adding “air” to vocals

This came up in a conversation with an old friend of mine in Canada.  He was trying to get the classic airy sheen on female vocals for a pop-diva song… but he was using the wrong tool.  Again, you won’t find this stuff in the recording manuals because it’s too gear specific… but I think this trick is pretty well known, so everyone should have it.

Anyhow, here’s how you add “air” to a vocal without all the negative effects normally associated with EQ…

Pultec EQP1A - the irony here is that the picture I found pretty much has the right settings... hmm! it must be a popular thing to do with a Pultec!

• setup vocal chain with large diaphragm condenser mic and decent “money” mic preamp
• find a pultec (or emulator — any will do for this example — bombfactory, UAD, Waves, real Pultec, Lang, Summit, whatever)
• set the BANDWIDTH to SHARP (as far left as it will go)
• set HIGH FREQ to 12 or 16kHz
• BOOST till you get all the “air” you want

a narrow boost at 16k should not interfere with anything you’re doing around the sibilance band