vocals

T

Trakmoney7

New member
hey, I was just wondering if anyone had any useful tips for how to get really clean vocals. Me and my friend have been recording the past few days in a studio, it has all the pro equipment, mixer, booth, baby bottle mic, vaccuum tube, interface, but for some reason the vocals do not come out as clean as they should with what we are working with. They come out mediocre, just ok, u know? I was wondering if anyone had any tips that could help me? thank you
 
Use a proper booth, adjust the mic so that the singer sings upwards into the mic a little and is around 6-12 inches in front of mic.

Turn on the low cut on the mic and where ever else availible in the chain.

Set the gain on the pre on that the loudest peaks are around 0dbvu on a analog mixer or -15dbfs in a DAW.

Compress lightly on the way in with a 2:1 ratio.

YMMV

Will
 
when u say set the gain, u mean setting it on the tube right? and when u talk about compressing, do u mean compressing the vocals or the whole track?
 
I wouldnt compres on the way in, lEave compression for mix down. You get more control this way.
I would slap a limiter on the input though, as a backup incase there are any unwanted peaks.
To get a clean recording you need a clean signal path.
Try to not use pres or mics that colour the sound alot. If you want a clean recording use minimal pre amp gain, you can turn the output of your pre-amp up to get a decent volume of your recoding but without colouring the signal too much.

Eck
 
Trakmoney7 said:
when u say set the gain, u mean setting it on the tube right? and when u talk about compressing, do u mean compressing the vocals or the whole track?
Click to expand...

I don't understand your question. I mean setting the gain on the preamp and compressing the vocal track. But as you can see from ecktronic's post there is more than one way to skin a cat. ;)
 
What mic are you using for the vocals? What other mics do you have available?

And as bigwilliz said, the best thing you could do is record the vocals in a good space, like a vocal booth. The sound of an untreated room or space can make the recording sound "mediocre" even with nice gear.
 
danny.guitar said:
What mic are you using for the vocals? What other mics do you have available?

And as bigwilliz said, the best thing you could do is record the vocals in a good space, like a vocal booth. The sound of an untreated room or space can make the recording sound "mediocre" even with nice gear.
Click to expand...

He already said he's using a baby bottle. To the original poster, take into consideration that you or whoever is recording just might not be professional sounding enough. Also when you talk about dialing in the "tube" do you mean the tube preamp and if so what kind? Having a mixer and a baby bottle does not make one a professional.
 
A cheap and easy way to get slightly better sound on your vocals in a totally untreated room is the pvc and blankets method described in another thread do a search. I used this method, and it worked well. I used a corner that had 4" foam on it for a few feet in all directiosn of the corner, placed the L shaped blanket assembly, and haad the vocalist facing outward away from the corner. Sounded pretty good, and the PVC-blanket method only cost me about 60 bucks. Let me see if I can dig up that thread... hold on.
 
Trakmoney7 said:
it has all the pro equipment ...
Click to expand...

Do tell.

mixer,
Click to expand...

Yup. Nothing says "pro studio" like a mixer.

booth,
Click to expand...

I think I'm getting horny.

baby bottle mic,
Click to expand...

Which is the pinnacle of pro mics, by the way.

vaccuum tube,
Click to expand...

Was it glowing? Becuase it's not a pro studio unless it's glowing, ya know.

interface,
Click to expand...

As opposed to ...

but for some reason the vocals do not come out as clean as they should with what we are working with.
Click to expand...


Can't figure that one out. Baffling. Sorry.

.
 
jonnyc said:
He already said he's using a baby bottle. To the original poster, take into consideration that you or whoever is recording just might not be professional sounding enough. Also when you talk about dialing in the "tube" do you mean the tube preamp and if so what kind? Having a mixer and a baby bottle does not make one a professional.
Click to expand...

Yes that i understand, by pro i meant most of the equipment in there is not amateur equipment, we are be no means any where close to being professional yet, the tube pre amp is a avalon, alot of time we can here wat people are saying over the beat, so we turn the gain up more i think that could be alot of our problem.
 
89gtsleeper said:
A cheap and easy way to get slightly better sound on your vocals in a totally untreated room is the pvc and blankets method described in another thread do a search. I used this method, and it worked well. I used a corner that had 4" foam on it for a few feet in all directiosn of the corner, placed the L shaped blanket assembly, and haad the vocalist facing outward away from the corner. Sounded pretty good, and the PVC-blanket method only cost me about 60 bucks. Let me see if I can dig up that thread... hold on.
Click to expand...

You want to be singing into the corner so the duvet absorbs the vocal after it hits the mic. Don't go too close to the duvet though or you could get a muffled recording, and unwanted sound bouncing back from the duvet into the mic.

Eck
 
I always use compression and a small ammount of distortion..not anything recognizable as "distortion", but just to give it slight bite. (logic's distortion plugin is kind of nice for that..it can come off as subtle at low levels and you can control what frequencies that the "tone" are), but then again I am a crazy bastard mixer who compresses, limits, distorts, and bit crushes everything to varying degrees.

It could be your choice of mic for the vocals as well. That is almost alwawys the biggest problem. I do my vocals in my living room, with the mic right in the middle, through a mediocre preamp, but the mic sounds brilliant for the vocalist I usually work with, so it comes out crisp and clear without me having to do very much at all to make it cut through. Try a few different mics, and see if that helps. Changing position can help, but using a different mic can be like night and day. Every vocalist is totally different, so there is no right or wrong answer for a vocal mic. There are some people that even sing into a kick drum mic, or lavalere mic because it works for them. Just cause it's awesome expensive gear, doesn't always mean it's the best for the sound you want... at times cheap gear can sound better if it has the charactor you require for the particular performer.... Experimentation helps if you have access to a number of mics.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Two words:

Gain Structure.

Look it up.

G.
Click to expand...

All the things mentioned make a difference, gain structure being right up there in my mind. Then you've got the quality of the booth and the position of the singer, but let me ask ya - does the singer kinda suck? We won't tell...

I've gotten great sounding vocals from a really good singer using a Rode K2 -> DMP3, two mattresses propped at 90 degrees in the corner of an untreated room, into my 16-bit DAT tape decks with the stock converters.

That very same singer stepped 6 inches back from the mic, and at the same gain setting, he sounded, well - not terrible, but not great either. Just one story of the millions you can hear :P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top