Recording vox without a pop shield

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Nadzilla

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I've seen vids of people doing this, Devin Townsend and more recently Tesseract. I know Dev uses an SM7b, not sure what Dan from Tesseract is using but it's here in this vid:
YouTube - TesseracT - The Impossible - Concealing Fate Part III Live Video (Century Media)

Basically, my vocal recordings don't sound as good as they do live. I don't mean the sound of the recording e.g the room, EQ etc, I mean it sounds dull and lifeless and I know for a fact it's because I have a mic like this: http://www.burnstudios.com/mxl.jpg on a stand with a pop-shield. This means I can't pick the thing up and really move around, crunching my stomach up, bending over, arching my back and singing upwards etc.

So how do you record vocals without a pop-shield? I know some people use vocal techniques to replace "plosives" with sounds that are similar, but some people manage it without these techniques too. I'd prefer the latter, really. Is there some kind of software pop-shield type thing, or is it just really clever trickery with compressors / limiters etc?

If I can start recording with the mic in my hands and no pop shield, my recordings will improve tenfold!

Thanks in advance for any tips / links to threads I might not have seen, heh. :p
 
The easiest solution is to simply move the microphone off to the side a bit. This way it can be very close for an intimate sound, but out of the way of direct blasts of air. I've been recording for more than 40 years, and I never once used a pop shield.

--Ethan
 
I've never had a need for pop filter.

Having said that, if you're planning on doing vocal tracks with the mic in your hand, walking around, bending over, and doing most of the things you do on stage, you're opening up a whole new set of problems for your vocal tracks.

Recording in the studio is not the same as performing live. You'll find that you still have to learn to sing with emotion without holding a mic.
 
Get an old coathanger (a wire one) and wrap a woman's stocking around it.
That's what I use as a pop shield and it works wonders....cheap too !!!
You can hold it in your hand and away from the microphone and just belt away with the vocals.
Try experimenting with different distances until you get the sound you want.
 
I have a pop shield, the point is I don't want to use it as I want to hold the mic like I would when I sing live. But thanks. ;)
 
You don't want to be holding a big mic like that - it's going to pick up all sorts of sound conducted though your hands/fingers. The pop filter isn't making your singing dull and lifeless - its your singing as well as the EQ and other recording settings you are using. If you need to hold something, just use an unplugged mic!
 
I'm thinking your one those guys who cups the mic.You take a dynamic mic then hold it with your hand around the ball end of a 58 or similar? If so,your squeezing all the dynamics out of the mic in the first place.What you think sounds good live would probably sound 10 times better if you didn't cup a mic like that.It boils down to learning how to use proximity effect to your advantage and learning proper technique.

I'm not saying you do this but your description of how you sing live,with all the crouching,etc. puts that visual in my head.I've seen it a million times.From my own experience of playing in bands and having my own small pa i've noticed how much easier it was to get better,decent sounding vocals out of a guy who played an instrument and sang.A lone singer cupping the mic,vocals would be distorting and levels all over the place.Dude playing guitar and vocals,hands busy playing,not near the same problems and so much easier to work with.

If you have to maybe position the mic lower so you can get down low and do your thing.A sm57 with the pop filter in your hand like mentioned above could work also for your situation if you feel you need to hold the mic.
 
While it is called a *pop* filter...it also serves as a filter against spit.
Now you may think you're not actually *spitting* when you sing, but stand up against a window or mirror and sing the same as you would when recording, don't hold back...then look at the glass, and you will see all the spit...small droplets, but that's what will end up on the mic, and possibly the capsule.

It may not be much of a concern with $100 mic...but with more expensive mics it is.
 
Nadzilla said:
I've seen vids of people doing this, Devin Townsend and more recently Tesseract. I know Dev uses an SM7b, not sure what Dan from Tesseract is using but it's here in this vid:
YouTube - TesseracT - The Impossible - Concealing Fate Part III Live Video (Century Media)
Click to expand...

Are you sure your boy in that vid tracks his vocals like that? Just because it's in a promotional video doesn't mean that's how it's actually done. That could also be clips from a scratch tracking session. What you see might not be what you hear. It's not uncommon for bands tracking live to have the singer belting through some handheld mic while the band plays along. Then the singer will go back and re-track his keeper vocals more traditionally in a vocal booth, with a big condenser on a stand with a pop filter.
 
Right.

I'm sure they tracked "for real"....while the guy with the camera walked around the studio sticking the camera lens in their faces! :D

That video is a performace video...shot in the studio. Every move, angle and pose was planned...
...and then the video clips were cut to *real audio* and combined.

I doubt the band even recorded everything together....playing at the same time.
 
Greg, could be mate, I'm not a recording-head, so I wouldn't really know, heh.

McMetal: Nah I'm not one of those, I just express myself a lot better if I can move around. Having a static mic in place where I have to be in a certain position all the time takes a lot of the "oomph" out of my performance. It might just be my mindset being affected by that, I don't really know.

Mjbphotos: Yeah....that's not going to work, hehe. If I use an unplugged mic just to "hold" and then move around how I want to when I'm recording, the vocals aren't going to get picked up properly. I'm also pretty sure it's not the pop-shield making my vocals dull and lifeless, I'd be some kind of gibbering idiot if I actually thought that, heh. My recorded vocals are "okay" as they are right now with the static positioned mic, but I don't want them to be "okay" I want them to be "better". My bass player in particular has noticed that vast difference in quality between my live performance vox and my recorded vox, and we are both pretty convinced it's because I can't move my body as much and really express myself properly.

I guess I'll get my PG58 out this weekend and have a bash at singing "over" the top of the mic to prevent plosives from battering the diaphragm, heh.
 
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