recording vocals

[funwith151]

Right now I have been using a nady or peavey mic into a tascam interface into cubase to record my band, and it sounds halfway decent but now that we're trying to record vocals its not working out as well.

The voice seems way to close (like the guitars, bass, and drums are as loud but they sound like they are playing bout 30 feet away or so...but with the vocals it seems like our singer is singing right into your ear)

any suggestions on how to fix this? (do we need a mic preamp, a popscreen...actualy plugins)

thanks

[Moo]

Try some reverb on the voice, or on the instruments.

[thefobia]

Originally posted by funwith151
Right now I have been using a nady or peavey mic into a tascam interface into cubase to record my band, and it sounds halfway decent but now that we're trying to record vocals its not working out as well.

The voice seems way to close (like the guitars, bass, and drums are as loud but they sound like they are playing bout 30 feet away or so...but with the vocals it seems like our singer is singing right into your ear)

any suggestions on how to fix this? (do we need a mic preamp, a popscreen...actualy plugins)

thanks

That sounds like the proximity effect. Thats what happens when you sing too close to the mic. The bass frequencies kind of saturate.

This is how I do it:

The best thing to do is set up a pop shield (or a thin sock put over a roll of gaffa tape) to eliminte pop on plosives directly infront of the singer's mouth and 8 inches infront of the mic. This will ensure he never gets too close to the mic and induce the proximity effect as there will always be that 8 inch gap between the singer and the mic.

Cool so far, but this can cause a couple of problems.

1. You will get bleed from other instument in the mic if the take is live, so always overdub vocals onto a complete instrumental track and foldback in the headphones ONLY. Not your monitors!

2. Most dynamic mic's are not designed to pick up sound from very far away, so you might have problems with the level of the recorded track. This is why nearly every studio uses condeser mic's. They can easily pick up sound from much futher distance than a dynamic. This won't be a huge problem if you have a loud singer or you boost up the singal, although this can cause background noise. I recorded a demo with fairly decent vocals using this method.

A trick to thicken up vocals and make them more alive:

Double the vocals. I mean get the singer to do the track TWICE. Make him do it EXACTLY as he did the first time around. Pay attention to the end of vocal phrases. Keep it tight. Pan these both very slightly off centre and you get thick, rich results. Just pasting the exact same take onto anther track WILL NOT WORK. It has to be two seperate performances. EQ the vocals so that there is a boost at around 5Khz.
Add a tiny bit of VERY short delay or very subtle medium reverb. The idea is to make the vocals sound more real rather than your studio is in a cathedral/bathroom.
Its a good idea to gate the vocals, so that they are muted when the vocalist isn't singing, but do not gate the reverb.

For the rest of the track:

Guitars: do some EQing and panning. Take out the really low rumble of the guitars. This will mud up the track. Remember. The guitar is a mid frequency instrument. USE THE MIDS! Boost slightly at 800hz or slightly above for guitars.
Panning of guitars: The closer an instrument is to being panned hard Left or Right the more in-your-face it sounds. Careful though make sure the L&R of the track sounds balanced. If you put all the guitar hard left for example it will sound lopsided in the mix. This is why I like to double-track (like you did with the vocals) all the guitar parts and pan them mirror image Left and Right. For example if you pan one guitar 80% left, pan its counter-part 80% right...and so on...
A little bit of EQing to bring out the treble frequencies here will make them sound closer.

Bass: Make sure 'rumble' from other instruments (guitars, snare, vocals) doesn't stamp all over the bass guitar's sonic territory. Maybe boost the lows/low mids SLIGHTLY to make it a bit bigger sounding. Boost around 6Khz SLIGHTLY to bring out the clunk of a bass guitars. Pan this centre.

Drums:

Bass drum: Shares a similar frequency band to the bass guitar. Be careful that the bass drum and the bass guitar are tight enough. If not, the low end of the track will sound confused and muddy. It's a good idea to gate the bass drum if the bass guitar and the drums were done at the same time. This will help with definition of the bass drum. If you gate. Add a REALLY short reverb, so that the bass drum decays naturally.

Snare: Deepness is in the mids/lowmids, crack is in the high mids, and snap (from the actual snares underneath the drum) *should* have been mic'd seperately, so you can mix it into the snare sound seperately. Maybe add a bit of compression/limitation to stop it jumping in too loud at certain points. The snare sound is more of a personal thing IMO. Get it so it sounds nice to you. I pan this SLIGHTLY to the left. And I mean SLIGHTLY.

Cymbals: Mix them lower than you would think. The apparant volume from them comes from frequency. If you need them to be louder in the mix, try EQing them (boost highs slightly) before reaching for the volume control. If you have a stereo pair of overheads, pan these hard left at right.

Hi-hat: EQ them similar to how you would the cymbals, but pan it to the right 45%. Put the a TINY bit higher in the mix than the cymbals.

Toms: I gate these due to the fact that most (cr@ppy) toms detune horribly after the intial hit. I set the gate so you get the attack and 'note' of the tom but leave the detuned mess out of the mix. I mix in some reverb, so they sound like they decay naturally. The attack on the toms is around the same frequency as the attack on the snare. Try to offset this slightly so they don't mess with the snare. Add low mids sparingly. Most of these frequencies will be full of bass drum/bass guitar.

I hope that helps you anyway.:)

[guitarose]

Dude. Thanks!

I'm soon to get into recording, and that has helped a lot.

[veer chasm]

Try quarter note delay to a doubled lead vocal and pan slightly. Pitch shifting a few cents off of center will help create a chorus spread and make the voice sit in the mix better. Also make sure you're using compression and limiting to even out the vocal. What style of music are you doing? I personally do not like artificial reverb on vocals, it makes them sound too distant and will probably bury the vocals in the mix.

[haujobb]

About the bass and kick: Don't be afraid to pull out some bass under 100Hz, it may sound a bit thin when solo'ed but it can be the difference between a muddy or tight mix.