Recording vocals

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SexAnDrugS

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I know I've been buggin you guys lately with a whole lotta topics, but who else's gonna help me huh?

I have seen people recording vocals and getting a mono track..

I always thought that stereo = better quality and I'm confused a little...

Should I record vocals on a mono channel or a stereo one??


thanks in advance!
 
SexAnDrugS said:
I know I've been buggin you guys lately with a whole lotta topics, but who else's gonna help me huh?

I have seen people recording vocals and getting a mono track..

I always thought that stereo = better quality and I'm confused a little...

Should I record vocals on a mono channel or a stereo one??


thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

That's a googler...Absolute basics of recording, but not to worry.

A stereo track in a daw is useful for two main reasons.

Either
A: You're recording one source with two mics and want them to be controlled by the one fader.
or
B: You've recorded a source with one mic, and are using stereo processing effects like stereo delays / reverbs etc


Stereo track in your daw doesn't mean better quality. It just means two inputs/mics under one fader with a pan for each side.
 
I always thought that stereo = better quality and I'm confused a little...
Click to expand...
First off -- EVERYTHING is mono. Even a "stereo" track is simply to mono tracks, panned apart.

That said - Recording a mono source to a stereo track will take up twice the resources (space, RAM, DSP, etc.) and still be a mono source.

Whether something is stereo or not has no bearing on the quality.

In any case, a mix is always a series of mono sources. The mix is mono until there's a difference between "LEFT" and "RIGHT" -- That difference is what makes it "stereo."
 
Steenamaroo said:
That's a googler...Absolute basics of recording, but not to worry.

A stereo track in a daw is useful for two main reasons.

Either
A: You're recording one source with two mics and want them to be controlled by the one fader.
or
B: You've recorded a source with one mic, and are using stereo processing effects like stereo delays / reverbs etc


Stereo track in your daw doesn't mean better quality. It just means two inputs/mics under one fader with a pan for each side.
Click to expand...

but I DO want to add reverb and stuff to the recording.. still mono?? (=])
 
You set up an FX bus that is stereo for that stuff. You send the MONO vocal channel to it.
 
SexAnDrugS said:
but I DO want to add reverb and stuff to the recording.. still mono?? (=])
Click to expand...

Yeah. One mic = mono track.

Some daws will make your track stereo output with effects like that, some daws wont, but record to a mono track.
 
If I need spatial effects I use a couple of techniques. 1 Record in mono and send it a stereo group (or buss) the stereo group can have ping-pong delays or convolution reverbs etc.

2 record in mono but duplicate the track afterwards, pan one left and the other right and put a few (5-15) miliseconds delay on one of them. This will make the vocal/instrument jump out of the speakers.

3 record in mono, send to a stereo group, then use a plugin such as Wavearts Panorama to add spatial cues to the signal giving it a 3D effect (on headphones and some speakers you can place the vocal/instrument actually behind /in front / above or below your head not just left and right)

4 record in STEREO using a binaural microphone setup - two microphones placed in opposite directions, with a super/hypercardioid pattern and the distance between two ears (a head's width) apart.

Hope this helps :)

James

Hope this helps.
 
Just record in mono and apply stereo effects (if you want them) to that mono signal. It's that simple.
 
sickfiction said:
2 record in mono but duplicate the track afterwards, pan one left and the other right and put a few (5-15) miliseconds delay on one of them. This will make the vocal/instrument jump out of the speakers.
.
Click to expand...

It will jump out of the speakers as an out-of-phase mess and when you're done playing with it you'll realize that it's best just to stay mono or record a separate take.

Try it and decide for yourself, but remember that you heard it here first. Copy/double/pan/shift is pretty much always crap.
 
I look at it like this:

If the sound comes from one source, it's mono. A voice comes out of one mouth. Mono. An electric guitar comes from one speaker (sure, most cabs have multiple speakers, but each speaker is a mono source). A trumpet? Mono. Tambourine? Mono. If it's one instrument making one sound from one source, it's mono. Record it that way.

If the sound comes from a variety of sources or a large space, like drums or a piano or a choir or a symphony, record it in stereo. Two mics recording the same sound in space to get the full effect. You can record these instruments/sources in mono, but smartly placed stereo mics almost always sounds better.

If you want to use the room for a stereo effect on a mono source, you can record it in stereo. Just place the mics accordingly. Most home recordists don't have good sounding rooms though, so mono close miking a mono source and adding stereo effects later usually works better.
 
If you are using 1 mic and it is a mono mic (most mics are) then just record as a mono track. Stereo is a waste unless you are splitting the signal into 2 then wanting for some reason to record on 1 track. This would mean panning 1 signal full left and 1 signal full right thus ending up with 2 different tracks but as a stereo track.
 
i record vocals but i am comfused with what frequenices are best left infiltered i drop alot of my lows but somtime it sounds unreal do i keep any of the lows in the mix at all to help carry my voice
 
You do what's best for that particular source in the context of that particular mix.
 
treofspades said:
i record vocals but i am comfused with what frequenices are best left infiltered i drop alot of my lows but somtime it sounds unreal do i keep any of the lows in the mix at all to help carry my voice
Click to expand...
Mixing is about balance. You need to EQ the vocals so they sit right against the rest of the mix. If the backing track is doesn't have a lot of information around 200 Hz, you will probably need to thin out the vocal to get it to sound right. If the music is really thick, you might need to leave it in.

Even when I'm doing several songs by the same band for the same album, I won't necessarily EQ the vocal the same from song to song.

People saying things like "get rid of all the lows out of the vocals" is just stupid. Think about it, you might have a mic that sounds thin and might have a thin voice on top of that. Would it really make sense to dump the low end out of a vocal that sounds thin in the first place?

As with EQing anything:

1. Listen to what you have
2. imagine what you want it to be
3. use the EQ to change what you have to what you want it to be.

In other words, if the vocal seems muddy and indistinct, get rid of some of the lows and/or add some upper midrange and highs. If the vocal sounds thin and nasal, get rid of some midrange and boost some low end.

There simply isn't a "one size fits all" setting that works for everything...ever.
 
Farview said:
Mixing is about balance. You need to EQ the vocals so they sit right against the rest of the mix. If the backing track is doesn't have a lot of information around 200 Hz, you will probably need to thin out the vocal to get it to sound right. If the music is really thick, you might need to leave it in.
Click to expand...
Surely you mean the opposite? If a Mix has a lot going on at 200Hz, you may want to make cuts in the vocal at 200Hz so there is not a build up in the overall Mix. If the Mix doesn't have much at 200Hz then you could leave the 200Hz in the vocal, or even boost to get a nice thick vocal that fills that 200Hz area for the full Mix.

G
 
ecktronic said:
Surely you mean the opposite? If a Mix has a lot going on at 200Hz, you may want to make cuts in the vocal at 200Hz so there is not a build up in the overall Mix. If the Mix doesn't have much at 200Hz then you could leave the 200Hz in the vocal, or even boost to get a nice thick vocal that fills that 200Hz area for the full Mix.

G
Click to expand...
It depends on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to make the vocal as thick as the mix, then you would need to leave that stuff there. If you are trying to thin the vocal to give it its own space, then you would dump the 200Hz.

You can balance things in any number of ways, that may not have been the best example. Either way, the point is that every situation is different and there are no set rules like "high pass the vocal at 150Hz" that will work in every situation.
 
For vocals you can roll off to about 120hz They are not needed in vocals. Thats the thing there is no rules to recording but you need to know the "rules" before you break them. Most great producers roll off at least 100hz everytime
 
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