The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

I never paid much attention to recording vocals until recently. I mean, I've had condenser mics, and things like the Antares AVP-1, TC Helicon VoiceWorks, Digitech Vocalist Live 4... a host of mic's. I can say that I've wasted thousands trying to record vocals.

Last week, I started looking at this seriously and learned a couple things.

1) Dynamic Mics - you can record with them, however, there are a few caveat's.
* Singing on/off access on a cardiod pattern really makes a difference. You can add compression to pull the off axis vocals up, but that takes a TON of time.
* 3 band EQ will not suffice. 32 band EQ or Parametric EQ will be needed in order to have your vocals sit properly.

2) Condenser Mics - you can record with them, however, frustrations abound.
* Once you add phantom power properly, you can hear EVERYTHING, the TV in another room. Cars driving by outside. Breathing.
* There is less mucking around with EQ.
* Understanding the patterns and which to use when involves some understanding.

Based upon this forum, we don't have a lot of collective knowledge on recording vocals, but lets spend some time trying to figure it out! I'm up for a discussion...

Acoustic

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Could you show that to me again... slower?

I've recorded pretty much all my vocals the same way, with the only LDC I have (AT3035).

I, too, have picked up pretty much eveything in terms of background noise with this thing. In addition, I tend to punch in and out manually while recording vocals - hit play and then hit record when the part I'm going to sing comes up, then hit stop. Some of the key clicks get recorded as well. I've found that most of these noises are so quiet compared to the vocals that it's pretty easy to set up a noise gate that silences everything between lines without affecting the vocals.

The downside of this is that the G only allows one "dynamics" function at a time, so if I also want to compress the vocals at mixdown it becomes a two step process - bounce the vocals with a noise gate first to create the clean track to be used for mixing.

The biggest challenge for me, when it comes to recording vocals is that I don't sing well. So, I spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to overcome that....using technical methods. Even then, the results aren't great.

On the other hand, I have recorded singers with good voices.

Suddenly, the task becomes so much easier.

As for background noise etc, when using a condenser mic. Yep, I get that as well. Most of the time, I don't worry about it....as it tends to get lost in the mix. When it doesn't, I'll clean the tracks up a bit using the usual methods.

I wish I was a good singer. The fact that I'm not has always held me back musically, in the sense that I'm relegated to being a sideman because of it. If I was a better singer, I would have enjoyed being more 'front and centre' in a band sense, or even able to work as a solo act. That would have been fun.

Not to mention more CHICKS!

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Ralph (aka The Head Hog)
"What's Time to a Hog?"
Hog Time Music Website - My Songs on Soundclick -

Yeah but then you'd have to call the authorities to keep them off of you . . .

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GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

Ha Ha Ha! You and I should share a boat someday utah.

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Byron