Best mic'ing for singer with soft quiet voice

C

cutout

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I usually only record guitar stuff, but I'm helping a friend record some vocals.

My current setup: Shure SM58 -> Presonus TubePre -> Profire 610 -> Garageband.

He sings softly and quietly and we can barely get a decent signal unless we crank the volume and gain, etc, to the max, in which case he can finally hear himself through the cans, but there's tons of hiss.

Should we just be using a good condenser mic? When I bought the Presonus I would have thought it would have really help boost things, but it's cranked and still too quiet. Thanks!
 
Doesn't the profire have it's own mic pre's built in?
Did you try those.
Anyway consider the difference in volume between a closely miced guitar amp and a soft singer and you will see a big difference in sound pressure levels.
I'd try a LDC on that singer.
If your sound to noise levels are not great enough then raising the pre amps gain is bound to bring up the level as well as the singer and as you witnessed introduce room noise as well as mic and pre noise.
Is there a way he can sing louder with damaging his voice or destroying the integrity of the vocal.
Depending on the style of the material being recorded.
You will likely still have too much unwanted noise with a cranked LDC if you can't get the songster to improve signal to noise ratios.
I hope this makes sense. It made sense in my head as I typed it.
 
What kind of distance are you trying? 58s don't produce much level at much more than lip on the basket distance. Typical condenser mic positions for the studio tend to be further away, but if his voice is quiet, then even with a condenser you will struggle unless he gets in close. You'll then need to counteract the bass tip-up effect. However, if you want a nice warm and quiet sounding recording - just let him put the mic in very close.
 
The profire preamps deliver 53db where as the tube pre only delivers 43db of gain.
Just saying.
Those extra 10 DBS will sound like 1.5x the apparent volume of the other pre
I still don't think it will be much better without a stronger performance delivery but it's worth a shot I guess.
 
In addition..
He sings softly and quietly and we can barely get a decent signal unless we crank the volume and gain, etc, to the max, in which case he can finally hear himself through the cans, but there's tons of hiss.
Click to expand...
Head phones create their own set of ironies don't they. As in this case, all the technology, but can't hear his own singing. :)

Try this.
Pan the ref track hard right or left. Have him use just the one side of the phones.
Turn the playback down (ref track only.. as in no voc) to what he needs to balance with his voice (live 'in the room as it were.
Phones' mix can be quite the little bit of a specialty'.
 
Pan the ref track hard right or left. Have him use just the one side of the phones.
Click to expand...

I will try that, thanks! We may try a LDC type mic soon, but agreed, it's probably super sensitive and need to tame it from picking up all kinds of noise.
 
cutout said:
I will try that, thanks! We may try a LDC type mic soon, but agreed, it's probably super sensitive and need to tame it from picking up all kinds of noise.
Click to expand...
Regardless of that, there was (also) the question of your mic distance, (was it farther than necessary for a 58?), and the hiss' - vs your preamp/record levels? Where you having to jack up the phones, and the record level was real low, or..?
 
He was singing pretty close to the mic, with a popscreen in the middle. '

Where you having to jack up the phones, and the record level was real low, or..?
Click to expand...

The headphones were jacked up 100% before he could really hear his voice. I also had the recording level knob on the Profire turned up so high, he could hear how "hot" it sounded in the headphones, verging on clipping.
 
cutout said:
He was singing pretty close to the mic, with a popscreen in the middle. '



The headphones were jacked up 100% before he could really hear his voice. I also had the recording level knob on the Profire turned up so high, he could hear how "hot" it sounded in the headphones, verging on clipping.
Click to expand...

Yikes having to go to a hot record level.
I get singing soft' but my Dog! 'Soft singers' :rolleyes: Wait'll they try it 'live.. ;)
 
A 58 is a quiet mic. A quiet singer into a quiet mic will cause all sorts of issues when you don't have enough clean gain to deal with it.

A condenser will solve part of the problem, but the biggest thing that needs to happen is your singer needs to learn to project. If he sings so quietly that he can't hear himself in isolation through headphones, he isn't really singing.
 
Even that guy uses some volume. But an SM 58 isn't the mic for the job.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with running a preamp into a preamp, if you are careful. There are inline preamps that work off of phantom power that are designed to take care of this very problem. But you should be able to do it with the preamps you have. Also, if you use the 58, get him right up on the mic. That will help a lot.
 
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