Vocal Recording

[TaintedDb]

I built a makeshift vocal recording booth. The sound is pretty dead (the closet filled with clothes sound).

I did some scratch recordings of some new songs with me singing just in a full room through a SM58. I have a M149 in the booth.

The room recordings sound a little better to me, am I retarded or should I be seeking out better rooms to record rather than max dampening?

When I play acoustic guitar and sing, my favorite room is my hard wood fire place room, should that be the place I track as well? Or should I go the dead sound route and add verb. (this is along the "is reverb dead" argument thread)

[mikeh]

The reason people record in "dead sounding spaces" (or the reason people use room treatment) is because some rooms generate very unpleasnt reflections - due to the size, shape and building materials of the room. To avoid those reflections, people prever to record flat and then add ambiance via use or effects.

Often a room with a lot of wood provides much more pleasant reflections - and can be an ideal space to track. Thus the room provides decent reverb - so a dead room with artificial reverb is not needed.

Trust your ears. If you like the sound of the room more than your vocal booth - use what sounds best. Other consideration would include:

The SM58 may be a better mic for your voice - often an SM58 can be a good vocal mic for a male vocalist (in particular a rock & roll screamer)
The SM58 tends to have a limited response range - so it it likely picking up mostly your voice and not much room.

For what it's worth, I recently saw some video of the Who recording (or at least the two surviving members - Townsand & Daltry) - and Daltry was using an SM58. No doubt ther was a very good mic pre involved - but it would appear an SM58 is Daltry's recording mic of choice.

[TaintedDb]

thanks... It kinda wireds me out that a 5,000 mic in a dead booth sounds less than a SM58 raw in my studio... I might try the neumann in the room that I think sounds best to my ears.

[santiu]

Good Source* + Just okay Mic > Just okay Source + Awesome Mic
*source includes the room, or anything else that might influence the sound waves that strike the microphone

How is your vocal booth constructed? It could be that the absorption is too heavy in a particular frequency range and coloring the sound in an unpleasant way.

You also may happen to have an awesome room to record in. Especially for sparse or acoustic type works, I'd take natural reverb over dry recording + artificial reverb.