absolute beginner... trying to record vocals

[zeph]

ok, hi. i am pretty much an absolute begginer when it comes to recording. i've read tapeop enough to know that you all are quite crafty.. and recording is a very /tricky/ process, but i need something to add to my music to give it more feeling. so i am willing to bear with you if you are willing to bare with my ignorance.

ok.. i recently ordered a mxl v93m large diapraghm condensor mic along with a midiman audio buddy as a preamp. i have an m-audio audiophile 24/96 (this is a total budget setup, i have no money ;p) as a soundcard.

but what i've noticed with this mic is something just is lacking. i've tried different positions (i heard 12-24 inches is normal for vocals), different vocal attack styles but it just doesn't seem to be a very sensitive mic. i've tried it on -10db, i've tried it on 0db. i mean, it can hear things all the way across the room but it doesn't seem to capture the /true/ dynamics of the sounds.. the sound is for the most part lacking of a pristine low and high end.

should i send this thing back and invest in a better mic or do i just need to learn how to use it? and if anyone has any experience with this mic any sort of personal hands-on information would be very much appreciated.

thanks in advance,

zeph [zeph(at)seznam.cz]

[I'm Painting Again]

some times you have to try out a bunch of mics before you find the one for your voice..i dont know the mxl mics at all so i could not comment on them..

if its not sounding the way you like return it if you can..go try some others in a store if possible..

i bet if you described your voice some people in here might give you what make/model they would go to first on some one with a voice like yours..

good luck..

[rich]

so what aspect of the vocal is it missing? no mic is as sensitive as the human ear and wont be able to replicate what your ear hears. the trick is to find the mic which best acentuates the tones and timber of the source you want to be expressed. so it would help if we knew where the tone was lacking and what you were shooting for. but lets see... if your trackes are turning out to airy or thin, switch to a dynamic mic. itll pick up less just just get up on it. recently ive been going to the dynamics more and more for the vocals because the feel richer to me. but yeah.. it all depends on what your going for. try messing with the tone once youve got it recorded you can change the feel of the track with a little eqing here or there and a little compressor squashing.

[whosmatt]

well,

for what it's worth, if you have a mic that you are already familiar with, i would start with that. i don't know about that particular mic, but you may want to give the old sm57 a try, especially if you already know what it sounds like. it's easier to isolate problems when you know your gear, and if you're starting out with a bunch of variables, it can make it a much more frustrating experience.

try, try again. and i second the dynamic mic suggestion.

[WyteTyger]

Which dynamic mics (except for the 57) might work well for vocals?

[whosmatt]

sm7, re-20

[timbaier]

Yeah, there are lots of reasons why your vocals might not sound the way you want. How long have you been using this setup? Have you tried some of the "basics" of vocal recording (i.e. compression, low end rolloff, de-essing)? GIve the mic to a friend and have him/her try it out and see what they say.

[jajjguy]

zeph,
is this your first time recording vocals? is it your first time singing into a mic? maybe you know all this already, but there are a lot more things that go into a vocal track than the choice of mic.
there's some technique involved in singing into a mic, especially if you want to capture large dynamic shifts.
room acoustics also play a big part. if your room is very reflective, that could be mudying the sound. on the other hand, if your room is too dead, that could make the track sound dead.
i don't know that mic, so maybe it's terrible, but in my experience most any mic will do the job fairly well if you use it to its greatest advantage. spend time experimenting with your distance from the mic, with varying that distance for loud and soft parts ("working the mic"), the amount of gain at the preamp, the monitor volume in your headphones (makes a big difference to how you sing a track!), the room or part of the room you do it in, hanging some deadening material (such as blankets) or brightening material (such as plywood) behind or around the mic, etc.
even if it turns out that the mic sucks, you'll have learned to get the most out of it, and you'll be able to get more out of the next mic you come across.
j

[brian beattie]

If I may be so bold, you'll need a compressor to record vocals. Do you have one?
brian

[zeph]

ok thank you all for your advice. i'll try to answer this all in one post.

first off, it seems that the low and high ends have no real quality. they are muddy as best. also, i don't have a compressor. the only thing i use for compression is my vst plugins in nuendo. this is a total budget setup, and i am a complete beginner so i have /no/ experience with any other mics.

i am fairly good at music composition and production.. but i really just wanted to give my tracks some more edge and feeling. this is what i wanted to accomplish with vocals.

also, i have my mic in my bedroom. hard oak sidewalls, drywall ceiling, and carpet on the floor (i'm sure this isn't the best for recording). the room is about 30x12. i have my mic hanging from the ceiling and have tried it in a few different locations. the results don't seem to vary much. i could very easily see how this room (or any other part of my house) would not be suitable for recording... but should it /really/ make this much of a difference?

and as for my voice... it's a bit flat.. i will be the first to admit my voice isn't that interesting and i almost want to start smoking cigars to give it a bit more of a coarse sound. for a male i probably have a /slightly/ higher pitch than most. but i trying singing all over, low, medium, high, and even falsetto. all sounded pretty horrible... and i know my voice isn't that dull.

like i said, i have no previous experience recording. this is all new teritory for me. so i guess if anyone had a link to a good online tutorial on the absolute basics of recording vocals i would be interested to look at it.

thanks in advance,

zeph

[brian beattie]

compressor. a plug in compressor ought to work. try as many as you can.
brian

[Lostboy]

coming at this problem from a slightly different angle:

did you say in your original post that you are 12-24 inches from the mic when you sing? i don't know your vocal style, but you could be WAY too far away from the mic. i sing fairly quiet folk songs, but at most i'm six inches from the mic, if even that far. so here's what i would do:

1. get a "P-blocker." this is basically a net that you put in between your mouth and the mic to eliminate obnoxious "pops" from when you blow into the mic with certain sounds (like "pee" for example, put your hand in front of your mouth when you say this sound and feel the air against your palm). you can get a p-blocker for under 20 bucks at any music instrument store. putting this on your mic will allow you to get closer.

2. with the p-blocker on the mic, get you lips close to it, maybe four inches from the mic itself. pretend that you are going to try to kiss it while you sing.

3. sing a single note at the volume you will be singing throughout the whole song, and crank the mic until it distorts a bit. make sure your monitors and headphones aren't turned up very high, or you could cause your equipment some damage. as soon as you hear the mic distort, turn it down so you don't hear any more distortion when you sing. be sure to keep fairly close to the mic as you sing.

i hope this helps a bit. if your vocals are too bassy or muddy, EQ them after they are recorded to drop the low end out of the vocal track.

[endupok]

Zeph,

I am only a few months along from where you are right now. Also using Nuendo. Here are some reading materials I have found incredibly useful.

The Recording Website
This site is in disarray right now due to a redesign or something, but there are still some useful articles to read here:
http://www.recordingwebsite.com/article ... asics.html
http://www.recordingwebsite.com/article ... icles.html

Shure's Mic Techniqes for Studio Recording
A PDF with useful diagrams on how to mic everything under the sun.
http://www.shure.com/pdf/booklets/mics_ ... studio.pdf
And more stuff here:
http://www.shure.com/booklets/techpubs.html

Harmony Central
Effects Explained. The best explaination of a bunch of different audio effects I have ever read. Including compression:
http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/ ... mpression/
And other effects here:
http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/ ... ained.html

This will give you a start, but sound recording is completely subjective. Trial and error is the only way you'll ever get exactly what you like. These are good guidlines, though. Good luck!

[soundguy]

If you cant afford the most expensive compressor on earth, the last thing you want to do is put a cheap compressor, plugin or hardware, across a vocal track. You can get away with cheaper compressors on less dynamic stuff, guitars, bass, whatever, but for a vocal track, the last thng you want to do is put a cheap compressor on it, your track will be WAY better off without it. While there is nothing nicer than havig a compressor available to track vocals, the idea that you NEED one is really not the best advice. Feature films are recorded every day without limiting of any sort, and we've got actors going literally from a whisper to a scream over the course of one or two lines, and pretty mcuh every single production mixer out there is happily doing it without a limiter, and without rehearsels and without having any clue as to how the dialogue often will be delivered. The idea that you cant record a guy standing in a controlled environment at a given distance form a mic that you specify without a limiter is not very realistic, thats what faders are for, learn how to use one. The one sound that every single person who hears your music will relate to more than any other is the human voice as ever nonmusician on earth hears this sound daily. They dont hear it with the nasty coloration of cheap limiting, and that sound will be among the first things to turn your listener off to the vocal right out of the gate. Plus, if you dot know how to use a compressor, while it may make the job easier, if you dont know how to use it, now you have to learn how to track vocals and how to use this other tool at once and by trying to make your life easier, you just complicated it. Its not only possible but often very easy to record vocals without limiting. IT will sound different, but if you are starting out, its in yor better interest to figure it out with the easiest signal chain possible.

As for your choice of mics, what mic sounds amazing on one person sounds like dog on another, so all that is very subjective on a personal basis. dont follow rules like, the singer should be X inches away or the mic should be at X angle to the vocalist. Set up your mic, stick your singer infront of it and just have the person count to ten and direct him/her to move all aroud the mic, left right, up and down, until you hear the spot where that specific voice sounds best on whatever microphone you've chosen to test. Once you find the spot which you think sounds the best, either instruct the singer to perform from that position, or note the relationship between the mouth and the mic and arrange the mic in a position that keeps the same angle and distance but puts the vocalist in a comfortable position to do his/her job most efficiently. For example, if the mic sounds best with the singer singing up into the mic at a 60 degree angle, you dont want your singer to have to crouch down below the mic to perform, so you'll note the relationship and move the mic above his/her head, etc... Thats your starting point, next you have to find an average gain setting for the input so the singer never overloads your input, and then the rest is this thing called mixing where your finger anticipates the performance making sure you get the rigt level on the hard drive. If you dont have a fader, you can ride the gain knob on the mic pre with some success.

dont get discouraged if you cant record the best sounding vocal right out of the gate, tracking vocals is one of the finer arts when it comes to recording and you can spend years, or a lifetime working out the best way to approach the task. Thats my advice on one way, theres many others.

good luck!!

dave

[logancircle]

I have to respectfully disagree with the previous reply: with this type of recording gear and budget, you can make good vocal tracks with computer compressors, probably better than with a ghetto outboard compressor, but you have to have a singer who knows how to mic-sing and not just room-sing. Try the VintageWarmer plugin or just a limiter and crank the gain till it's just below clipping. Dial the ratio and threshold till it sounds good but overboard, then ratchet it back till it's subtle. you can make an SM57 or 58 sound real nice with a pre. And sing in the closet, dude! No more nast reflections cluttering up your compressed signal. Good luck