Tips and Tricks For Recording Vocals

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:23 am

RemyRAD wrote:

For those special rock and roll vocals, you might want to suggest a fifth of Jack Daniels and a pack of Chesterfield's?? It certainly helps for voiceovers to attain that "Clanging Brass Balls" sound. Perhaps copious amounts of white powder not laced with Manitol, as it can make for accidents on high notes.

Stopped up
Ms. Remy Ann David

^^^

Mine was said already.
43. I always use a min of two mics, three gives a good range comparison.

44. pre-setup and test equipment the day before in case your reverb or delay or compressor craps out.

Its nasty and very unprofessional to have someone travel to your studio just to find out your equipment crashed

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:44 pm

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

Found useful by Noob.. thank you!

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:02 am

45. I have had singers that gargle port.
46. If you use a DAW, Record the first take and use the wave image as a guide so you can ride the levels going in. Risky but worth it.

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 2:30 pm

this could be a real time saver in the future: record more than one track at a time for each source. that way you have a track that is untouched, and a track(or tracks) you can mess with post recording. Example: when you're trying to add reverb, but still want the original sound of the recording- add desired reverb effect to one track, and lower the volume slightly, while keeping the original at a louder volume than the track with reverb. I got the idea from that noobie suggestion for doubling up voices with a duplicate track with a really slight delay. I prefer to do a second take for doubling up voices, but it works great for adding FX.
Twisted Evil

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:31 pm

CrackerBrand wrote:

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

Found useful by Noob.. thank you!

Just wanted to point out that this technique was lobbied against just a few posts later. Someone else said that lowering the head for singing was actually better for reasons described in the post.

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:32 am

I wouldn't form a pour in concrete for either one.

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:56 pm

Discrete wrote:

CrackerBrand wrote:

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

Found useful by Noob.. thank you!

Just wanted to point out that this technique was lobbied against just a few posts later. Someone else said that lowering the head for singing was actually better for reasons described in the post.

And for what it's worth - both gentleman may have been smoking crack (maybe just a little.)

Tilting the head in either direction beyond a point inhibits the flow of air, however, tilting down does far worse than tilting up. In fact, if you remember back to your CPR training...we were all taught to place your hand under the dummy's neck and lift their head back a little straightening out the air passage. This still holds true. However, keep in mind that the fact that the head is on the ground is causing it to flex down a little so most of the effort is spent countering that effect.

In any case, the vocalists head should be straight forward. If in doubt, have your vocalist hold a single pitch while moving their head up and down. They and you will definitely hear the spot where it should be held.

Bringing the mic in from above has different benefits than those listed above already in that you can alter the tone of the voice by catching a more "breathy" (and also, if you're not careful, far more nasally) tone from the singer.

Bringing the mic up from the bottom of the mouth will capture a deeper, more intimate chesty (and often boxy sound).

However, both will assist in avoiding pops and other plosives as well as some sibilance.

A different idea - to capture the true nature of the voice, have the mic straight in front of the singer but only slightly off to the right or left and aimed back towards his/her mouth. This will help avoid those plosives and sibilants but at the same time encourage your vocal talent to keep their heads in the proper place.

I guess that was suggestion #47.

Cheers.
J.

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:02 pm

Of course, there's always the Lemmy way:

Iron Fist

Ace Of Spades

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:35 am

Is it just me or is everything in Mono on You Tube?

I don't think I've heard any stereo anything on there yet?

I helped to put NBC-TV Washington DC, on-air, in stereo, back in 1984. What don't people understand about stereo 20 years later??

I haven't tried posting anything yet on You Tube, so we'll soon see? One of the reasons why I haven't put any of my local rock-and-roll bands shows, even though they've asked me to come on our local cable access channel. They still don't do stereo. Even though we receive them with a stereo pilot and frequently only a single channel of audio. They can't even get mono right. Much less left.

I like stereo
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:03 pm

[quote="Discrete"]

CrackerBrand wrote:

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

Found useful by Noob.. thank you!

Yes I understand what the affect would be on the mic (capturing possibly more nasal) but forcing a singer to lift the head too much restricts him physically.
When singing I was taught to slightly lean forward into especially high notes. This helps the singer to overcome the pychological fears of hitting those higher notes. Leaning the headback creates more restriction and a unnatural feel to the muscles and creates neck tension. You see professional singers do this all the time when they lean forward into the note. Unfortunately during live performance holding a mike is always easier. Sorry just seeing this from a singers point of view. There maybe technical benefits but a singer may not like this. just my take.

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:40 am

bent wrote:

Of course, there's always the Lemmy way:

Hahaha...there's no denying the power of the mole.

Laughing

Lemmy is bad to the bone.

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:22 am

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

This noob finds it helpful

Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 12:10 pm

TrevorL wrote:

webtroy wrote:

I am not a profesional, but i've heard.

16- I've heard that mic should always be placed higher than the mouth of the vocalist, reason being... That it makes it so that singers head is facing on an upward slant, opening the vocal cords, resulting in a clearer and more efficient vocal clearity..

this is probably a "we all know this already..." .. but i thought for the noob that walks in here.. might find it useful.

This noob finds it helpful

TrevorL if you read the responses to this suggestion, you will see that this is actually a misconception.

Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:23 pm

48 - Headphone mix the key to a great take. As a vocalist, it is of the utmost importance to us when we are tracking vocals for a song, the mix in our headphones. If the headphone mix is crap, the emotional feel for song is not there and the vocalist will express this by sounding cold.

Every singer has their preferences when it comes to use of reverb in the headphones. Overuse of it will almost certainly result in pitch problems. Many vocalists (not including myself) don't mind a small amount of reverb. Singing into the Taj Mahal when tracking a jazz song is hardly the right feel if you know what I mean.

Another good point to look at is the level of bass in the headphones. If you have a vocalist with some pitching problems, try rolling off the bottom end of the track in the headphone mix and see if this corrects him/her. Many times what you get from your vocalist, is what is fed to them in their headphone mix.

A. Smile

Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:12 pm

That might be a good "48".

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