Mission: Impossible ... Can it be done?

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FURAX Eric

New member
Hey everyone. I've been reading this board for a little while now, and I finally decided to register to become part of this wonderful never-ending discussion that is music. =)

Recently, my band and I have started recording our demo. We layed down the drums and the bass, both of which sound nice, and now we're ready to move on to guitar/vocals. There is only one problem, we ran out of money. We don't really have the money to buy a condenser or two, and I was wondering if we could settle for the equipment we have (which is listed below).

Microphones in possession:

3 Shure SM57's
1 Shure Beta52
1 Shure SM58

Guitar Equipment:

ESP-LTD M-252
Fender Stage 160 (160watts)

Various vocal equipment:

Digitech Vocal 300

Software:

Soundforge 6.0
ACID Pro
DSP F/X

Ghetto rigged, any which set up, there's no deadline of time, so we're willing to try everything. It has occurred to me that people on this forum know their shit, so I wanted to ask for your advice in hopes of some useful pointers, etc.

We are a metal band, so that'd pretty much give you an idea of the sound we are shooting for. We'd like the guitars to be thick, powerful, and crisp, and the vocals are along the lines of Pantera, Slipknot, Pro-Pain, etc.

I might be considering renting a condenser microphone for the vocals, but only if there's a die-hard recommendation for me. I have used the SM58 w/ the Digitech Vocal 300 and some post-editing in Sound Forge, and I got that to sound pretty good.

For the most part, however, we'd like to find a way to utilize the stuff we spent a lot of money on, rather than going out and spending more. Is there a good way to do at least one of these? Let me know, please. Thanks. =)

-Eric
 
If its metal you want the 58 is a good choice of mic for vocals, Early LZ songs were done on one. and on guitars just mike the speaker off axis and use another on distance for fat guitars.

you could do worse.
 
Interesting, but do you think there's anyway I could use the Beta52 lightly in order to add some subtle thick tones? I was hearing some things about miking the open back side of the guitar too? Any ideas?
 
no no, he already has the mics he listed.

no harm in trying it, just be sure to reverse the phase of the one pointed at the back. since your amp is a fender it's probably got an open back, which isnt all that great for metal tones, i believe. As such, micing the back might help you out. try your beta with a 57 and if that doesnt sound good use two 57s.

hah, 69th post =P
 
with out condensers you won't get any high end. But as you already recorded drums I would use the SM57 on guitars and the 58 on vocals. You won't need any more low end as the 57's make pretty good kick mics too expecially for deathmetal. So if you find you need a lot more punch in the kick resample it with the SM57. Another thing to keep in mind is tha I've found the 58 to be around 10db softer than the 57 so you might get some noise from your equipment ifyou use the 58.
 
Cool. Well for future reference, is there a condenser that's good for metal vocalists I should save up for? I wonder if there's a way to find out what equipment was used to record a certain album of a certain artist.

A question as well about the techniques of overdubbing. When overdubs come into play in certain parts, do people use volume envelopes on to lower main vocal track to make the mix even? Or do people just generally leave the main mix at a certain volume and just keep the overdub low to prevent it from overpowering the other stuff?

Also about panning the vocals. For the "normal" vocal stuff, should I keep it on an even 50-50 balance for both speakers? Or should I make one side more dominant than the other with vocal volume?

Finally, =) .... When I do overdubs, should I pan them separately from the main vocal mix? (I.E. have the main mix on 75% left - 25% right, and have the overdub mix on 25% left - 75% right) ??

There's not going to be a constant overdub, I just would like to throw a couple in the songs to spice it up and add some depth. Let me know if I even made sense, or if there's a FAQ about this somewhere that will answer my questions. =)

P.S. - For the guitar, I think we're going to try out the SM57 on the back, Beta52 about 3 feet away, and an SM57 at the grill.
 
Cool. Well for future reference, is there a condenser that's good for metal vocalists I should save up for?

Hmmm. In my opinion, no, because I don't particularly like condenser mics on rougher or edgy vocals, but that's just me. :D

Other than that, you have to realize that mics generally don't work that way. There aren't specific mics that work well for a particular type of music.

There are mics that work better for specific voices, and the only way to know what that is, you have to have the singer test a bunch of 'em out.

Let's also suppose you found out that a particular singer got the sound you were looking for on microphone X. So you rush out and spend megabucks on mic X, only to find that it sounds like ass on your singer's voice. It's a very distinct possibility, unless of course your singer's voice is an exact match for that singer's voice. Even then, it's iffy.

When overdubs come into play in certain parts, do people use volume envelopes on to lower main vocal track to make the mix even?

Yes, sometimes.

Or do people just generally leave the main mix at a certain volume and just keep the overdub low to prevent it from overpowering the other stuff?

That too. Or they may combine the main and back vocals to one set of tracks and compress them together (as in a bus).

For the "normal" vocal stuff, should I keep it on an even 50-50 balance for both speakers?

Yea. That's what you call "center" panning. Usually vox are center-panned, but they don't absolutely have to be.

When I do overdubs, should I pan them separately from the main vocal mix?

If it sounds good that way, then yes.

P.S. - For the guitar, I think we're going to try out the SM57 on the back, Beta52 about 3 feet away, and an SM57 at the grill.

That sounds a little strange (and maybe a bit excessive), but hey, whatever works for you I guess. You might try just moving one 57 around untill you find the spot where it sounds the best. :D Good luck.
 
Whoa, thanks for the advice dude. I dunno, I was throwing out vocalists that have similiar quality to ours.

About the bus thing, I'm not sure how well I'd be able to do that considering we're using Acid Pro to track it. The only way I know to combine wav files is to have the ones you want to combine unmuted and then save it as a wav file. On the down side, it won't throw a timestamp on there, so I'd have to go in and manually place the new wav file, which could end up being very difficult.

So I guess I could just try the other methods first and see how that will work out.

I know that way sounds a little too unecessary, but I just want to try it and see if it sounds good. We've messed around with the SM57 on the amp before, and it came out sounding kind of flat, but that could just be an EQ issue. We'll spend some more time getting it to sound more full. Are there any post-effects or programs you'd recommend to get the "full" sound of the guitar kickin'?
 
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