Consonants of Consequence: Alison Krauss and the Art of Vocal Precision

At the close of the new Alison Krauss & Union Station cut “The Wrong Way,” Krauss practically whispers the final line, “The one that I forgot.”

The “g” and the “t” on that last word are distinctly crisp and audible despite the softness of the moment, underscoring the singer’s reverence for the text.

The track is featured on Union Station’s Arcadia (March 28, Down the Road) — the band’s first project since 2011’s Paper Airplane — in which her uniquely fragile approach is once again front and center. Krauss’ crystalline tone is — as her fans have come to expect — immaculate, and her stylized enunciations and airy resonance seem to reach through the speakers in a personal way. But that emotional connection isn’t created in a vacuum. She leans on technical partners — producers and engineers — who capture her voice, paying particular attention to Krauss’ nuanced treatment of the most brittle sounds in the English language.

“There’s a high degree of intimacy in hearing those consonants and the fricatives,” says engineer Neal Cappellino, who co-engineered Arcadia with Rounder senior vp of A&R Gary Paczosa. “They have meaning to her. Everything like that has meaning.”

In most country-based recordings, the lead vocal and the song itself are the primary connecting points for the listener. Thus, the singer’s ability to translate the melody and lyrics is key. But singers aren’t robots, so the physical and emotional condition that an artist experiences can vary from day to day. Dancing with the uncertainties, both technical and psychological, to elicit the ap-propriate vocal is part and parcel of the engineer’s job.

“The voice definitely has to be ready,” Paczosa says. “That can be tougher with a pure tone like [Krauss’]. That requires that everything’s in great shape, as far as no allergies or no dryness. Then your job as the engineer is to be ready when all of that happens.”

Perhaps the most valuable tool in an artist’s arsenal is an identifiable  vocal sound. Finalists for the Academy of Country Music Awards, announced March 27, illustrate the point. Top nominee Ella Langley conveys a casual sarcasm. Cody Johnson calls on an impressive level of power. Lainey Wilson sounds ultra-Southern. Jelly Roll often trails off at the end of his phrases. And Chris Stapleton owns a soulful grit.

Producers and engineers employ plenty of technology to relay those signatures to the consumer, but the machinery is merely a tool.

“A lot of people complain about all this Pro Tools, auto-tuning stuff,” says Vince Gill, a five-time winner of the Country Music Association’s male vocalist of the year. “Let me tell you something: Auto-tune doesn’t make you more interesting. It only makes you more in tune, you know. And you can be perfectly in tune, but your voice still may not be very compelling.”

What’s compelling varies. Linda Ronstadt reached her commercial peak with impeccable, pre-Auto-Tune pitch and fierce dynamics. George Jones, considered by many to be the greatest country singer in history, built his reputation on wild dips and slurs, frequently a hair off-pitch. George Strait approaches material with classic, masculine understatement. 

Strait’s long line of hits is directly related to his skill at matching his everyman resonance to songs that suit him.

“You can just raise the key a half-step or lower it a half-step, and he gets in that sweet spot of his voice,” says producer Tony Brown (Reba McEntire, Brooks & Dunn), revealed March 25 as one of this year’s Country Music Hall of Fame inductees. “It’s amazing that a tiny, little, subtle thing like that turns a song into one that sounds like George.”

Newcomer Greylan James instantly has his own identity, thanks in part to the sibilance in his first radio single, “Wait Til You Have Kids.” The “s” and “f” sounds are prominent, though not overdone. Many other artists would likely downplay that trait, but James embraced it.

“It’s getting the real-life character of a vocal,” James says. “For me, it’s [also] got to have some rasp to it.”

Artists and engineers can obsess, understandably, about the details in a vocal. They tinker with microphones, preamps, equalization, reverb and other effects to get what they perceive as the right sound. Once they settle on a vocal chain — as that series of machines and effects is called — they often use that same chain for every recording. Producer Lukas Scott (Hudson Westbrook, Austin Snell) is a fan of a Luke Audio Voodoo microphone that features a removable diaphragm. It allows the user to switch out a vibrating membrane that plays a part in converting the live tone to an audio signal. The removable diaphragm makes it easier to rifle through options until finding a tone that works for the producer and the singer.

“All the diaphragms look exactly the same,” he says, “but they sound completely different.”

The gear is just part of it, though. Cappellino focuses on three areas in his work: the musical, the technical and the interpersonal. Unlike, say, mathematics, where 2+2 always equals 4, a vocal is subjective. Artists typically need supportive feedback as they work through their part since there is no right or wrong answer to what works.

“It’s knowing what to say, what not to say, when to push, when to encourage, when to be patient, allowing something to unfold,” Cappellino says. “But really, you have to be honest with somebody in the moment, having a discriminating ear for technical things or a tuned-in sense for how it’s feeling.”

That’s harder than it might appear. Fans typically learn every wrinkle of a singer’s performance as they memorize a song, as if it’s the only way to perform it. But the artist always knows they can change a phrase, the melody, the dynamics or even the enunciation. They’re prone to wonder if they could improve it.

“The great singers I’ve worked with, that have long careers, are the ones that do second-guess themselves,” Paczosa says. “They’re sort of never happy with their voice or their performance.”

Most fans won’t actively identify what differentiates singers, but they’ll recognize voices that stand out. Those that carve their own place, as Krauss does with her precise tone and exacting consonants, are a product of their natural resonance and performance choices. The devil’s in the details, and the great singers tend to pay attention to the small stuff. 

“Alison has amazing ears,” Paczosa says. “If you change something slightly — a different screen, little things that you might not even think about — she’ll say, ‘Something’s different.’ It may be something really small, but she usually hears it.”