Live condensor mics and micing up quiet voices

R

rick woodall

New member
Hello all

Just looking to pick a few brains. I have quite a quiet breathy voice when performing most of my songs and I was wondering what you think the best live mic set up is for that situation. My music’s generally acoustic, vaguely folky kind of stuff. When recording I generally have to record vocals separately from guitar because my rode nt1a which I use for vocals picks up to much guitar and makes editing the vocals difficult. I generally like to have a quite a lot of reverb and a tight delay on my vocal but don’t like using much compression, I also tend to take a quite a lot of bottom end out of the vocal but I think that may be because of the bassyness of the rode nt1a.

I have a couple of sm58’s but I’ve been wondering about buying a live condenser for vocals, so have any of you ever faced a similar choice and does any one have any experience of using live condenser mics or getting a good sound on a quiet voice with a dynamic mic? I expect that a dynamic mic would be more reliable when trying to avoid pops but a condenser would give a crisper sound, ideally I would like a crisp sound but free of pops but we can’t have it all.


here are some examples of my voice /music if it helps

Viper man by rick woodall on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
http://soundcloud.com/rick-woodall/sound-reel
 
I have the same problem, my voice is very breathy, and has too much low end, so on stage I use an AKG C-5 condenser, best mike I've use so far, I was using a Sennheiser 938.
 
rick woodall said:
... I also tend to take a quite a lot of bottom end out of the vocal but I think that may be because of the bassyness of the rode nt1a.

I have a couple of sm58’s but I’ve been wondering about buying a live condenser for vocals, so have any of you ever faced a similar choice and does any one have any experience of using live condenser mics or getting a good sound on a quiet voice with a dynamic mic? I expect that a dynamic mic would be more reliable when trying to avoid pops but a condenser would give a crisper sound, ideally I would like a crisp sound but free of pops but we can’t have it all. ..
Click to expand...
The sound clip didn't help me (..reverb and all
But I would definitely be looking at your impressions of the 58 as a starting comparison point as these live mics have built in bass roll off (intentional for close work), where the studio mic does not. I would say keep your options open to dynamics as well as 'crisp, all the various tone styles are available in both types of mics. And.. if you're a soft singer..? makes it more difficult; = have to stay very close, need a tight pattern, then finding your nice tone to boot.

Heil PR22 ..top boost is higher than the typicals' (58's and such) ..perhaps not really tight though?
RE16 –the live mic that doesn't get bigger'/boomy' up on it (but may not set well if you show up at someone else's PA gig setup for the '58 tones..
OM5 –very tight, but coarser' (lower high mid freq rise to my impression
..never tried the '7 but curious
Except for the OM5 I lug'm all around :D Lately I'm really liking the EV 767. Nice inbetween spot there. It goes on and on.. Good luck there. :)
 
since i started this discusion i started using one of my small diaphram condenser that i usualy use for guitar for vocals and using my nt1a for the right hand side stereo pair for the acoustic. I have found this allowed me to record live as oposed to recording vox and guit seperately because i dont get very much bleed through of guitar on the vocal track. I think this discovery kind of goes half way to solving my problem but i still might have to but a small diaphram supercardiod condensor that deals with feadback better ina live situation.

here are the results

comes to nothing by rick woodall on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
no need to tell me the production needs cleaning up, its just a very rough mix
 
As for a microphone selection you can try them all tell you find one you like, but maybe you should concentrate a bit more on the post side of the microphone.
Having your audio chain correct is very important!

I guess my first question would be ... what are you using for a PA?
What are your settings per channel?
Do you go from console to a 31 band EQ then to speakers?
And Do you insert things like compressors, oral exciters, ... etc. etc.

Perhaps you need a good channel strip such as the JOE MEEK TWINQ it has everything you could want to help you in this matter.
Just go Microphone----> TWINQ ---> console. you'll be amazed at how well you can tweak your vocals into gold!!

Most times with just a plain old PA it is just not enough.
And it's kind of like asking why the family station wagon doesn't win the Indianapolis 500 ?? ;)
 
I've always had struggles trying to record my vocals. I once found that they sounded much nicer recorded on a dynamic mic, because the Condensor was so sensitive I had trouble getting clean enough takes and don't really have the experience in cleaning vocals or eq-ing them too well. Being breathy is a difficult one, you might have to try working on your own vocal performance...one could write a book about this issue alone I'm sure, apart from that I think its a matter of trying out the mic that suits you best, but how you'd get to do that I've no idea ;)
 
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