Eurythmic
majordomo plasticomo
Now then. I've been recording at home for about three years now. I've only become more interested in it as time has gone by. I am but a poor student, so I lack some of the key ingredients to a good home recording setup...
I've decided to take some time off from school to give this whole music thing half a chance, so I do hope to improve my equipment selection soon...
But until then, I'm looking to get the most out of what I have. The lone mic in my collection is a Shure SM57. I plug it into my Tascam 488MK][, which I use as a mixer, and then run that into the line in on my soundcard. I use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 for recording. For plugins I have AutoTune (which I really don't use, aside from the occasional "ooh" or "ahh" backing vocal, if the singer's voice wavers a bit), Microphone Modeler, and the Cakewalk FX pack that includes reverb.
Let me just tell you right off the bat, I DON'T have a dedicated microphone preamp or a compressor. I realize that those things will be a great boon once I learn how to use them, but I can't afford them now and I'm really a strong believer in working with what you've got. And I really don't think that I'm good enough at engineering yet to say that I've reached the limits of what my equipment can do...
I think I'm getting fairly good at putting together a good sounding mix. I'm really starting to like some of the guitar sounds that I'm able to make (though none of these mp3s are really good examples), and I'm improving all the time. In fact, whenever I listen to an old mix, I find myself thinking of lots of things that I could have done to make it sound better.
But I'm not getting better at vocals. At all. Synth sounds are great right out of the box, and my guitar recordings are sounding more and more polished - but vocals that I recorded last week really don't sound all that different from vocals I recorded a year ago. No matter what I can think of to try, the vocals always seem to have a really "cheap" quality to my ear. I realize that to make a professional quality recording, you need professional quality equipment and lots of expertise. But can't I do better than what I'm doing now?
I've uploaded some mp3s to use as examples. These are all covers - I hesitate to post an mp3 of a song I've written because you are all so good at what you do. I want a recording of one of my songs to be "as good as I can possibly do" before I start showing it off to people who can do so much better. Also, all of these recordings are of the "just for fun" variety. I usually do things in just one take, because I don't see much sense in spending weeks perfecting a recording of a cover tune that you're mainly just playing to entertain your friends... but I think you'll definitely see what I mean, where the vocals are concerned.
(1.01 mb, 43 seconds)
This is my (now ex-) girlfriend Lucy's rendition of "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics. Some of you have actually heard this, but I originally posted our attempt to duplicate the original version of the song. This is my remix, which I put a little more time into. Please disregard the performance - she's one of the best singers that I know, but she was incredibly nervous about recording with me. I had her (and actually, I do this with myself and everyone that I record) stand in a position where her mouth was about a foot and a half away from the microphone, and told her to "aim" her voice three or four inches to the right or left of the actual microphone diaphragm. This positioning of the singer seems to work well, but it's one of the many areas where I'm looking for suggestions. As I recall, here's how I processed the vocal - first, I wanted to warm it up a bit. So I used Microphone Modeler to model some sort of Neumann tube mic (I forget). I bumped up the tube saturation quite a bit. Oh yeah, and I normalized the vocal. I do that pretty much all the time, in lieu of a compressor. Good idea, bad idea? Then I copied the vocal onto another track. I left one totally dry, and put (as I recall) the "small plate" reverb preset on the other track, and upped the "wet" mix a tad.
I think it sounds good, but not great...
(1.31 mb, 56 seconds)
"Prelude", originally by Pete Townshend. I'm singing. Before you point out the fact that my voice wavers a bit, remember that whole "one take" thing. I know I'm not that great, anyway! So... same mic placement here. For processing I normalized and added a small plate. No other modifications. Not a bad sound, but that same cheap quality...
(1.51 mb, 1:05)
My buddy Chris, playing "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots. His voice has a lower timbre than mine or Lucy's, and he sings a bit louder. Same story here - normalize, add small plate. For the backing vocal, I believe I decreased the "wet" mix quite a bit. I found that the warmer timbre and increased signal strength made things sound a bit better, but I'm still unsatisfied with the way this sounds.
(1.86 mb, 1:21)
Please don't laugh at my Morrissey impression. This is his song, "The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get". Now, you can obviously tell that I'm not as technically accomplished of a vocalist as Chris or Lucy, but I thought I performed this song pretty well. But not only does my mix have the same cheap quality that I've been complaining about, but I completely failed to capture the performance in the first place! You can barely hear my vibrato at all.
So, I'm looking for help. I know that a lot of people here are really big on "listen, use your ears, keep trying until you get it", etc etc, but I'm really at a standstill here.
Trust me, I do know the obvious solution here - buy a real vocal mic, buy a good compressor and learn how to use it, and buy a dedicated mic preamp and ditch the Tascam. But aren't I correct in assuming that I'm not getting the best sounds possible with the equipment I do have?
Please share with me any information you like - micing techniques, ways I could have mixed better, how you like to record and mix vocals when you're engineering, etc. I'm really in need of some things to try, here.
I've decided to take some time off from school to give this whole music thing half a chance, so I do hope to improve my equipment selection soon...
But until then, I'm looking to get the most out of what I have. The lone mic in my collection is a Shure SM57. I plug it into my Tascam 488MK][, which I use as a mixer, and then run that into the line in on my soundcard. I use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 for recording. For plugins I have AutoTune (which I really don't use, aside from the occasional "ooh" or "ahh" backing vocal, if the singer's voice wavers a bit), Microphone Modeler, and the Cakewalk FX pack that includes reverb.
Let me just tell you right off the bat, I DON'T have a dedicated microphone preamp or a compressor. I realize that those things will be a great boon once I learn how to use them, but I can't afford them now and I'm really a strong believer in working with what you've got. And I really don't think that I'm good enough at engineering yet to say that I've reached the limits of what my equipment can do...
I think I'm getting fairly good at putting together a good sounding mix. I'm really starting to like some of the guitar sounds that I'm able to make (though none of these mp3s are really good examples), and I'm improving all the time. In fact, whenever I listen to an old mix, I find myself thinking of lots of things that I could have done to make it sound better.
But I'm not getting better at vocals. At all. Synth sounds are great right out of the box, and my guitar recordings are sounding more and more polished - but vocals that I recorded last week really don't sound all that different from vocals I recorded a year ago. No matter what I can think of to try, the vocals always seem to have a really "cheap" quality to my ear. I realize that to make a professional quality recording, you need professional quality equipment and lots of expertise. But can't I do better than what I'm doing now?
I've uploaded some mp3s to use as examples. These are all covers - I hesitate to post an mp3 of a song I've written because you are all so good at what you do. I want a recording of one of my songs to be "as good as I can possibly do" before I start showing it off to people who can do so much better. Also, all of these recordings are of the "just for fun" variety. I usually do things in just one take, because I don't see much sense in spending weeks perfecting a recording of a cover tune that you're mainly just playing to entertain your friends... but I think you'll definitely see what I mean, where the vocals are concerned.
(1.01 mb, 43 seconds)
This is my (now ex-) girlfriend Lucy's rendition of "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics. Some of you have actually heard this, but I originally posted our attempt to duplicate the original version of the song. This is my remix, which I put a little more time into. Please disregard the performance - she's one of the best singers that I know, but she was incredibly nervous about recording with me. I had her (and actually, I do this with myself and everyone that I record) stand in a position where her mouth was about a foot and a half away from the microphone, and told her to "aim" her voice three or four inches to the right or left of the actual microphone diaphragm. This positioning of the singer seems to work well, but it's one of the many areas where I'm looking for suggestions. As I recall, here's how I processed the vocal - first, I wanted to warm it up a bit. So I used Microphone Modeler to model some sort of Neumann tube mic (I forget). I bumped up the tube saturation quite a bit. Oh yeah, and I normalized the vocal. I do that pretty much all the time, in lieu of a compressor. Good idea, bad idea? Then I copied the vocal onto another track. I left one totally dry, and put (as I recall) the "small plate" reverb preset on the other track, and upped the "wet" mix a tad.
I think it sounds good, but not great...
(1.31 mb, 56 seconds)
"Prelude", originally by Pete Townshend. I'm singing. Before you point out the fact that my voice wavers a bit, remember that whole "one take" thing. I know I'm not that great, anyway! So... same mic placement here. For processing I normalized and added a small plate. No other modifications. Not a bad sound, but that same cheap quality...
(1.51 mb, 1:05)
My buddy Chris, playing "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots. His voice has a lower timbre than mine or Lucy's, and he sings a bit louder. Same story here - normalize, add small plate. For the backing vocal, I believe I decreased the "wet" mix quite a bit. I found that the warmer timbre and increased signal strength made things sound a bit better, but I'm still unsatisfied with the way this sounds.
(1.86 mb, 1:21)
Please don't laugh at my Morrissey impression. This is his song, "The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get". Now, you can obviously tell that I'm not as technically accomplished of a vocalist as Chris or Lucy, but I thought I performed this song pretty well. But not only does my mix have the same cheap quality that I've been complaining about, but I completely failed to capture the performance in the first place! You can barely hear my vibrato at all.
So, I'm looking for help. I know that a lot of people here are really big on "listen, use your ears, keep trying until you get it", etc etc, but I'm really at a standstill here.
Trust me, I do know the obvious solution here - buy a real vocal mic, buy a good compressor and learn how to use it, and buy a dedicated mic preamp and ditch the Tascam. But aren't I correct in assuming that I'm not getting the best sounds possible with the equipment I do have?
Please share with me any information you like - micing techniques, ways I could have mixed better, how you like to record and mix vocals when you're engineering, etc. I'm really in need of some things to try, here.