I need help recording vocals...

[RickyT]

First off, I'm really new to this. So give me a break, haha.

What I have:

SP C1 mic w/ pop filter
EMU 0404 USB Audio Interface
Sonar LE

I just began recording recently and I'm a bit confused.

First off, I think I might have gotten my levels off while recording. The track is supposed to peak at around -10dbs, right? What's the best way of achieving this? On my audio interface I ended up turning the mic to about +55 to +60. I stood about 6 - 8 inches away from the mic (with a pop filter) and I have a pretty soft voice (at least, it's definitely not aggressive or gritty). This made it usually lower than -10dbs, but in the really loud parts that's about where it would peak. Is this how I should be going about it? Or would it be better to record so that most parts of the track peak at around -10, and just use a condenser for the really loud parts?

Also, my main problem is that there seems to be a lot of white noise in the recording. Perhaps it's just because I'm using not great headphones and when I get the cabling for my monitors later today it'll fix it, but my mic seems to pick up EVERYTHING. Is there some way to reduce white noise so that the vocals sound cleaner?

Thanks in advance!

[Yammie072]

I would suggest working with some compression on your vocal signal... it'll help you round out the levels and get them consistent enough to keep around nonimal volume. A lot of people will swear by recording everything dry, but I ALWAYS use input compression on my vox (usually around 1:8, or sometimes even higher). They always end up punchy and consistent. This way you can come down on your preamp gain to (hopefully) eliminate some white noise.

[RickyT]

Thanks! I got my monitors working today and it definitely helped as far as noise goes. I've also tried to stop relying on the gain from my preamps and that helped as well. Thank you for the help!

I have a quick question. My audio interface has two mic inputs, and if I try and listen to a track as stereo, I can only hear it out of the left or right monitors depending on if I plugged the mic into the first or second mic input. Should I always run vocal tracks as mono in it of themselves? Is the stereo option available so if I set up two mics at once on either side, I could catch the sound from both sides? I'm just not really sure haha. Thanks again!

[Yammie072]

I'm not sure, but i ALWAYS run my mics mono.