Recording vocals in stereo?

cfg

cfg

Member
In casual searches of videos of even top singers recording in a studio, I don't know if I've seen one where two mics were used. Is there a reason for this? Naively, I would have thought there would be some advantage to recording vocals in in stereo, but the lack of videos showing same seems to indicate otherwise.
 
There are a couple reasons.
1. A singer is not a stereo instrument. There is no sense of space in one person's voice.
2. Singers tend to move around when they sing. Having the vocals moving in the stereo image would be distracting, especially with headphones.

Most of the time when you are recording something in stereo, you are trying to capture the space the instrument is in, or the size of an instrument. Vocals are a single point source. The only stereo content would come from the room. If you record the room, the vocal won't sound up front like it normally should.
 
cfg said:
In casual searches of videos of even top singers recording in a studio, I don't know if I've seen one where two mics were used. Is there a reason for this? Naively, I would have thought there would be some advantage to recording vocals in in stereo, but the lack of videos showing same seems to indicate otherwise.
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Lead vocals are typically a mono element right up the middle. Of course, on most recordings you have some stereo effects added. It’s pretty common to record a second take and put a doubler, a haas effect, or other stereo processing. That being said, it’s still a mono source just being duplicated and panned, delayed, etc. Multiple mono.

Another common technique is to record two takes emphasizing key phrases from the lead vocal and then panning them left and right. Same principle. Still a mono source.

I’ve seen people record with two mics before, but really only to preserve the performance with the option to choose between the two mics. You could try to use both mics, but it would not be much better than just duplicating the lead and doubling it. That can be useful for creative purposes and background stuff, but not really for lead parts that need to be up front driving the track. You also tend to get phase issues when mixing duplicates. It’s better to record a second, unique take, while still trying to perform it the same as the first take. The haas trick is one of my favorites! Try it with any stereo delay!
 
Using one mic to record vocals........I make sure to put the take on a stereo track in Reaper so I can easily use stereo effects if I want to. IMO a vocal with few other tracks.....like maybe an accoustic and one other element can be accentuated with the use fo sublte stereo effects.

Mick
 
If you use Reaper it will render in stereo or mono just by clicking the box. Try it. But for a single voice or instrument I don't see the point.
 
Some artists use multiple microphones, not for stereo, but for different frequency/coloration... in which you can then mix the two microphones together to get the sound you're looking for. i.e. maybe the condenser mic has a nicer top end where an SM7b might be for the punch, etc... but unless you're recording a choir or background vocals, the main vocal being the central point of a song is right up the middle mono.
 
I think there's a common thread now that whenever you see two mics, this is 'stereo'. Stereo has always been interchangeable with twin channel since it was invented. My dad got the first stereo he could buy and put one speaker in the living room and the other in the kitchen. The early recordings were also often totally unrealistic so we had dad's big band music with the trumpets and trombones in the kitchen and the clarinets and saxes in the living room - and when they played the do-wah-do-wah bits it was really odd and the brass bits in the living room were a phantom echo only.

It was mentioned that for many sound sources - the instrument or a voice is really a point source, and the only stereo locational information is the space it's played in. A voice or a trumpet is absolutely lacking anything in width - but a piano, or a harp or a drum kit does have width. Guitars, often recorded with two mics, have just a tiny bit of width. Slap two mics on a piano and you can have a soundstage as wide as your speakers are apart - so the width is an effect in practical terms.
 
There really are two schools of recording thought. The "capturing the natural, live performance as accurately as possible" camp...then everything else!

If you were recording a classical singer at say La Scala you would certainly use one of the several stereo microphone techniques, CO-i, spaced omnis, ORTF, Decca array the technique dictated by the producer's personal preference and/or the radio or record company doing the job. The microphones would all be quite a way back from the performer the idea being to give the listener some idea of the acoustics of the hall.

"Rock/pop" (for want of any better term) recordings are done in fairly dead acoustics or ones that are not very pleasant so you need the mic up close. You cannot put a stereo pair 300mm from a singer or as Rob has said you end up with an image speaker to speaker wide!

Remember, "stereo" does not mean "two of" it means solid.

Dave.
 
I do quite a lot of recording in churches, and while some have quite wonderful acoustics, others are not symmetrical, have odd obstructions and 'fight' your attempts at realism. Very often they are also being recorded with video - so my sort of go to technique is often a compromise. With no video, X/Y is the most likely to work, but if you cannot get the mics in the right place and do some tests, then my fallback is the X/Y pair for the space, with the singer too low compared to the ambience, and then a closer mic and blend the two afterwards. If there is video, then I use an AKG 451, with an extension tube - about 400-500mm away from the singer or soloist. A closer perspective, but not a close mic one. I used to do loads of Christmas church recordings, that went out 'as live' but were really recorded in October or November, and some of the smaller churches have terrible acoustics - so often the sources - singer with choir and organ or piano would be quite dry and then made bigger in the studio. Years ago - Yamaha made a processor (The DSP-1) which used buildings captured around the world as the modelling for the reverb. It had a remote control and no knobs on the unit. I still have it and as I lost the remote - it is stuck on 'Munster' - Munich Cathedral - which is really nice.
 
I was of course simplifying greatly Rob as your reply makes plain. People have to do the best they can in the venue they are given and naturally those recording organizations that can afford to, seek out those exceptional places that are always in demand.

How you record a particular event depends on an almost infinite list of factors. Will it be a 'one-off', how much setup time will you have, can you PUT the mics where you ideally want them? And...last but not least. Budget!

Dave.
 
what distance do you typically XY an acoustic guitar in a church?

I read in a SOS article where I think Joe Baressi (I could be wrong) mics up using XY 4 to 8, but typically more often 4 inches away from 12th fret, I have not had much luck doing this as all I get is low end and high end. It could be that it would work great for a fingerpicked arrangement but not so great for hammering out chords in a dropped tuning.

What I am shocked at, and I accidently discovered. Using an omni lavalier mic clipped to my V neck tshirt sounds bloody fantastic. I was not sure if I was being biased so I had to google and it turns out it's a legit method. One to remember for sure.
 
JamEZmusic said:
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What I am shocked at, and I accidently discovered. Using an omni lavalier mic clipped to my V neck tshirt sounds bloody fantastic. I was not sure if I was being biased so I had to google and it turns out it's a legit method. One to remember for sure.
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That's wild. I was actually wondering about that a couple days ago. I've read people saying no matter where they X/Y or otherwise place mics, it doesn't sound like what they're hearing while playing an acoustic. So that's when the thought of a lav mic on my shirt might capture something more like what was hitting my ears. Though I don't know if even a lav would pick up our upper body resonance. How much of that is part of what we hear? It's like humming.. hearing it resonate in your head and ears is nothing like a recording or monitoring via mic.
 
spantini said:
That's wild. I was actually wondering about that a couple days ago. I've read people saying no matter where they X/Y or otherwise place mics, it doesn't sound like what they're hearing while playing an acoustic. So that's when the thought of a lav mic on my shirt might capture something more like what was hitting my ears. Though I don't know if even a lav would pick up our upper body resonance. How much of that is part of what we hear? It's like humming.. hearing it resonate in your head and ears is nothing like a recording or monitoring via mic.
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It doesn't really sound like it does in my own ears, but it was a lovely balanced guitar sound that needed little to no EQ work. The Lavalier mic technique is actually used very often, and seems to be praised by a lot of people, it was certainly easier to record, I felt like I could forget I was making a recording and just play with a better performance. Normally I am thinking too much about not moving the guitar too much from the mic and overthinking about sitting as still as I can. Which seems to make me play a little bit like a robot.

The lavalier at the place I mentioned got a nice up front, maybe slightly duller recording but with a very slight bit of room for realism

Pure accident, I was just learning some new equipment and I was messing about with some wireless mics and instead of walking around my house talking to myself I just walked off into a different room with my guitar and did some noodling. When I hit playback I couldn't really believe how nice it sounded. I wanted to make sure it was not just a nicer sounding room so I went back into my normal studio space last night and did some more recordings using that technique. Still sounds awesome.

Edit, I should compare it to the over the shoulder mic technique, which admittedly doesn't sound exactly like what I hear in my head either. I think this might not just be the mic positioning, maybe the mic itself has a big role in this too. I can't remember the name of these new mics that people are raving about at the moment but they are supposed to make a guitar sound exactly the way our ears hear it. I will ask
 
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If you are recording an acoustic guitar that sounds good, and sounds even better in a space - then the mic goes where it sounds best to your ears. You cannot really specify a distance because in a cathedral - you want appropriate signal to noise - where the signal is the guitar and the space is the noise - further away and the clarity and precision drops and the 'effect' grows. Too close and it becomes dry and the image a bit unstable as the player inevitably moves. The other snag is the width an X/Y recording - the soundstage is big - suitable for an orchestra down to a string quartet size. Too far away from a guitar and it falls into the black hole dead on centre. Changing the X/Y to a slightly different angle might work - but you have to try to hear the impact it has on the stereo field. Again, X/Y and a centre closer mic can save your bacon.
 
Ahh, my bad, I thought you close mic with the XY for the driest sound possible and have other mics set up for the ambience. Thank you for explaining how you do it.

I'm a little cautious miking at too far a distance because in the mix it can be difficult to bring an instrument forward if the distance has already been printed into recording. But if it's a solo guitar and there is nothing that contrasts it I can see how it would be fun to pull the mics way back further than usual to balance the direct to ambience.

I always feel like I could be doing things way better when it comes to miking up my acoustic guitar, I am not making use of the room at all, or any adjacant rooms or hallways, and I feel like my usual recording spot is not really ideal, smack bang in the middle of the RFZ where I usually sit for mixing. Over the coming months/years I'm sure I will find my go-tos

Cheers Rob.
 
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Some instruments in some venues you can go straight for a stereo pair and nail it - but these spaces always have issues for anything other than big contracted and expensive recordings. You turn up and they won't let you put the microphone in a certain place, or won't let you move a piano, or refuse to allow cables and scores of petty restrictions - so the arrival of multitrack recording really lets you put mics out, and then blend them afterwards. I'm a great experimenter - so I might have a flown X/Y but also have a cardioid and a ribbon fig 8 on a soloist. I might even close mic a grand piano to get that clean. Some of these, when you listen just won't work - but lots of times they can rescue things. Loads of UK churches have lopsided organs. Often they have been added to over the centuries so you might find some ranks in very strange tucked away places, so a flown stereo array - my favourite hears very strange things. Occasionally, the ranks of pipes don't fit, so you find them split. Notes up to a certain point coming from one direction and the rest of the pipes elsewhere! If you get somebody singing they have to be in the middle, but suddenly the organ physically shifts to one side. The acoustics rattle at around which sort of helps it blend, but if the mics are in the wrong place, bits appear to be missing!
 
In studio settings, sometimes you'll see an engineer put two mics on top of each other (Large/small diaphragm or two large, one in card, one in fig-8) and you can have some fun with it.

Use one main mic for the verses/bridge and then add fig-8/mid-side fill from the second/third mic/track on the choruses, depending on what you feel like.

C.
 
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