PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here Recording Vocals

I was asked by a forum member about recording vocals.
"...your vocal sits really well in the mix. Can you reveal how you record your vocals?"
I was actually surprised by the request. I think there are others here whose vocals are
much better recorded than mine. But I certainly don't mind "revealing" my setup and "technique".

Hopefully others - some of those people whose vocals make me think "wow, how do they get such
crisp, clean vocals" - will chime in and we might all learn something new.

Let me preface this by saying - I know almost nothing about the technical aspects of recording.
I tweak a few settings until it "works" and pretty much leave them there...

I have a condenser mic (Audio Technica 4033a). That goes to an Aphex 107 pre-amp, the gain set to
about 11 o'clock. It shows a range of 18-64, but that doesn't mean anything to me (I told you
I don't have much of a clue). That then goes through an Alesis 3630 compressor - threshold -10dB,
ratio 6:1, attack 5ms, release 2s, output +7dB. Those were set at some point by the
I-wonder-what-this-does method.

I record to a Roland VS880 after putting an instrument track mix there to sing to. I use its internal
effects for reverb set to 70. I roll off a bit of low eq because it's a bit bass-y. Here is where
I have the most trouble because I have to be careful not to record too hot (hit that red-light point).
I get pretty loud sometimes on the high stuff. So I record at a fairly low level - trying to keep
the meter below the 75% point. I've ruined plenty of takes by maxing it out in the past. It's a
whole lot easier to bump up the volume in the mix. With this setup up, I sing close to the mic -
almost right up on it.

I mix in Acid Pro. Often I end up adding some hi eq to get the vocal to sit right in the mix.

That's pretty much it. Hopefully others (who KNOW what they're doing) will share...

floyd

Hi Floyd,

Thank you for starting this thread and sharing your tips on recording. I always find it valuable to read what others do. I'm more than happy to share what I do as well. I'm by no means an expert and I've still got a long way to go before I get all this stuff under control. That being said, I'm enjoying the challenge.

• I use a Shure SM 58 dynamic mic to record. It's plugged into a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum external sound card. I stand around 6 inches (15 cm) from the mic.

• I record and mix in Reaper. To record vocals, I set Reaper to continually loop and record eight consecutive vocal tracks, one after the other without stopping between. Doing it this way, I find that all eight tracks will have a similar tone. This is important because I compile a final vocal track by picking the best bits from the eight tracks. Eight takes seem to work well for me as it's very rare that I need to punch in any vocals.

• When I record the vocals, they are completely dry; no effects are added. Effects are added electronically in Reaper after the recording.

• When I have my final vocal track, I use the Reatune plugin that comes with Reaper to manually correct any notes that are noticeably flat or sharp. I have Melodyne but I prefer Reatune because I like the control that Reatune has. (Reaper and Melodyne (and Nectar - see below - for that matter) can autotune a vocal line. I prefer the control of doing it manually and I can apply it to only those words or parts of words I want to.)

• Once in tune, I add the plugin Nectar (by iZotope) to the vocals. This has heaps and heaps of presets and I just click on different ones until I find one that pretty much suits the song. I then adjust the EQ, Compression, Reverb, Delay and De-esser set by the preset to suit. (Personally, I've found that the presets are pretty good and often any adjustments I make are minimal. I used to set up my own compressor, equalizer, reverb, etc., and that proved to be very time consuming. While I managed to achieve adequate results doing it that way, Nectar is way way better and so much easier. It was money really well spent in my opinion.)

• I also tend to roll off the bass end of the vocal using the EQ so that it doesn't interfere with bass guitar and bass drum.

• Lastly, when the vocal is tuned and modified to suit, I use volume envelopes in Reaper to shape and to adjust some syllables. For example, I will inevitably sing some syllables too quiet or too loud and these stand out as not fitting in with the mix. To some extent, compression will correct these but it can't fix all instances, hence some volume shaping. Volume shaping is also very use to adjust any overly emphasized 'S' sounds that Nectar's De-esser doesn't fully correct. (Recording eight tracks of vocals usually takes me 20 - 30 mins. Comping a final vocal and tidying it up for the final mix often takes around a week to ten days.)

That's pretty much it.

Hope this is useful to someone!
Noel

Love the tread, thanks for sharing.

By the way, +1 for Nectar (by iZotope), I found the "crying country girl pre-set" (or something like that) to be one of my favorites

Noel - thanks for "being a part of this". A nice, detailed accounting of your technique.. The part about recording several takes at the same time (I think) is important. It is often difficult to "match" vocals done at different times - even when all the settings are the same. I usually do 3 (would never have the patience for 8!).

I do try to use as much of a single take as possible to keep it as "natural" as possible - replacing a word or phrase here or there that may have gotten "garbled".

Floyd,

The reason I've settled on 8 takes is because my best one is usually take number 4, 5 or 6. This happens consistently. If I stopped at 3, I'd never sound any good!

Like you I try to use a single take as much as possible and I always make a note of which take came across as the best sung. This is the one that forms the foundation of my track. Words can be very difficult to work with and I normally cut and paste phrases. However, Reaper's cross-fading can make working with words possible without too many hiccups. Reaper also allows for easy time-stretching of clips while maintaining pitch. This means I can adapt words easily from one track to another. (That's my last resort, though! Another reason for 8 tracks is that I virtually never have to do this. At least one track usually has what I need (even if it involves whipping out the tuner.)

Hopefully some others will pick-up on this thread and add their two-bits worth.

Regards,
Noel

Interesting thread.

I have a Shure SM7B, which I acquired recently when my condenser SE2200A fits very bad for my voice / studio.
My problem was that my vocal recordings were very harsh and I found it difficult to compensate for this by using EQ and other aids.

Another thing is that a condenser captures many unwanted sounds, this problem is completely solved with SM7B. (the only unwanted sounds it now picks up is when I sing out of tune) .

What you can philosophize about is that if I and another singer recorded our vocals from the same setup, let's say my SE2200A, so would my voice sounds harsh, while the other's voice would not necessarily sound bad.
It may be very obvious that this is so, but the question in a wider perspective is all about the bad singing voice (although it is in perfect pitch) could possibly be good?

What I suggest, or philosophize about is whether some have an overweight of bad singing frequencies in their voice, so that it never becomes completely good - again, even if it is in pitch, and even the best mix engineer must give up?

Maybe I answer my own question by stating that my dynamic mic has eliminated much of my problems with the harshness, although my bad frequencies still exist.

It would be interesting to know which frequency problems you may have on your vocals – if any.
I have permanently a low cut filter on the pre amp, but in addition, I have to cut the following frequencies:

200Hz
500Hz
4000 - 6000hz

It is not without problems, having to cut so much in the area, as some of the natural fullness in the voice disappears as well

End of my reflections on the difficult art of recording vocals.

Jan

LOL. That's my mic...

And since the band is fake, the web page is fake, the pictures are fake, the bios are fake.... why not post fake bookings at fake venues? You could go on a fake world tour and make a lot of fake money.

Well, I don't have a lot of experience yet but I'll share what I'm doing.

First, I am beyond thrilled with my Zoom H4n multitrack recorder. It has two pretty nice built-in stereo condenser mics and two inputs that accept XLR and/or phone connectors with phantom power. It has three main modes, stereo, 4 track and multitrack which is the one I use the most for songs. Way too many features to go on about here but for me it ends up being a complete portable studio in a handy portable unit! (http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/)

I do own an SM58 mic and the Behringer knock-off of that but have rarely used them for recording so far. Mainly use them when practicing with my "personal PA"; another extremely fun Behringer knock-off product! (http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/B205D.aspx)

One more piece of "equipment" I really like is my homemade vocal booth! (http://www.podcomplex.com/blog/vocal-booth-solutions-for-home-studios/)

So, here is my workflow...

Place the H4n on a tiny tripod and situate it inside the homemade vocal booth. Connect a remote to the H4n so I can start/stop recording without touching the setup (this is important since my recording studio is now sitting inside the little vocal booth!)

Locate a nice corner or closet to try and control any reflections behind me.

Sing into the H4n using its built-in click track. BUT, now that I have BIAB, I've been creating a simple accompaniment with BIAB and exporting that to the H4n to use as my reference and I'm liking that a WHOLE LOT BETTER!!!

Next I just repeat several times, each time recording onto a new track. Since they are file-based I can record as many as I want and have 2 or 3 playing in my headphones as I record each new one. But now that I've heard what Noel does I think I'll try that. Sounds like a great idea to loop the whole song several times and record all vocal takes and/or harmonies in one continuous session.

Next, I repeat the process for my guitar. If acoustic I use the H4n built-in stereo mics. If electric I record directly into the H4n.

Then I connect the H4n to the computer USB and dump all of the tracks into a folder.

If I'm using any BIAB tracks I export them now as separate tracks.

Next I bring all of the tracks into Reaper and do any editing, track selection and panning before I get down to stuff like Voice Thickening, EQ, Reverb, Compression, etc.

Then I copy to my iPod and go for a ride in my car and try it on other systems to get a feel for whether I like the mix or not. At this point I mix using a pair of Sony consumer grade headphones so I think one of my next purchases will be some mixing headphones or maybe studio monitors. I understand monitors are better but I honestly don't see a time in the near future where I will have enough privacy to mix without using headphones.

So, I have been able to get some decent recordings using this setup and I'm pretty happy with where I am so far. But I also know I've just scratched the surface and may be doing things wrong or working too hard to get the results so I welcome any and all feedback about any of this!

Back in the analogue days I had an arsenal of high end condenser mics for recording mostly acoustic instruments and vocals. Added to this was a host of effects units, etc. My setup looked liked a 747 cockpit. After my wife and I left our Bluegrass band 8 years ago we pretty much dropped out of the entire music scene and settled into retirement and our love of the outdoors and travel. Last year after stumbling across BIAB we decided, what the heck, let's record again.

With a less complicated life comes a less complicated approach to recording. Our recording room is neither live or dead. I do have a antique quilt hanging on one wall and I position my wife's mic about three feet from it with her facing the wall. I use a pop screen 1" from the mike and she sits on a stool singing about 3" from the filter. Keeping things simple I use an inexpensive Blue USB mic straight into GarageBand running on my iMac. I use very slight compression, reverb and an EQ configuration that I came up with for her voice years ago. Now it's a saved configuration that I apply to all her vocals with one click. And FWIW just about every tune we've done over the past year, around 30, was completed with one vocal take. With the exception of a no brainier flub, I feel that each take chips away and the core of the original vibe.

Yup. I could do a lot more but the best way to get a good vocal is to have a great vocalist and I''m married to one!

I like the simplicity route.

No FX in the track.... I use a vocal bus and put the reverb there. A bit of EQ to low cut the vox..... proper gain settings and I get a clean track.

In my studio I have a decent condenser (Rode NT-2A) direct to my Focusrite interface. The Focusrite has superbly clean pre-amps. Many of the tracks are one or 2 takes..... melodyne to fix the pitch issues (manually of course) and my personal custom Ozone 4 configuration to polish it.
depending on the song, the mic always has a pop filter, and I sing close.... 2 to 6 inches usually. Sometimes I record with no filter.