Recording vocals?

greensocks13

anyone got any tips for recording vocals? All advise appreciated

Thanks!

Zombienosh

what type of vocals, and what way? studio? rehearsal room? bedroom? what gear do you have?

greensocks13

heavyish alt rock. were using an interface to laptop and were just using what weve got, normal giging gear, mics like an sm58, we've also got a pair of condensers. Its for a decent quality demo.

Even advice on ways to go about singing for recordings would be appreciated. I'm just stuck in a bit of a vocals recording rut.

greensocks13

Bump?

Zombienosh

I'm not exactly sure what you want advice on....
There's no defined to way on how to record vocals,...it depends on so many things...

the singer
the room
the mic
the interface
the daw
the effects
the hardware
..... etc etc

stevood

Think you need to post what you have tried and what results you are getting for people to advise

otherwise one might say, get a microphone, feed the track through earphones and get the singer to sing the song. Then add what effects you require after.

DrumSteve

You could create an artificial booth so to speak to make sure no other sounds bleed in but as with the other i am unsure of what you are asking here...

Air_Bass

It's really up to you and what type of vocal sound you're after.
If you're recording on PC/mac at home you're obviously not paying a studio by the hour, so you can experiment and see what works best for you.
Assuming that you're using a decent microphone, pre-amp and interface I can only suggest really obvious things such as always using a pop shield, keep the mic away from sources of noise (that you don't want on the recording - that includes your computer fan noises etc.), maybe just record a scratch vocal along with the lads in your band and then record your main/proper vocal after the other instruments have been recorded so as you won't get 'bleed' from guitar amps and cymbals etc.
You mentioned that you've a pair of condensers - maybe try using one as your main vocal mic (ie. 6 to 12 inches away from your mouth) and the second mic placed a couple of feet away from you as an ambient mic and blend the 2 signals together for a nice "room" sound.
You can also try double-tracking or layering one vocal take on top of another to thicken up the vocal (I personally like that sound but a lot of folks don't).
Also, whilst it may sound obvious, recording a separate harmony vocal even just on key phrases or during a chorus can really improve vocals in a song.
These ideas may not work for every song you are doing but are worth trying out.
Once you've got your vocal tracks recorded you can do a lot of good stuff with plugins such as chorus, reverb, delay and distortion.
An idea I use sometimes is to duplicate the vocal track onto a new track in my recording software so I have 2 copies of the exact same track, then I apply the plugin effects to just one track and leave the other track with no effects on it. Then adjust the volumes of both tracks depending on how much of the effect I want to hear in the mix.
This works for instruments as well as vocals and it makes the effect a bit less overpowering especially for vocals where you want to have some clarity coming from the uneffected track but you still hear the effect that you've added.
Good luck and happy recording.

drumdrum

Air_Bass wrote: »

You mentioned that you've a pair of condensers - maybe try using one as your main vocal mic (ie. 6 to 12 inches away from your mouth) and the second mic placed a couple of feet away from you as an ambient mic and blend the 2 signals together for a nice "room" sound.

Some good points from Air_Bass there. +1 to what he said.

On the point of his that I'm quoting above, just be careful about the placement of the second mic and that you don't get phasing. Phasing is a pain and virtually irremovable from a track if you get it so get it right from the recording and you should be fine. Phasing kinda sounds like a plane flying overhead....sort of. There are plenty of audible examples on the net so you should be fine for a reference sound.

If you aren't sure what phasing is, google it as its a fairly straight forward process. There is a general 3:1 rule of thumb which states that the distance from the source to the first mic, should be three times that from the source to the second mic. Just play around with the mic position until you dont hear it anymore.

As for recording, well, all I will say is get a good performance captured from the singer. Its the most important thing. I would also suggest recording him/her in a deadened room so that you can add your reverbs etc later.
Then in the mix, make space for the vocals in the image. Usually (but not always!) this means panning everything away from the center (except for kick, snare and bass) and making space for the vox. A little compression to control levels is always handy as well as some nice reverb and a very quick delay effect. A fast enough delay to add texture, ie, not slow enough to sound like a quick echo.

best of luck!

Jagle

i would not try the 2 mic technique, sorry but this persons skill level doesnt seem to be that great, and none of ye mention phase, which would come into play with the 2 mic signals, and unless the room is actually a nicely treated and acoustically balanced room, but kinda silly, to record it

what you want in this instance is as little room as possible, again if the room is a less then perfect room, which i imagine it is.

there is so many ways to record and so many different viewpoints on what you should and shouldnt do.

you ask for help on ways to go about signing for recording, maybe try singing normally? again kinda hard to answer the question when you give little indication of your skill level

regards

rcaz

Jagle wrote: »

none of ye mention phase

drumdrum did.


This is my favourite kind of recording thread. I hate the ones about getting the most absolute perfect recordings ever with top notch gear in perfect rooms... I want to hear how the proper musicians get on working things out for themselves! Make sure to post your progress and some examples of how it's working out!

greensocks13

Thanks a million for all the advice, really really helpful! I'll post a mix or something when we're finished!

greensocks13

this is an attempt.... dont think its good enough to keep? opinions?

http://g00248753.com/music/mix2.mp3

Air_Bass

Leaving aside subjective opinions on musical style and purely from the perspective of the recording :
I like it.
The vocal sound is well recorded and I like the very short delay/reverb.
Totally up to yourselves - but a little bit of distortion on the main vocal might sound cool.
I like the shouty vocals a lot too.
I don't know whether it's due to conversion to MP3 but the cymbals are a litte bright (especially the ones panned to the right channel).
I like the double kick drum towards the end.
For a home-recorded song it sounds really good, nice work indeed.

drumdrum

To repeat Air_Bass, I'll leave subjective comments to one side for a sec:

Recording wise, it sounds good. The vocals are clear and understandable. IMO, they are a tiny bit too much over the mix. Maybe try turning down the vocals by 1db or so, might help, or lessen the treble on it via some clever EQing. Anyways, this is just my opinion. Its a good job you did.

Do you mind telling me how you got that guitar sound? gear, settings, how you recorded it etc? I'm not asking for a thesis on it or anything, its just its close to a tone that I have in mind for a song of mine that I've been putting off recording it until I got the right sound for it. thanks!

And to Air_Bass, the cymbals sound ok to me, are you sure its not your headphones/speakers causing them to sound too bright?

greensocks13

This is the final demo so: http://soundcloud.com/weareskyboy/shades-of-grey-1

THANKS EVERYBODY