Should I Record My Vocals with More than One Microphone?

Rayne

New member
I sing on my own compositions after recording drums, guitar and bass.

I am really happy with the sound I get from my set up consisting of:

Rode NT2A condenser Mic
Boss VE-5 Vocal Performer
Tascam DP32 SD digital multitrack recorder

I have a very quiet, soft, female voice and sing with my mouth about 3 inches from the pop filter. I have dialed in a lovely sound including lots of reverb using the Boss machine.

However, the person who mixes and produces my recordings would like a nice, clean, dry sound so they can tweak it afterwards.

The problem is, I don’t sing very well when I hear that raw, dry, untreated sound in my headphones when I am singing and being recorded.

I have had an idea that I could by an identical Rode NT2A mic and place it right next to the existing one. This could go directly into another track on the Tascam without any effects. Thus providing one clean vocal from the new mic and one heavy on effects from the first mic. The bonus being I get to hear the sound I like in my headphones.

Will this result in any quality issues? For example, will 2 mics placed side by side cause any feedback in the headphones? I have heard of phase problems. I don’t fully understand what this means. Does this only happen with live performances?

Any comments will be gratefully received. Thanks.
 
Hi,

First off I should say I don't know anything about your specific recorder but, speaking generally, it's usually possible with digital recording to add effects in a non-destructive way.
It's very common to add a heavy reverb or delays for the comfort of the performer, then dial them back to something more suitable for the mix later on.

Hopefully someone here can tell you if that's possible with your unit.

Since you're considering a second microphone I guess you have a bit of a budget - Worst case scenario, assuming you own a computer, you could just pick up a humble USB interface and do your vocals in free recording software like Reaper.
If your current gear doesn't allow real time non-destructive effects, that setup ^ certainly would.

To directly answer your question, though, assuming your recording device allows you two record two channels at once and mute one of them, you could do what you're proposing.
I wouldn't bother spending the bigger bucks on an NT2A unless you think it'll be useful to have in general - A simple cheap dynamic mic would suffice.

You'd have your NT2a recording direct+dry and muted, to you, then a basic cheap mic recording to a second track going through your vocal effects, and audible to you via headphones.
As long as you set the gains such that both are peaking in the same area this would work.

Phase issues come about when sound reaches two microphones at slightly different times but this is only an issue if you intend to playback the capture from both microphones together,
as you would with dual miking a guitar speaker, or stereo close-miking some instrument like a guitar.
In your case you would throw away the reverby recording and you'd never be monitoring dry+wet together so phase is not a concern.

Hope that's helpful. :)
 
Just did a quick scan of the manual for that recorder, but I'd think using the Send to control the internal effect should still leave the original mic'd track unaffected. Just don't send a bounced/stereo-out mix.

And, if that's not working, a relatively inexpensive way to get a clean track is to use a mic splitter, and record two tracks from the same mic. You might be able to only monitor the track with reverb (not familiar with that recorder), or just make the reverb wetter in the one, and leave the other dry, so your monitor mix is good, while still keeping a separate, dry track you can deliver to the mix engineer.
 
If I understand your manual correctly you should be able to record from one source to more than one track at the same time. In other words, you should be able to record with just one mic to tracks 1 and 2. That being the case, you can have all your effects on track one and none at all on track 2 which enables you to monitor track 1 with all the reverb you like and just leave track 2 dry like your friend wants. You get the best of both worlds that way.
On my Akai DPS12i that's what I would do if I wanted to hear my effected vocal while I sang but also needed a dry take of the same thing.
 
Some of the replies here are not considering she is using an external device (Boss VE-5) for the effects. A mic splitter or mixer to split the mic's signal would be the easiest solution, or the suggested 2nd inexpensive mic.
 
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