How to record vocals

[mikedavid00]

Hey there.

Ok.

I have a laptop. Intel Core Duo mobile or whatever it's called.

Anyhow, I need to know how to record vocals. Everyone says something diffrenent so hopefull you guys can fill me in. Here's an overview:

-I have a Studio Projects B1 and a Joe Meek ThreeQ compressor/pre-amp.
-Music genre I'll be recording is hip hop. 1 person rapping.
-Using FL Stduio 9.

Now here is the big question. I understand the artist needs to hear the track through the headphones when she is in the recordnig booth, *AND simutaneously* she needs to hear her own vocals that *ARE* being processed with a bit of reverb to add confidence.

So the laptop would be doing all this at the same time just from FL Studio:

-Playing the track from FL Studio into her headphones.
-Recoding her vocals.
-And running a 'loop back'(?) to her headphones on a separate channel, with separate effects. This is so she can hear her own vocals in the headphones. I need to also reverse phase or polarity from what I understand.

What would I need to be able to achieve this that is compatible with a laptop? I simply cannot find an answer to this so am asking here. Actually, I cannot find 1 vocal recording tutorial for FL Studio. There are just small tips and such but no real tutorials it seems.

Thanks for any help

 

[izman]

buy a good sound card that is meant for studio use, dont use the one on the laptop as it wont manage. sound cards provide you busses to create headphone mixes and also to add reverb as u wish...!! hope this helps mate

 

[robgreen]

The simple way to do it is opening the volume properties with the little speaker symbol at the bottom right of your screen. Go to options, properties and 'recording' and select whichever input port you are using on your soundcard (prob either 'line in' or 'microphone'). Then go to options, properties and playback and select the general one (prob volume control or wave - I can't remember which offhand).

Plug in your mike, and it will only record the input from the port you selected and monitor via headphones to isolate the vocals. I don't know about the reverb - I'd just get used to recording them dry and applying any effects afterwards if I were you though.

Hope this makes sense

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Your best option may be to get one of those mixer-interface combos. Most other options won't allow hardware monitoring with reverb on the input source.

 

[TimOBrien]

If you're using the built-in soundcard, it's made with about 40cents worth of parts.

#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace that POS.

Audio Interfaces and Soundcards

Even a $50 usb external will be a huge advance over the built-in.