Vocal levels up or down?

[Mick Doobie]

When recording vocals and listening through cans, do you prefer to cut the vocal levels down so they are somewhat buried inside the music, or up slightly louder than they would eventually be mixed into the rest of the tracks?

If up, you can clearly listen, stay on key, and so forth. But then again you may hold back and not sing out, might end up with something resemblng whisper singing.

If down, you can belt it out more, feel less self contious, yet you may not be able to detect if you are singing slightly(or more ) off key. If down, you have to belt it out for it to be clearly audible, which may or may not be a good thing, for some of us.

discuss

 

[guitarplayr82]

When recording vocals and listening through cans, do you prefer to cut the vocal levels down so they are somewhat buried inside the music, or up slightly louder than they would eventually be mixed into the rest of the tracks?

If up, you can clearly listen, stay on key, and so forth. But then again you may hold back and not sing out, might end up with something resemblng whisper singing.

If down, you can belt it out more, feel less self contious, yet you may not be able to detect if you are singing slightly(or more ) off key. If down, you have to belt it out for it to be clearly audible, which may or may not be a good thing, for some of us.

discuss

(When I'm in front of the mic) I always monitor the vocals lower than they would probably sit in the final mix. I take one ear (usually my right ear) out of my headphones so I can hear myself as much as I need to, however, I am still able to stay in key and keep time with the music by hearing the track through my left headphone.

 

[Dibidoolandas]

(When I'm in front of the mic) I always monitor the vocals lower than they would probably sit in the final mix. I take one ear (usually my right ear) out of my headphones so I can hear myself as much as I need to, however, I am still able to stay in key and keep time with the music by hearing the track through my left headphone.

I've done the one-ear out thing in the past too, but now I'm getting paranoid about the music bleeding into the vocal track through the open headphone. It's tough, because I really need to be able to hear myself to be on-pitch.

 

[guitarplayr82]

I've done the one-ear out thing in the past too, but now I'm getting paranoid about the music bleeding into the vocal track through the open headphone. It's tough, because I really need to be able to hear myself to be on-pitch.

I have these headphones by Creative that I bought a few years ago. For some reason the right headphone stopped working and, rather than trying to fix it, I use it for tracking vocals. No bleed!

Of course you could always pan the headphone audio 100% to one side via a DAW plugin or interface selection, too.