Getting a cleaner home vocal take — preamp noise or the room?

[AlexGreeneHR]

First-time poster here, recording vocals at home in a spare bedroom. Once I gain up my interface for a dynamic mic there's noticeable hiss, and the low mids still sound boxy even with blankets on the walls. For those who've been through this: is the bigger jump usually from a quieter interface/better preamps, or from a condenser plus proper treatment? Any real-world advice welcome — thanks!

 

[rob aylestone]

If there is hiss with the gain up too much, your mic to mouth distance is too great - this also increases the room sound. It's all about ratios - the ratio of wanted sound to unwanted. How far away are you? What is the mic? How loud are you? If you have a very quiet voice, a move from a 'yell into' mic to a condenser mic is sensible - plus of course wind protection. We can probably help. Do you have a clip you can let us hear? We can then reassure you of the good things and maybe put the room sound into perspective? Otherwise, we are guessing what you are hearing?

 

[PitchTempoAndriy]

The clip Rob asked for will be more useful if it includes about five seconds of room sound followed by a normal sung phrase, all in one raw recording. Leave gates, denoising, compression and automatic gain off, and say whether you boosted or normalised the file afterwards. That keeps the hiss and the voice in their original relationship.

If you can, add a second take of the same phrase a little closer to the mic, with a pop filter and enough headroom to avoid clipping. Match the vocal playback levels when comparing them. A closer cardioid mic can also add bass through proximity effect, so a tonal change alone does not prove the room is fixed.

Please include the mic and interface models and approximate mouth-to-mic distance. Those details should make the preamp-versus-room decision much less speculative.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Welcome to HR!

As Rob says, the real trick is improving signal to noise.
There's always noise. You just have to get your wanted audio way louder than it.

If you sing/speak very quickly, or too far away, or both, that noise floor is going to be more apparent.

I agree with the above. If you can tell us the gear your using, describe the physical set up (distances)
and share a raw audio clip with several seconds of silence (noise), then average talking/singing to compare to, that would help a lot.

 

[AlexGreeneHR]

Thanks all — super helpful. It’s an SM58 into a Scarlett Solo about 25–30 cm away and I sing pretty quietly, so I’ll re-track closer with a pop filter and post a raw take: silence first, then the phrase, no processing. Before that, is an inline gain booster worth trying if the preamps are the culprit?

 

[Steenamaroo]

25-30 cm is quite a big distance, especially if you're a quiet singer.
Singing with greater strength, if possible and appropriate, combined with moving closer should solve the problem without the need for additional equipment.

It's not uncommon to be an inch or two off a dynamic microphone, or any microphone really.
That should help get your signal well above any audible hiss, and also greatly cut down on how audible the room reflections are (less boxy).

If plosives become a problem you can certainly use additional pop filters, or you can simply sing past the mic slightly.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Lots of other variables here, and I think a clip will go a long way... but one thing I'd add too, is you don't HAVE to have a treated space to use a condenser. A cardioid pickup pattern is at least somewhat directional, and if you move around your room singing until you find a spot where your voice sounds better than it does elsewhere and then stick your mic right there, you might get a pretty good recording out of a merely average room (and, by dumb luck, you might actually have a naturally good sounding room).

I think the tonal differences between a SM58 and even an affordable large diaphragm condenser may be bigger than between a treated and untreated room, so you might be happy anyway.

 

[AlexGreeneHR]

Thanks both — that's really helpful. I'll try getting closer, an inch or two, singing past the mic and with more strength, and experiment with room position before chasing new preamps or mics. If the raw clip still shows hiss after all that, is a cheap inline gain box a decent test before buying anything bigger?

 

[Steenamaroo]

If the raw clip still shows hiss after all that, is a cheap inline gain box a decent test before buying anything bigger?

It almost certainly won't have appreciable hiss after that.

Whether a booster would help, or not, depends on the source of the noise.
If it's the microphone, you'll just amplify it noise and voice equally.
If it's the preamp then your booster is before it so, yes, it would help.

I'd bet you won't need it, though.

 

[TalismanRich]

An SM58 shouldn't have much of a noise floor, since it doesn't have an amplifying circuit like a condenser mic does. If you are getting any significant noise, I suspect it is ambient noise from your room.

Per Shure:
As noted, the SM58 is a dynamic microphone and the noise specs are lower than can be typically measured. Dynamic microphones do not have the electrical components that their counterpart condenser microphones have. It is these electrical components that cause a condenser microphone to have a noise floor and signal to noise ratio. Since dynamic microphones do not have these electrical components, they essentially have a noise floor below 5 dB SPL depending on the actual impedance. If the SM58 noise floor is calculated at room temperature, the voltage output is 0.00000032 volts. This noise floor also applies to other Shure dynamic models, like the SM7B, SM57, Beta 56A, Beta 57A, Beta 58A, MV7X and others.

Adding something like a Cloudlifter or FetHead is adding a low noise amplifier, but if your problem is ambient noise, it won't help things. As the saying goes, "it raises all boats equally". In that case the solution is, as stated, getting more of your voice into the microphone.

I think the boxy sound you are hearing is the lack of proximity effect from using the microphone at a distance. The SM58, being a live mic, is designed to be used withing an inch or so of your mouth, and at that distance there's a significant boost in the bass response.

 

[AlexGreeneHR]

That makes sense — if the 58 is essentially noiseless, the hiss is my room and a booster just raises all boats equally, so I'll skip it and work an inch or two off the mic for the proximity boost. Worth killing hum sources like a laptop fan before tracking, or overthinking it? Thanks both.

 

[PitchTempoAndriy]

Yes, it is worth a quick check before the next take. Move the laptop farther from the mic and switch off any unneeded noisy room appliances one at a time, keeping the mic, voice position and gain unchanged. Record a few seconds of room sound plus the same phrase before and after. Keep the laptop’s vents clear and its cooling running.

One distinction: the SM58’s low self-noise does not establish that all the hiss comes from the room. The interface preamp has its own noise floor too; Focusrite explains that here:

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115005675925-Noise-at-high-gain-levels

That is why the closer raw take is still useful before deciding whether a booster would help.

 

[Steenamaroo]

there's noticeable hiss

Ok, "hiss" usually means equipment self noise.

Worth killing hum sources like a laptop fan before tracking

Hum is a totally different thing and should never be present.
Many things can cause hum. Unbalanced runs and EM interference from other equipment,
physical defects breaking grounds, ground loops, and more.

switch off any unneeded noisy room appliances one at a time

We're talking about three different sources of noise now.
Acoustic sources of noise in the room with you should be turned off or, if impossible, minimised.
If there's something you can't turn off, place the mic so that noise source is as far as it can be behind the microphone,
then sing/speak very close to the microphone.



I think it'd be best if you shared that recording so we know what we're dealing with.
Diagnosis comes before prescription.