Which Mic. to Thicken Vocals?

G

gvdv

Member
Hi,
I'm about to make the move 'up' from low-budget dynamic microphones (SM57) to (I hope) a better quality model for use with (mainly) vocals (and probably, occasionally, acoustic guitar), and would like some suggestions, advice and opinions.

My needs for the mic. are:
1. Should be in the $400 - $800 (CAN.) range
2. Should be able to 'thicken' my voice, as I have a very thin sounding voice in the mid. range
3. If the mic. adds a kind of 'warmth', I don't want it to be muddy
4. I would like the mic. to retain some kind of 'bite' or aggression, i.e. the 'thicker' sound should NOT have a 'smooth' characteristic

As you can see from the above, I am not looking for a mic. that is totally neutral; I actually want it to colour my voice in the ways I described above.

A couple of years ago, I did a comparison of two Rode models (the K2 and NT2000, I think), with a Neumann TLM 103, and liked the K2 and the Neumann (in that order) on my voice. I actually found the Neumann to be fairly sibilant in the high range, and to not be thinner (maybe it was more 'accurate') on the mid-range frequencies of my voice.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
 
I have found that thickening of the voice can be more of a function of the preamp choice as much as the mic. Something with huge transformers and nice tubes.

That being said, few mics on the budget market out there today can compete with the Kel HM-7U. That mic will definitely thicken you up and doesn't have any sibilance issues. Its also got good clarity and is not muddy. Check the sound samples on the website.

http://www.kelaudio.com/
 
The TLM103 is a Neumann...but thier bottom of the line...a preamp that would help to thicken your vocals could either be an Avalon 737...or a line6 UX2 in the Avalon 737 model.
Vocal training might be much more useful to you than a $2000 preamp...Vocal training to develop a chest voice and the $200 UX2 just might be your ticket.
 
The singer should thicken the vocal, preamp and compressor will help. A nice fat mic is the Beyer 88. You can tour with it and throw it up in the studio.
 
Hi PhilGood, darrin_h2000, and Big Kenny,
Many thanks for your replies.

You have prompted me to consider some things I never would have thought about, and one thing (vocal lessons) which I have been thinking about for years and never really thought about in relation to this (but I have seen this help one person I know tremendously).

Thanks, once again, for your wisdom.
 
I usually don't think of a mic as thickening your vocals.

Have you tried adding a slap (maybe 80 ms) delay? Or maybe making a copy of the vocal track and moving it to the right a bit?

Also, sometimes it sounds cool to slightly detune the echo, and also you might want to take some bass off of the echo.

On my Yamaha board, there's an effect that gives you a regular vox up the middle, one slightly sharp on the left, and another slightly flat on the left. That really thickens the vox up big time. I think you could duplicate that effect pretty easily on most programs and it should work with most any mic.

As far as vocal lessons, Seth Riggs is the man - he has some great free stuff on YouTube. Nothing helped me as much as Seth's approach. Breathing correctly is usually most people's screwup - it should look like you're 9 mos pregnant when you breath in and feel like you're breathing through your navel. If the top part of your chest is puffing out like Superman you're not doing it right.
 
Hi dintymoore and ez_willis,
Thanks for your suggestions.

I was actually checking PhilGood's kelaudio.com link as you each were leaving your messages.

dintymoore, I do actually copy my vocal tracks, and move them slightly out of alignment with each other - that is the one 'trick' I have consistently used that moves in the direction that I would like to go. Can you say what you mean by de-tuning the echo? Do you mean de-tuning a duplicate of the vocal track on which there is a lot of echo? Sorry, I don't understand fully what you mean by this suggestion.

I'm looking forward to trying your suggestion about the two duplicate vocal tracks, mixed left and right and slightly sharpened and flattened. I'll also check out Seth Riggs right now.

And ez_willis, I'm looking forward to trying your suggestion about ducking a duplicate vocal track (can't figure out technically why that would work, but there are many things that I don't understand). Thanks for that suggestion.

In my analogue days, I used to add a bit of distortion from a (of all things) guitar distortion (didn't have money then), which would really thicken things to my liking, but had the disadvantage of only being usable with 'calm' vocals, i.e. I had to keep the dynamic range pretty limited as any significantly loud(er) or screaming vocals would really highlight that I was using distortion.

Thanks, once again,
 
gvdv said:
It does help, actually.
Click to expand...

i didn't say it wouldn't help at all, i said it wouldn't help as much. your voice has inflections and combined with timing imperfections it will fatten the vocal track up more than just copying the original and sliding it over a bit.

or not. whatever. i really don't care. go buy a new mic. that'll do it.
 
gvdv said:
... Do you mean de-tuning a duplicate of the vocal track on which there is a lot of echo? Sorry, I don't understand fully what you mean by this suggestion.
Click to expand...


What I meant was using not a repeating echo, like "HEY, hey hey hey" but a slap back - just one short echo after the original like "HEY hey" if that makes sense, and making the echo slightly out of tune, usually a smidgen flat.

But most of the time it will sound better to have a slightly sharp echo as well to balance it out. Having slightly detuned things going on is like using a chorus effect and it can make things sound thick.

As usual, the only rule is "no rules" and use your ears.
 
ez_willis said:
that won't help as much as a 2nd unique track.
Click to expand...


This is so true! Not to mention by shifting an exact copy of the vocal track you'll end up with comb filtering. Very bad. By doing a 2nd vocal track (doubling) all the variances in the 2nd track keep that to a minimum. It just sounds better.
 
Big Kenny said:
The singer should thicken the vocal, preamp and compressor will help. A nice fat mic is the Beyer 88. You can tour with it and throw it up in the studio.
Click to expand...

wow, that's a really good choice, nice recommendation.

if you want easier to find, apex 205 can do it for what, $150 canadian?

but you do need compression as well to help thicken it up. I'd say a compressor, even a good plugin compressor, with the right settings will solve some of the issues for you.

a famous canadian with a thin voice is randy bachman. huge guy, but his voice doesn't match his looks (compared to his buddy in BTO fred CF turner... there's a voice that matches the looks LoL - talk about BIG and WIDE and IN YOUR FACE WITH RED HAIR ON IT).

so with randy I would put up a ribbon mic and use a warm compressor that's still punchy (a certain 1176 in series with a thick sounding opto comp probably).

so in your case you have to use plugin emulations of the compressors, but the ribbon mic you can get for real. that 88 would be amazing. the apex 205 not as thick but still much more so than most non-ribbon mics while still retaining a nice high end to it.
 
I like how they did it on the tracks "Because" by the Beatles or "Smells Like Teen Spirit"...just track a couple of other takes and pan the 2 weakest ones to the left and right.
 
I saw a small clip on youtube, but they only mentioned double tracking and how much Kurt hated that. It was just a small clip. I love the song.
 
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