Recording and mixing vocals and still having fun
by Pex Tufvesson aka Mahoney
The short version
Mahoney's 10 golden rules to recording vocals:
- Don't sing yourself. It's not half as fun as getting somebody else to do
it.
- Put the microphone in an "unnatural" position. Figure out where the
microphone has it's "deaf ear", it's either 120 degrees from the front or
where the cable goes out. Try to point that to the worst noisemakers in the
room. Often this is the echo from the roof, the computer and maybe traffic
noise from a window.
- Open all closets and put mattresses, pillars and unneccessary furniture
in the room. Empty rooms gives nasty echoes. Kill them with anything else
than air!
- Stand up and sing. Don't sit down, it's bad for your bones and weakens
the voice.
- Use a windshield for your microphone. Build one of women's stockings and
a clothes-hanger. This will prevent the plosives ("p", "k", "t" and "b") to
shock the microphone, and is quite annoying.
- Place the singer's mouth 15-18 cm from the microphone. If the distance is
longer, you'll hear the room. If it is shorter, you'll eat the wind-shield.
- Be home alone when recording. Maybe "do-ap-doo" is fun the first time,
but not for the 15th.
- Use 6-12 dB headroom when recording. The peak-meter should normally not
exceed -6dB during a test record. Always delete distorted recordings, never
try to "fix" them manually. It can be done, but it's no fun at all.
- Play around with this chain of effects: "Voice -> equalizer ->
compressor -> auto-tune -> de-esser -> exciter -> echo -> reverb". Play
around until you know what they all do!
- Have fun!
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The longer version...
Microphones
Cost
Today, the microphone I use costs 150-250 euros (One Shure Beta-58, and two
Rode NT3). The price doesn't really matter, because you can't hear how much
a microphone costs on a recording. My first professional recordings in 1994
were done with a 1-Euro microphone!
Placement
With a serious microphone, you'll often get a diagram showing how much of
the sound (for different frequencies) that will enter the microphone from
different angles. You'll notice that most of the sound enters from the
front, naturally. Keep the microphone pointing to the mouth, kind of
natural, eh?
But, it is not always true that the deaf angle of a microphone is to the
rear end of the microphone. For hyper-cardiod mics (like my Rode NT3), it is
a circle 120 degrees from the front, which is handy for not recording the
computer fan noise, the traffic outside and the direct echo from the roof,
while still getting the full input from the singer.
For a toy-microphone like the ones you'll get bundled with you computer, the
deaf angle is mostly where the cable comes out, 180 degrees from the front.
Keep it pointing away from your computer!
Holding the microphone
Please don't. Use whatever you can find for not holding it. When you hold
it, you'll get a lot of noise in the lower frequencies (below 100Hz). This
can be removed with an equalizer or a high-pass filter with a proper cutoff
frequency, but you'll probably also want an equalizer that boosts the
frequencies around 100-200 Hz for a male singer, and 200-300 Hz for a female
to give the voice more "presence".
Mono/stereo microphones
Record vocals with a mono microphone. Maybe I'm a bit too traditional, but I
guess that you probably don't want to record the motion of the singer's
head. If you want a panning vocal, pan it afterwards. Recording with a
stereo microphone, please only use one of the channels (the left, for
instance). If you use both the left and the right channel, panned in the
center, you can get some nasty phase-effects from small movements of the
singer.
Singing
Drugs
Alcohol does not improve your skills. Maybe it releases some tension, and
you'll have great fun while recording. 95% of your listeners will be sober
when listening, and might not understand your kind of intoxicated "genius
talents".
Distraction
All singers are nervous. You are too. All kinds of strange feelings
regarding self-esteem and self-criticism will arise. Your role is to know
how the technical part works (that you actually record something, and the
notes that shall be sung), and what feeling you'd like the singer to
express. You have to describe, as colourful as you can imagine, what you
want. Tell jokes about the song, try to sing what you'd like to hear, in
your own voice with your own limitations. Have fun.
For perfection
The perfect take doesn't exist. You'll never get one. And if you do, you'll
soon find out that you forgot to press that record button. Accept that it is
a human singing, and not a synthesizer. It is supposed to be human!
Monitoring
Use a pair of headphones for the singer. Whether it's a pair of earplugs or
larger headphones doesn't matter. I use a pair of Sennheiser closed
headphones, where outer sounds are damped about -10dB, and no sound leaks
out to the microphone. The singer should hear some kind of piano/chords, but
not the notes that he/she is singing. Instead, his/her own voice from the
microphone should be heard in the headphones. You can probably set this up
with your soundcard's settings. If you do it through your sequencer's
settings, you'll probably get some nasty delays. Round-trip delays
(=latency) above 20ms makes singing harder. Singing directly to a SID
song/sound is very hard. Better use a more natural instrument for giving the
singer reference chords, and then you can remove these in the final mix.
Effects
Equalizer
If done right: ...will give the voice a natural feeling. Brilliance and
natural bass. A sence of freedom.
If done wrong: ...will sound like recorded at home (which it is!), stomping
feet will be heard, as well as fumble-hand noise. Sharp "sss" sound will saw
through your ears.
Compressor
If done right: ...will make the loudness of the singing to flatten. Small
variations in the distance to the microphone will disappear. More details in
the singing will be heard. The singer will be close to the listener.
If done wrong: ...will give the listener confused thoughts. The singer will
sound distant, caged, imprisoned. The sound is distorted and muddy.
Auto-tune
If done right: ...will make a mediocre singer sound better. Not at the
attack part of the sounds, but for longer, held notes. Auto-tune will make a
_very good_ singer sound worse, since it isn't always the well-tempered
scale (the one's a piano is using) that is the best. A great singer knows
which notes that's supposed to be sung "brighter than the piano" and "darker
than the piano" by looking at the chords and this note's position in the
chord.
If done wrong: ...will make robots of humans. 90% of all pop/boyband/ballad
music released today is auto-tuned. I hear it, and I suffer.
De-esser
If done right: ...will lower the volume for sounds like "sss", "f", "k" and
"t", which with some singers/mixes can destroy the flow of the text.
If done wrong: ...will make the singer stutter and lisp.
Exciter
If done right: ...will add brilliance to the voice, glowing and glittering
on the right wovels.
If done wrong: ...will give you an instant headache by all the
high-frequency litter. "sss"-sounds will pierce through the mix.
Echo
If done right: ...will fill out the soundscape with the voice in a natural
way.
If done wrong: ...will sound like recorded at home (which it is!).
Reverb
If done right: ...will melt the singing and the instruments together,
placing them in the same room.
If done wrong: ...will blend all sounds together in a fluffy porridge. Don't
use reverb on drums.
Mixing
The main vocal should be in the center. It should have it's own "space" in
time and frequency. Don't play the lead both on an instrument and together
with the singing. Use equalizers to remove frequencies of other instruments
to make way for the lead vocals.
Which tools to use
It doesn't really matter. They all do the same, more or less. If you're
happy with your equipment, stay with it. If you keep trying out different
plugins/sequencers/programs all the time, the chance of you actually
finishing a project quickly vanishes. If you have a working version of a
program on you computer, don't upgrade it. Ever. The main focus is having
a working computer, a tool for your creativity. And using 100% of your time
installing and upgrading software/hardware will get you nothing but a
constant headache.
How to learn
Have fun, play around and try everything. It's easier to break the rules
when you know them.
Well, all spelling mistakes are my own, and I'm proud of them. If there's
something you'd like to add to this text above, please do! If there's
something I'd like to add to this text above, I will...
If you agree on all I've said, then you're probably wrong. There isn't the
way of doing things. There are millions. I've tried to explain some of
mine, and I'm sure you have a better one. Now that you've read this, I wish
you lots of fun in your quest of proving me wrong!
Have a noise night!
/ Pex"Mahoney" Tufvesson
;)