Yes, You're right, I am pretty new to this and want to get advanced over time! So as I have been looking at other websites, they have been mentioning a pre amp, sound card and compressor. I was wondering if these equipment's are vital for professional sounding vocals?
Also, no modifications were made to my room. What type of modifications are we looking at here?
Seriously man, You have to stop listening to people who say that you need the next big
preamp or mic to make shit good. It does not work that way in the real
world.
Yes those things can improve the quality of your input chain, but if you have not already addressed your monitoring chain and the room you listen to it/record in, then you will be chasing ghosts...
IMO; your most importance should start with the room you record in and the quality of
the performance being recorded. Then the monitors you use to hear what is actually being recorded. Your monitoring ability is just as important as how good your
performance or gear is. You can't possibly know what is good if you can't hear it correctly. Treat that room with as much bass absorption panels as possible. It really does not take much $$ to make it worthy. So many new doods will waste tons of money on gear and plugs before they take the most important step that any experienced
studio owner/engineer/producer will tell you if they are honest or have a friggen clue.
Yes, a decent recording interface and quality mic are on the top of the list also, but if you are using those in a room that sucks and your monitoring chain is lame, you get a bunch of well directed signal that sounds like ass and you won't even have a way to know that.
Professional sounding vocals come from (in order of importance 'In My Opinion/Experience') performance of the vocalist, how the room sounds that it is recorded in, the experience of the engineer recording it making the decisions as to what is best as far as mic/preamp/blah blah. Then the silly things like compression and
effects. Those are just frosting on the cake of what makes a good vocal. If it is not the shizz before it hits a microphone (or the pop filter before) it will likely suck. Or at least need lots of fixing BS.
On the budget end, we have to compensate for lack of big money. So we make sure to buy a decent interface with worthy preramps and a worthy mic. That could be
a SM58. But, when we forget that
the performance and the room is the most important, money get's spent on the wrong improvements. Room treatment and decent monitors are the most important to have a clue as to what the quality of anything going in is worth. This is not my opinion, it is
absolute fact.
Read a bunch before you purchase so that you spend your money wisely, and listen to the members here that I have learned from.
