Recording Vocals...?

[Maddy1]

I hope someone out there can help. I am looking for some guidence in recording vocals. I have spent a great amount of time trying to get the vocals to my music to sound good. It seems so damn difficult though. It sounds like there is something missing.

The mic I am singing thru is a MXL V76t tube Microphone. My V76t is a (1 in.) large diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone that utilizes a 12AT7 tube amplifier circuit. Here are the specs...

Frequency Response: 30Hz - 20kHz
Polar pattern: Cardioid
Max SPL for .5 %THD: 122dB
Sensitivity: 38 MV/pa
Output Impedance: 200 ohms
Equivalent Noise: 22dB (A-weighted IEC 268-4)

I don't think the problem is the mic. I think it is more so how to work with the compressor, limiter, gate, etc. thru the software and hardware. I use Adobe Audition as my platform, and I am running a Creative Labs Audigy 4 with the external hub. The music I mainly compose are rock ballads.

I guess my big question is this. Is there anyone out there who can give me a good configuration on how I should set the compressor, limiter, gate, etc to my style of music. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Maddy....

[Trell Blaze]

If you could post a clip of one of your recordings maybe someone could help you a little better...

[Myriad_Rocker]

Originally Posted by Maddy1

Creative Labs Audigy 4

Why are you using this? This is one of the problems. The conversion on this has got to be just horrid. Your end result is only going to be as good as the weakest link in your recording chain.

Don't get me wrong...when I first started recording, I used the same thing you are. Audigy with a breakout box that had all sorts of cool inputs on it. For ease of use and sound, it just wasn't there. It didn't take me long to realize the error of my ways. I moved to a Delta 1010 after that. Now I'm on the RME Fireface 800.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Maddy1

I hope someone out there can help. I am looking for some guidence in recording vocals. I have spent a great amount of time trying to get the vocals to my music to sound good. It seems so damn difficult though. It sounds like there is something missing.

The mic I am singing thru is a MXL V76t tube Microphone. My V76t is a (1 in.) large diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone that utilizes a 12AT7 tube amplifier circuit. Here are the specs...

Frequency Response: 30Hz - 20kHz
Polar pattern: Cardioid
Max SPL for .5 %THD: 122dB
Sensitivity: 38 MV/pa
Output Impedance: 200 ohms
Equivalent Noise: 22dB (A-weighted IEC 268-4)

I don't think the problem is the mic. I think it is more so how to work with the compressor, limiter, gate, etc. thru the software and hardware. I use Adobe Audition as my platform, and I am running a Creative Labs Audigy 4 with the external hub. The music I mainly compose are rock ballads.

I guess my big question is this. Is there anyone out there who can give me a good configuration on how I should set the compressor, limiter, gate, etc to my style of music. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Maddy....

Welll, first off, you are handicapping yourself a bit with your gear. Your mic is servicable, though not superlative. Your preamp is much worse; that Audigy is throwing a veil over the clarity iof your recording that will haunt you forever. The Audigy was just not made for this kind of work; it's really desigend more for gaming and Internet use than it is for high-fidelity audio work.

Your second handicap is all the extra stages you are throwing in line there. You should have no need for limiters, gates or EQs in line in your vocal tracking. Maybe - MAYBE - some *moderate* compression with a quality compressor going in just to tame some wild dynamics, IF necessary, but try to tame a much of those as you can with your vocal and microphone technique (work that mic! )first. Remember you can always add stuff later on during mixing and take it back out again if it doen't work; but if you add it during recording, you're stuck with it no matter what.

You haven't mentioned your recording environment and position, but that's probably affecting your recording too. Whatto do there depends upon what you're shooting for.

If it's within your means, I'd first replace the Audigy with something like the Tascam US-122L or similar. Much, much better quality preamps that will make your recordings sound two or three times better right out of the gate.

Second, if youre recording mostly ballades, I'd recommend setting up your vocal space somewhat deaddened (not necessarily completly dead). Whatever room you're recording in probably has lousy acoustics, because that's the nature of recording at home. Set your mic up so you are standing or sitting with your back to an open clothes closet filled with clothes hanging in it, maybe 1-2 ft, bechind you. Then hang or place something dense like moving blankets or a futon mattress a couple of feet behind the mic.
Then set your recording levels at the preamp to fall comfortably below clipping at the very loudest volumem and then set the input faders in Audition to unity gain (no boost or cut). As clong a you don't clip you're fine, but if you deem to be coming in quiet, that's OK, leave it there, on't oblige yourself to boost it in the computrer to get it close to zero; all you're doing is increasing the volume of the noise from your preamp when you do that.

Once recorded, you can add further compression to fatten it up if you like (try copying the original track to a 2nd track, compressing that somewhat, and mixing that back in under the uncompressed track.) Try using EQ sparingly and use it mostly to try to cut bad frequencies rather than trying to boost good ones.

Then add a little reverb as desired to give it dome depth and ambience. Don't get carried away; just a small amount of quality plate verb or "warm ambience" verb should do. If you notice the reverb when you listen to the track, you probably have too much reverb.

G.

[kludge]

Originally Posted by Maddy1

I hope someone out there can help. I am looking for some guidence in recording vocals. I have spent a great amount of time trying to get the vocals to my music to sound good. It seems so damn difficult though. It sounds like there is something missing.

The mic I am singing thru is a MXL V76t tube Microphone. My V76t is a (1 in.) large diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone that utilizes a 12AT7 tube amplifier circuit. Here are the specs...

Frequency Response: 30Hz - 20kHz
Polar pattern: Cardioid
Max SPL for .5 %THD: 122dB
Sensitivity: 38 MV/pa
Output Impedance: 200 ohms
Equivalent Noise: 22dB (A-weighted IEC 268-4)

I don't think the problem is the mic. I think it is more so how to work with the compressor, limiter, gate, etc. thru the software and hardware. I use Adobe Audition as my platform, and I am running a Creative Labs Audigy 4 with the external hub. The music I mainly compose are rock ballads.

I guess my big question is this. Is there anyone out there who can give me a good configuration on how I should set the compressor, limiter, gate, etc to my style of music. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Maddy....

Argh, do NOT use specs to measure ANYTHING! They tell you very little about how things will sound.

I'll concur with others that you need a better soundcard. Even some $100 budget USB device will work, so long as it's actually designed for recording audio, not just running your webcam.

And compressor/gate/etc settings don't matter so much if the sound isn't happening before it gets to them. You should be able to listen to a raw, unprocessed vocal track and groove on it.

So what is it you don't like? Is it the recording, or maybe the singing itself? Personally, I find it hard to listen to recordings of my own singing, even after lots of practice. It was even worse when I first started recording! It doesn't sound like "me", that is, what I hear when I'm singing, with all the skull resonance and stuff. We sound different to others than we do to ourselves.

Also, what are you using for monitors? And do you listen regularly to records that you know and trust on those monitors? Getting to know your monitoring is a big part of making good judgements.

[Robert D]

Lots of good advice above. Once you've digested and incorporated what they're telling you, you should hear some big improvements. I'll just add that for most amature vocalists, or new to the recording process vocalists, dynamic control is not there, and compression is key to making a vocal sit in the mix. But as mentioned, during recording is not the time to add it. Record it straight, and then add compression during the mix to make the vocal sit. Then, once that nice dry vocal is sitting well, most ballad vocals do well with a little bit of reverb.

[89gtsleeper]

I do not have any direct experience with the gear you are using so I won't dive into that even a little bit. However, for those ballad type songs, there are a few things you can try.

1) Don't run all those units while recording. Keep your chain very simple to begin with, do the effects and processing afterward.

2) Double your vocal tracks. What might work well is getting your one vocal take all the way through that you are happy with. Then, make a copy of that track. So now for instance say you have identical stuff on tracks 1 and 2, 1 is panned hard left, 2 is panned hard right. Now bump track 2 about 7-15 ms (I like about 9 ms) so it is heard as a delay of the original track. Lastly, add some reverb to track one, but leave track 2 dry. Make sure the reverb predelay on track one is 0ms, so that the reverb sounds immediately as the note is sung. What you will end up with is the the intial vocal sounding on the left, immediately reverberating into the second vocal track, and you will get a really meaty sound.

3) Once all that is done, try a little bit of compression on one or both tracks, and experiment.

[Dani Pace]

Good advice has already been given. I just wanted to add, recording vocals "dry" takes a bit of getting used to. They almost always seem dull and flat when you play them back. When adding efx keep in mind you are trying to enhance the vocal, not alter it. Use all efx sparingly, just enough to give the vocal a little extra sparkle. Once you get an acceptable dry vocal track you might want to copy (clone or whatever your software calls it) the track, this way you have a track to experiment with without risking loosing your original track. Keep a notebook of what efx you use and how you set them, note the ones you don't like too so you wont keep trying them. It takes practice so be patient with yourself.

[aerospace1]

[QUOTE=Maddy1;2769052]I have spent a great amount of time trying to get the vocals to my music to sound good. QUOTE]

lol, isn't that so true...

[Todzilla]

I think you need to shorten your signal path.

I would try going mic -> pre -> converter -> computer

Pull the compressor out of the signal path and certainly the gate. If you can learn to work the mic, rather than rely on the compressor, you're better off. You can always compress and gate after the fact. If you had a pristine signal path with top notch gear, I wouldn't necessarily go this route, but the more metal you put between the sound and the computer, expecially cheap metal, the more tainted your sound will be.

It also sounds like you need a major upgrade of your converter box.