Upgrading from stock interface pre's and cheap mic for vocals

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P_Recudor

New member
Hey, it's my very first post!

Been reading this forum for some time, and put together a basic home recording studio. Now it's time to take it up a notch.

This is purely for male vocals. Currently, all I have is an AT2020 directly into an RME UFX. (+pop filter) and into a DAW.

Room is large-ish, low ceiling (basement), but decently treated with absorption. I've also built some moveable absorber panels to make a somewhat isolated area for recording vocals.

I have read and watched tons of tutorials about EQ'ing, compressing, reverb, etc. and have spent quite some time practicing optimizing my vocal chain. This has made massive improvement to the tone from my very first raw recordings.

But I'm still not entirely happy with the tone of my vocals. With my best efforts on the vocal chain, I find it raspish, coarse. Each vibration of the vocal chords sounds like a slap. I can somewhat EQ this out, but not to my satisfaction, and I usually end up coming dangerously close to making the sound too thin.

I bet the first most important factor is to improve my own singing method - I'm an amateur. Working on the voice instrument is at the top of the to-do list.

But I thought I'd ask this forum - what else I might do. For example, which is most likely to provide improvement at this stage - a better mic and maybe a good mic preamp, or better vocal chain plugins, or just more experience wielding the ones I've got.

Hard to know my exact situation, I know - but, in general. Thanks.
 
Most modern interface pres are actually pretty damn good. Clean, flat, reasonably quiet. RME is pretty well respected from what I've seen. Swapping out the preamp is unlikely to do anything unless you really think you need something other than clean and flat. If that's the case, I'd look at the mic first, and then plugins since they're a lot cheaper than a new preamp and you get a lot more control over what kind of character and color you are adding.

The AT2020 is a well-reviewed mic, and people seem to like it, but it might just not be right for your particular face and the noises that come out of it. Switching it for something else is going to give you a lot more change in overall tone than swapping pres ever really could.
 
I just want to add that no one likes the sound of their own voice at first. It takes a long time to acclimate to hearing yourself from an outside source.

Keep that in mind as you're evaluating your signal chain. Your gear might be perfectly fine, but you'll never get your vocals to sound through a speaker like you hear it in your head.
 
An RME UFX is a good mic preamp.

The mic, probably not the same calibre but it works for some people - you may or may not be one of them - but before you go splashing out on anything you should post a sample so our team of committed experts can assess your sound and see what they think might help.

It may not be as bad as you think:thumbs up:

Don't worry, we've all been there...
 
Yeah, what they ^^^ said. No one likes their recorded voice at first (except for the deep narcissists). The trick is work with it , figure out what fx help the tone in relation to your music (what works for metal doesn't work for folk, for example).
 
Thanks everyone for those helpful and encouraging replies.

Much appreciated is that there wasn't a chorus of "you need to spend $$$$ on equipment".

OK, I'll give it some more time working with EQ, compression and other fx and see if I get to like it. Maybe I'll audition a couple of microphones. And I'll get serious about singing exercises. Then I may subject this board to the result.

Thanks again.

OK - so for the mic - when someone says "I find my voice more bright and harsh than I'd like with an AT2020", what would he typically try as an alternative? Say, under $750.
 
Eh, i believe (and someone here told me this a long time ago) that you consider "improvement" by the farthest from the end link. So, for vocals, start with your own voice. I got subjectively good results with a $79 Sterling ST51. I only recently upgraded it to the AT4040 (which, by the way, is much darker and less bright - something you might be looking for, you said?)

I'd like to hear a clip of what you have now, if you care to post it sometime.
 
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