Recording Beat Boxer - Difficult - Any Ideas?

[mrbowes]

A fellow friend of mine is in a local hip hop band and wants to start recording some tracks of his own. He's mainly a beat boxer, and to be honest, I've never recorded anything like it.

He likes to use by Beta 58 mic so that he can hold it right up on his mouth. The problem is that it's really hard to get a good sound. There's just sooo much clipping involved that there doesn't seem any way to tame it without smashing the signal entirely.

My chain is beta58 -> a-designs mp2 -> dbx242 eq -> rumour (bypass) -> RNC

The only way I got a usable tone was by engaging the EQ and boosting the lows/low-mids and cutting the highs. However, the sound was not ideal....the main thing missing is his low end bass hits, which are very audible and clear in person, but when recorded, turn to poop (i.e. they don't sound fat and warm, but instead, small and poopy).

I've thought of maybe tryign to record him through a PA type system, since he's usually able to get a decent tone live, but that's definitely not the ideal situation.

Anyone with any experience in this matter - please lend me your knowledge.

thanks~

 

[guitarboi89]

im not sure but im guessing a beatboxer would sound better through an instrument mic like a sm57, so if u have one give that a go.

 

[Kryptik]

About half way through the post, I was going to recommend micing his live setup.

Also reamping the beats through a bass cab would bring out the low end bass hits. If he sounds good in person, try a condenser to get a recording that is closer to what you are hearing in person. But, try the bass cab thing first if you can, you'll probably have more impact going to disk/tape/whatever.

Also bypass the RNC, if that improves things the problems are with the compresser settings.

 

[mrbowes]

thanks for the replies.

next time i'm going to try an sm57. i'll also try reamping through my fender bassman and see if that adds some balls to the sound.

alternative techniques welcome...

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

Sennheiser e602 is a good mic for beat boxing.