Vocal recordings sound "claustrophobic"

8

88keys

New member
I've been dabbling in home recordings for just a little while, and recently purchased a Shure SM58 because I wasn't happy with my first microphone which was a $20 special. However, I'm still finding that the raw vocals sound off, although I'm not sure what the right term is to use - it's like the vocals are in a tiny box. I'm not sure if that's because of my setup, location of the mic, the room, or effects that I'm not using. I currently have:

- M-Audio Firewire Solo
- Shure SM58
- Audacity
- HP laptop (1G RAM, 2 GHz CPU)

I've been able to record my Yamaha keyboard no problem, it's just when I lay the vocal track down. Is something in my setup wrong? Or do I just need to do some condensing/reverb? Any suggestions for VSTs to use?

Thanks.
 
Could you possibly post a sample so we can see what you mean? Sounds like you may just need to play around with reverb a bit to git a bigger sounding track. It could be all those things you mentioned, I'd say play around with each one until you find something that sounds more like what you're aiming for.
 
the room is important,the position to the mic is important,the mic is important(a condenser would be better for recording vox)and the effects used are important,so...post a sample
 
You can get decent tracks on something like a 58 however you'll want to be aware, and work around some of that style mic's built-in gotcha's. Their tone balance is setup up for very close'/high isolation. That comes with some puffy/breath noise, and a not very complete picture' of the voice. Backing off just a bit will 'open up the tone, and difficulty there is at these very close ranges small distance changes make large volume and tone changes. (ie, proximity effect) Working off a bit' will mean less full tone, you may or may not want to then do some eq to compensate.
Mic and singing technique, compression, all play.
 
I don't think I saved any raw vocals from my playing around last night. Here's a snippet of one track, but honestly I forget what type of effects I used on it, so it might not be the best example.

 
Sounds like your room unless you put a bathroom reverb on there. Tricky to pull an immediate fix but there is lots of good advice around here. The mic itself isn't all that flattering to your voice, you could do with something with a bit more of an open sound anyway (particularly in the highs) but that will only accentuate the acoustics of the room. :confused:
 
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