The vocals are often the mot important part of a song, so it’s important to make sure you get the best sound possible. Here’s a few tips on how to do that:
1. Make your singer comfortable
There’s only so much your equipment can do when it comes to getting a great vocal recording. The performance needs to be the best your singer can deliver, so first and foremost you need to take care of them. Make sure they’re relaxed and have been offered plenty of cups of tea. Keep checking every few takes if their voice is getting tired and make sure they have a glass of water on hand to keep their throat lubricated. A good way to give them 10 minute breaks every so often is to ask them in to the control room for a listen.
2. Use the right mic
I usually go for the best mic in the house for recording the vocals. It’s going to be a large diaphragm condenser, preferably valve powered. The best thing to do is to audition a few to see which sounds best with your singer. So set up two or three good mics, put them all next to each other in your live room or vocal booth and get your singer to sing a few lines into each. Choose whichever mic is sounding best at the time (it’s not always necessarily the most expensive one). Position the mic about 6 inches away from the mouth, and use a pop shield.
3. Choose your method
Depending on what the singer is most comfortable, I usually use the comping method when it comes to vocals. Comping involves recording several takes (4-5 typically for me) and then auditioning each line, or even word in the song from each take. You then cut out the best sounding words or phrases from each take and put them onto a new track. The result is one track with all the best bits out of the takes you have recorded. It’ll take quite a bit of editing to get everything to fade together and fit just right, but the final result should be the best take possible. One downside to this method is that as it is made up of 4 or more different takes, the final take might not sound as natural or continuous as just using one take.
Once your happy with the take and the track is complete, it’s time for mixing. I can’t stress enough how important using volume automation on your vocal tracks is. Bring down the loud parts and boost the quiet parts and you’ll get a much smoother and consistent sound. It kind of does the job of a compressor, but you have far more control over it and it does not colour the sound at all.
5. Parallel compression
There is an awful lot that can go in to mixing a good vocal track, so I’ll just talk about one tip here. I like to use a nice, smooth sounding valve compressor on the vocal track, used fairly subtly just to polish to sound and give it some valve warmth. But then to really smooth out the dynamics I use another compressor on a separate channel to pull up the lower volumes. The result is a really smooth vocal sound that can sit really nicely into a mix that has a lot of other tracks going on.
SoundShift is a professional recording studio in Potters Bar, just north of London. We offer a range of audio-related services at very reasonable prices, with friendly and highly experienced staff.
{ 0 comments… add one now }