What about this room I have?

[Frusciante_Fan]

Hi, first off I want to state that I am a "Super Newbie". I just know this is a studpid question, but here goes. I know when you mic vocals, it is best done in a booth, with the right deminsions, and so forth. But I go trough my house from time to time just singing away, and when I get to my dining room my voice pumps up, with great smooth low end, and a jingle kind of high end. This room has great acoustics! It is almost all wood, cause my house is "very old" like 60 years old. So my question is? could I just use a good condenser mic with a omni directional pic up pattern, and mic my voice in this room? And take advantage of the natural reverb? Is it always good to have a dead room to mic vocals?

 

[Seanmorse79]

While it's highly a matter of opinion, I love to record in a good sounding room. It'll be more challenging to find the right spot, mic placement, etc... but I think it would be well worth it. If you have a great sounding room readily available in your house, it'd almost be a shame not to take advantage of it (your family will want to kill you though)

 

[mixsit]

Even with a directional mic, you will get some of the room. Except for live vocal mics (like a 58) that are 'voiced' to work right up on them, on a typical flatter studio mic you would be back a few inches, to a foot or so, in which case that distance will change both the vocal tone and the balance of room ambience.

The nice thing about some 'furnished' rooms with lots of do-dads and stuff in them, can be nice diffusion of the sound. What to watch for is the flutter echo from parallel walls. (when you clap, it 'chatters') Move around in the room and find a nice 'averging' spot, maybe away from dead center.
Have fun!
Wayne

 

[Frusciante_Fan]

Kool thanks guys

Thats great I was hoping I could use the room. I went to test the flutter problem you stated, and your right! I had to place everything near the corner but not facing straight into it. Sounds pretty good, Thanks guys for the input!

 

[littledog]

Hi, first off I want to state that I am a "Super Newbie". I just know this is a studpid question, but here goes. I know when you mic vocals, it is best done in a booth, with the right deminsions, and so forth. But I go trough my house from time to time just singing away, and when I get to my dining room my voice pumps up, with great smooth low end, and a jingle kind of high end. This room has great acoustics! It is almost all wood, cause my house is "very old" like 60 years old. So my question is? could I just use a good condenser mic with a omni directional pic up pattern, and mic my voice in this room? And take advantage of the natural reverb? Is it always good to have a dead room to mic vocals?

This is a common misconception. Vocal booths are not used because they have the best acoustics for recording. They are used to isolate the vocals from other instruments or ambient noise. If you hae a good sounding room, chances are it will result in a better recording than any vocal booth you could construct.

While an omni mic may get more room sound, the vocalist will not be able to use proximity effect to any advantage, and it may not flatter the voice as much as a directional mic. As an alternative you could always record a room mic (or pair of mics) in addition to the main vocal mic if you have the extra tracks available.

 

[Showdown]

In addition:

It really depends on where you want to go with the recording. Aerosmith recorded their last album in Joe Perry's house. Because his bathroom had such great accoustics, they ended up drilling a hole in the ceiling and lowering a mic into that room for Tylers vocals!

Remember that when you utilize a room's accoustics, you are stuck with that ambiance. If it's a basic mix of accoustic instruments with the vocals, you might be OK. If it's a complicated mix, you might find the reflective sound of the room interferes with the overall mix - which might require you to scrap the vox track and record in a 'dead' room. A dead room allows you to mix in the proper amount of reverb/delay/compression/etc. without losing the basic line.

Besides the instrumentation separation issue, a lot of studios will do vox tracks in a sound booth to assure nothing but the direct vocal sound gets recorded. And with the technology to add any type of room ambiance (via analog or digital technology), they can post-produce the effect they want.