone if you do it pre.

I'm sure it was used post -- I've never heard of anyone gating inputs. Also, the studio environment was probably a factor. If it was a pro studio with a properly isolated recording booth, and the recording was handled by a professional engineer, there was likely little or no noise to gate in the first place.

A rapper just talks... there isn't any exponent to their voices so you really need to keep the levels down because you will definitely hear the bleed! I can see louder cans on Luciano Pavarotti or someone who sings loud. In this case, just turn them down... some wonder why they can't hear anything later on in life...