How to deal with harshness at the beginning of a vocal (when I add saturation etc.) ...?

[MasterTuner]

I record a vocal and it seems OK, but when I add saturation the beginning of the vocal seems to be harsh.
"I am beginning to ..." the "I" comes out harsh.

Are there any tools/methods you use to deal with harshness - do you automate the saturation?
(I have RX7, Nectar3).
If I take saturation off, then the vox don't cut through the mix as well.

[Ploki]

Probably have some nasty resonances going on that are not obvious through your monitoring systems, else saturation wouldn't hit as heavy.

If you have Nectar3, try cutting the resonance with the pitch tracking EQ, and compress it a little before hitting saturation.

I usually don't automate saturation - but before I even begin saturating I've probably spent half a day editing anyway.

[MasterTuner]

If you have Nectar3, try cutting the resonance with the pitch tracking EQ, and compress it a little before hitting saturation.

I've had Nectar3 a few weeks but didn't know about the Follow-EQ mode. I will definitely try that. One of their videos I just watched mentioned boosting the fundamental harmonic so I'll try that as well. thanks.

[Forgotten]

Maybe you’re overdoing the saturation, but it definitely sounds like an envelope of some kind will help

[an-electric-heart]

A de-esser could be your friend here.

But I often find that the the first syllable in a line (if there's been even a small break with no singing), comes in quite loud (and I don't think it really is, it's just a dynamics/perception thing), almost 'surprising'. So I normally need to automate the first word or syllable to start slightly quite then come up, to just to kind of ease the vocals in... I didn't get that from anyone, it's just something I've found I need to do sometimes.

[MasterTuner]

A de-esser could be your friend here.

Thanks all.
In Nectar I put the EQ before the Saturation module and made it a "Folllow EQ". That helped.
I tried to fade in the vocal clip in Reaper , and thats made a difference before, but I think because its gone into Melodyne before, Melodyne seems to keep a copy of the original audio and it doesn't matter if you tweak the audio afterwards, it still keeps the copy in Melodyne and outputs that.

That Follow-EQ is good though. I looked for it in Neutron3 and its not even there.
Its only in Nectar! Looks like it could be something I could use on non-vocals too actually.

[Kinh]

I had the same problem. Try parallel processing your distortion as a separate aux, put a color compressor first with a high ratio and a limiter after your distortion plugin, use a dynamic eq to control the spikes around 3-5k, you dont need to distort the lows so put the same eq as your main vocal on the aux and cut more bass.
You still should be able to get presence using a similar process but without a distortion plugin depending on your vocal take. I just use an aux track with a color compressor, eq and tape saturation. Also if you do another aux track as your 'widener' buss you can also give it more presence.

[Mushy Mushy]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

[ProfessionalTom]

You can also try to send the copy of vocal to aux track and add there this saturation (and cut bad freqs), then you can blend them together to the bus.

In this approach you can completely cut out the frequencies that bother you in the aux track and add it to the clean track, dialing a volume knob of this aux track to your taste. In theory, this way you could get rid of harshness cutting off the frequencies that cause it (high freqs I suppose) without dulling signal too much as it would be if you didn't use aux track.

So best of two worlds. Ask me if you didn't understand something here.

Cheers.

[Kinh]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

What??

[Mushy Mushy]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

What??

He’s only worried about the harshness of the initial I. So to reduce the impact the OP could try a subtle method to introduce it.

[MasterTuner]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

What??

He’s only worried about the harshness of the initial I. So to reduce the impact the OP could try a subtle method to introduce it.

I actually already do this, and it works. But its on the very first word in the verse. The harshness is happening on the 2nd line of the verse. I'm not able to do reverse fade-ins on every line of the verse.

[MasterTuner]

I had the same problem. Try parallel processing your distortion as a separate aux, put a color compressor first with a high ratio and a limiter after your distortion plugin

Good advice , thanks. What color compressor do you personally use that's working well for you?

[risome]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

What??

He’s only worried about the harshness of the initial I. So to reduce the impact the OP could try a subtle method to introduce it.

I actually already do this, and it works. But its on the very first word in the verse. The harshness is happening on the 2nd line of the verse. I'm not able to do reverse fade-ins on every line of the verse.

So automate the EQ for that word that need it. Have fun

[risome]

Reverse the vocal, add a small reverb and then reverse back. You’ll then get a subtle fade in to the vocal.

What??

He’s only worried about the harshness of the initial I. So to reduce the impact the OP could try a subtle method to introduce it.

I actually already do this, and it works. But its on the very first word in the verse. The harshness is happening on the 2nd line of the verse. I'm not able to do reverse fade-ins on every line of the verse.

So automate the EQ for that words that need it. Have fun