Recording Vocals on My Own...Yikes! Help?

[AshX]

Hey guys,

I've begun work on trying to record a collection of songs to hopefully compile an album if the quality is somewhat decent. I'm in an untreated room using an SM7b with a Primacoustic Voxguard shield. My signal chain is: SM7b -> Apogee Duet -> iMac -> Pro Tools -> Yamaha HS50 speakers. I've been doing pretty much everything direct using amp modelers for guitars, bass, keys, synths, etc. just given cost and quality and have some drum tracks recorded a studio and intend to finish them up at a studio as well.

Since I'm largely recording everything myself, alone, and track vocals in the other corner of the room (I like to have the monitors playing at a low level that doesn't pick up instead of headphones) so I end up pressing record and running to the other side (lol!). I have a loud voice (without a mic it can spike to 103 dB according to the SPL meter I have...so I guess that's pretty loud haha?) which is why I went with the SM7b as opposed to a condenser.

I'm pretty much a noobie at recording. I'm a music major and took a few audio theory classes and some production courses but am largely teaching myself with articles, guides, and videos. I intend to have someone else do the final mixes, since it would take me a very, very long time to be good enough to do it myself, so I just want to get a decent sounding rough mix that I know isn't recorded horribly so that I won't be handing over totally horribly tracked stuff.

So, now that I've told you my life story (ha ha), I was hoping some of you guys could point me in the right direction as far as tutorials or suggestions. I know room treatment is a must at some point, just not immediately sadly for me. If I can get by hanging some blankets and such as I've read other users of HR.com have done, then I'd definitely be open to doing that as a temporary solution.

A few noob questions:

1. This is probably a rookie mistake and I feel embarrassed about asking, but how close to clipping should I set my input levels on my interface? I find that unless I record really hotly, it's hard to get the vocals to stand up to 4 or 5 tracks of heavy guitars roaring unless I double track, but double tracking the whole song seems to take away from the in your face presence of the vocals. Is it that I'm just mixing everything too high and need to turn my monitors up and lower the gain of each track. Or am I just recording the vocals too hot or not hot enough?

2. Are there any ways to edit some of the room noise out, since that is probably really affecting the presence of my vocals? Any recommended plugins? Or do I just need to put off recording vocals until I can treat the room?

3. Any general rules for EQing vocals? I know every voice is different, but are there any common issues that should be solved?

4. Is mic modeling software any good at all?

I totally get I'm working with a totally unprofessional setup and it's probably ludicrous to be striving to record an album. I'm kind of going for a lo-fi feel similar to the sound captured on In Utero and the Downward Spiral, but I don't want my vocals to sound dull. Thanks for any advice anyone can give and sorry to be asking such derpy questions.

Some pics of the room:

 

[jimmys69]

All derpy, but completely relevant questions. lol!

You are looking to get as clean a signal as possible with your interface. You do not want to be anywhere near clipping it. -18dBFS in in your DAW is your ideal target. Maybe a bit more. If you are having trouble keeping up with the other instruments, then they are too loud. You are not looking to blow the ears off of listeners at the mixing stage. Worry about the loudness of the mix at mastering. Turn up your monitors, and mix at lower levels within protools. If you find you need to turn up vocals, instead, turn down everything else.

 

[Justsomeguy]

lol, certainly not derpy question. Much more "n00b trying to get better" kind of questions. However i will say that your first and third question have been asked many times before on this board and the search function is mega handy to find the answers

1) See jimmy's response above

2) I'm guessing you mean the kinda room ambience when you're singing rather than in the gaps in-between. If so, there's not really anything you can do after the fact to take out the ambience. However, like you've already mentioned, room treatment would make a difference. With what you've got at the moment and looking at the pictures my suggestion in the short term would be to hang something like a thick curtain/blanket/duvet behind you when singing as well as the reflection filter behind the mic and try moving the mic and blanket around the room to find the best spot for it. And although i appreciate that recording to monitors may be more comfortable for you, you may be better off trying some headphones to keep any extra noise in the room down to a minimum

3) Again, as you said, there really aren't any hard and fast rules to EQ'ing but the things i tend to look for are any boxiness/murkiness somewhere between 200hz and 600hz and any overly nasal sounds between 1kHz and 3kHz and usually put a HPF on around 90hz to 150hz depending. Bare in mind that the SM7b isn't a particularly bright mic so you may be missing some of the presence that a condenser would have so it may be worth playing around with EQ to see if you can add some presence in to it.

4) I've only ever used one bit of mic modelling software once about 8 years ago and it was ok (although i can't remember for the life of me what it was called.) It was for a voice over for a film and we needed to try and match the over dubs with the original mic sound. It did a reasonable job but i've never been tempted to buy something like it to try and make one mic sound like a million others. Although it may seem a pain and an investment i'd much rather have a range of different mics available

 

[ecc83]

Hi Ash,
Are you detained at Her Majesty's pleasure? Hah! That room!

Is that a sprinkler pipe running across? Looks most handy for hanging curtain.

And yes, cans. Why do you have the monitors on at all when recording? No matter how low the level if YOU can hear it it will be picked up and added to room sound (in the limit of course the system would ring).

Levels? You bin told!

You say you do not want the voice to sound "dull", maybe a dynamic is not the right mic then? The 7b is one of the best but does not have the HF response of a capacitor. Could you try a SDC?

Dave (if you are UK PM me)

 

[AshX]

Thanks for all the advice guys! I will most definitely give all those options a shot.

Hi Ash,
Are you detained at Her Majesty's pleasure? Hah! That room!

Is that a sprinkler pipe running across? Looks most handy for hanging curtain.

And yes, cans. Why do you have the monitors on at all when recording? No matter how low the level if YOU can hear it it will be picked up and added to room sound (in the limit of course the system would ring).

Levels? You bin told!

You say you do not want the voice to sound "dull", maybe a dynamic is not the right mic then? The 7b is one of the best but does not have the HF response of a capacitor. Could you try a SDC?

Dave (if you are UK PM me)

Yeah, it's some sort of pipe. That's a good idea! I'll give that a shot with some extra black out curtains I have.

I use monitors for a couple reasons. One, is that I find myself fidgeting with headphones too much and my pitch is spotty when I use them. The second, and probably primary motivator, is that often with Pro Tools or Logic my computer glitches up and gives a CPU Overload error (probably with all the guitar plugins). I suppose that could be remedied by bouncing the instrumental track and then opening a new Pro Tools session just to track vocals. I read on another audio forum that Logic or Pro Tools sometimes will send white noise spikes at high volumes, and because I've recently dealt with some hearing issues, I've avoided wearing headphones since I don't have a limiter or anything. Probably stupid reasons, but the reasons nonetheless.

And by -18dBFS if I remember correctly, that's 18 decibels below the clipping level of the track? What SDC would you recommend? I definitely need a condenser, at least for the quieter parts at some point probably.

This is a recent song I worked on, a really rough mix but the vocals are double tracked and other than a little compression, largely unedited. I'd love any advice: