Cheers Jim - that was pretty useful feedback. I'd been trying to record vocals via a bus rather than direct to a channel for a while, and it had a pretty harsh EQ on it right at the start of the chain. What I hadn't appreciated was that that EQ colour was embedded on the stem and so everything that happened to the stem post-recording retained that initial EQ imprint, irrespective of what I subsequently did.Jim of Seattle wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:24 amBut both the lead and the secondary vocalist have that same pinched quality to them, so the overall sonic experience of the song in the aggregate is akin to a fire alarm. So the whole song is this hot electric color, and it's grating after not very long at all. The drastic EQ on the vocals further highlight that midrange color. Makes me long for some cooler, rounder tones somewhere.
I can't remember why that EQ ended up in the chain - I vaguely recall using it to correct for some weird resonances in a cheap condenser mic I have, but it ended up being kept as part of the default bus setting and I'd just forgotten it was there and what it was doing.
Because you'd mentioned it, I revisited all the vocal settings and removed that EQ for Round 3. Hopefully it'll be less 'pinchy' as a result, although the vocals this time are much more affected by a throat infection!