I'm trying to record pop/rock/acoustic vocals and am looking for a condensor mic for around 100$ or lower. Which would produce a nice clean pop sound?

All condenser mics around $100 will produce a nice, clean pop sound. In fact, they will also also produce lots of static and hissing to go along with that pop sound. If you want a good condenser mic that won't be relegated to crappy room mic status or some other "non-normal" purpose, then be prepared to drop $500+.

mannyr wrote: I need a studio quality pop/rock/acoustic vocals that are clear and crisp. Which condensor mic should I get?

And yet you want to spend less than $100. Hmmmm. Nope. Not gonna happen. Get an SM58 and call it a day.

A very good ebay price for a good condition C414 is about $550-700 just as a fer instance.

So your saying that SM58 will be better for recording then a condenser mic? Obviously thats not true, for a one under 100 dollars, okay maybe true.. but I still doubt it! I get such a stuffy quality with the sm58, wont a condenser mic fix that??

So your saying that SM58 will be better for recording then a condenser mic? Obviously thats not true, for a one under 100 dollars, okay maybe true.. but I still doubt it! I get such a stuffy quality with the sm58, wont a condenser mic fix that??

Saying you can't get a good sound with an SM58 for pop music is like saying you can't get a good sound with an American Str@t for pop music. Either something is wrong in your signal chain, or you need to work on your technique. Practice makes perfect. :D

Not getting a "clean, crisp" sound from an SM58 is, I think, the issue here. There's no excuse for that, even in a relatively hostile acoustical environment. That particular mic was BORN to be crisp and clean...It's the 7-Up of mics, for cryin' out loud!!!
What are you using as playback monitors that indicate you're laying down muddy sound? What is the acoustical environment that you are tracking said vocals in?
Don't give up on that 58, dude... 8-) Something else is goin'on here...

If your sure that I can get a near studio-quality sound (near professional sound) with the SM58 if I just mix it superbly - then alright its probably my fault.

Do professionals do that sometimes? Use SM58 for recording pop songs?

Do professionals do that sometimes? Use SM58 for recording pop songs?

No, never. This is why no-one ever mentions it or recommends it on here.

Seriously though, it or the SM57 is used for 90% of vocals, 90% of snare drums, 90% of toms and 90% of guitar amps in pro studios. Sometimes engineers will use different mics but if they're stuck, SM57 it is.

wait wait, you WERE being sarcastic when you said that professionals never used the sm58 with pop right? because its mentioned incessantly on these forums. i mean im pretty sure u were sarcastic but it'd be nicer if you could just tell me straight up!

Ever heard of Steven Tyler? Most of his Aerosmith material was recorded on a 58...
Anyway, you didn't answer my question about the other aspects (room and monitors). The mic is only part of that chain.

Totally sarcastic. My bad.

The SM5(7/8) is to a studio what walls are to houses.

moonbaby wrote: Ever heard of Steven Tyler? Most of his Aerosmith material was recorded on a 58...
Anyway, you didn't answer my question about the other aspects (room and monitors). The mic is only part of that chain.

Sorry moonbaby.

I'm recording in a basement, thats basically got uncovered concrete walls and no carpeting, but i place the mic in a nook in the basement that is comparable to a vocal booth with the door open (only smaller).

I'm using Garageband and Logic 8 and I've got a BLUE icicle preamp that goes to USB. It sounds okay, but just not up to par with what I know it could be. Clearer! Cuz you know, it sounds a little boxy.

Although I did just remix it again and I think I made it a lot better. I'm going to post it up here soon so you guys can tell me if it could sound much better with a SM58 and if im mixing it wrong.

A condenser, even a very good one, won't fix any problem you are having recording with an SM58. Once you are getting good, clear, clean, recordings with a 58, a good condenser can definitely add crispness and air to softer passages. The condenser will also bring out flaws in your vocal performance, which is why a 58 is sometimes used for aggressive vocal performances in studios that have $3000 condensers in the locker.

If you have the patience to improve your recording while you wait until you can afford a better condenser you will be better off in the long run. Chris Murphy does a good job explaining the problems with cheap condensers in [[url=http://[/URL]="http://ronansrecord…"]this video[/]="http://ronansrecord…"]this video[/]. Chris mentions one inexpensive condenser that he has had good luck with, and if you go through the archives you'll find similar recommendations. (I haven't really tried many, so I can't help you.) But, again, if you can stand it, wait until you can put out between $500-$800.

Good luck, and keep working on making better recordings with the 58.

Here's the clips, there both recorded with SM58:

http://alexschmittofficial.com/Polaroid.mp3

I'm going to go on a whim here and say that the icicle USB device isn't allowing you to get the most out of your 58. Some people may say otherwise, but I recommend saving your condenser money and picking up a nice interface. A good firewire interface with good preamps will brighten up the 58 and make your voice sound dynamic and not like you have a bag over your head. Also don't use GB when you have Logic 8.

I suspected that there was a "closet" lurking in this post...Get the mic out into a more open room. Try getting some blankets to drape around the mic as a makeshift "booth". You will find that the added "air" around the mic/singer will keep it from sounding so "boxy", and the blankets will keep the hard walls in the basement from reflecting the sound back at the mic...BTW, that's why the 58 is good in your situation, it has a tighter pattern to minimize feedback and off-axis coloration (the walls).
Give that a try...

Oh, you're a girl. I see your issue now. Are you EQing for a female? Female vocals need more air up there and less boom in the bottom. When you get loud I can hear some annoying buzzing. Maybe you are compressing or limiting too much? I can't say I've heard many nasally female singers. I really think it is an EQ issue.

Forget equipment for now. You can do much better with what you have. Your biggest problem is the acoustics of the room you are recording in. You are trying to compensate for that with eq and effects and overusing them in the process. Follow moonbaby's advice. Move out into the basement. Try without any blankets first. Just find the best spot in the basement. Usually not in the middle or close to a wall. Then try the blankets. I've never had much luck with them, but it is free to give them a try. If you are looking to use the basement as a long term recording environment you can think about bass traps. There are some inexensive DIY solutions. If you are not committed to using the basement try another room. Another floor. Another house.

NCdan wrote: Oh, you're a girl. I see your issue now. Are you EQing for a female? Female vocals need more air up there and less boom in the bottom. When you get loud I can hear some annoying buzzing. Maybe you are compressing or limiting too much? I can't say I've heard many nasally female singers. I really think it is an EQ issue.

Thanks, no I'M not a female, but I'm the sound engineer FOR a female singer. And she's amazing. Anyway - I am probably compressing way too much, your right.. so I'll stop that and I'll either rerecord with more stable volume in her voice or I'll just lower the compression and set the background music less.

I'd like to keep her EQ warm in a ballad like this so I pretty much want a neutral treble, but a slight peak in the section just before a high treble.. I mean once I increase the treble the buzzing gets worse.. but I can fix that with compression. But overall I think dialing up the treble will make the vocal less warm and more sharp.

But for a pop song I'd totally take that advice.

But I mean, cmon the mixing could of been way worse right? haha

But I mean, cmon the mixing could of been way worse right? haha

Agreed. Could be at my level :P

What about this one?

http://alexschmittofficial.com/preview.mp3

+1 on changing the interface ... nothing wrong with the 58

my $0.02 ---

Nah, Im pretty satisfied with the USB preamp, plus firewire interfaces are really expensive!

I think the problem with the buzzing is I had the gain up all the way on the preamp while she was singing loudly, should I just keep the gain lower?

I think the problem with the buzzing is I had the gain up all the way on the preamp while she was singing loudly, should I just keep the gain lower?

Either you were compressing and/or limiting too hard, or you had a nasty peak at 1, 2, or 4 KHz (somewhere around there, anyway). You need to boost the extended highs: the AIR up there: 8+ KHz. Are you boosting any of those frequencies? Don't boost high mids and treble frequencies for female vocalists, as it will usually end up nasally and nasty and still not clear. Just my two cents.

No Im boosting the appropriate high trebles (8-10k) and lowered the everything up to 20-150 and then made a slight dip down in the low mid. the EQ sounds fine and very clear, but I think the prob is that the gain was so high that it was aggrevating the sound board on my macbook, and im not sure if they have great sound cards.. i think it's Intel HD audio.. is that okay??

anyway i think going lighter on the gain wont freak out the sound card as much.. no?

ARGHHHHHHH you used an external preamp then the onboard soundcard?

Newsflash: You don't have an interface.

Also, reducing the gain will reduce the noise, and the signal - so you gain (hurr hurr) nothing.

No, no no.

The unit im using is an audio interface with a preamp inside as well, and is transmitting to USB.

Nevertheless I still think it's the soundcard, and yes it will be quieter once i reduce the gain, but theres a special software AU compressor that I use that really never distorts sound when I raise the gain once its in the computer.. is this a workaround??

Wow...so much...

Mannyr -

I think some of the implied frustration on the posts here is because a lack of understanding of some of the basic fundamentals here. That's not intended as an insult or an attack - please don't take it that way.

What you have is not an interface. It's a USB preamp. You're using your computer's soundcard - ergo, you don't have an interface.

I don't know the quality of the USB preamp you're using, but from my experience, "quality" and "USB preamp" generally don't belong in the same sentence. However, that being said, I've never worked with an SM58 that NEEDED a quality preamp.

I haven't listened to your samples and probably won't get a chance to, but the topic of too much compression came up.

Here's some of my personal guidelines (notice - NOT golden rules, just guidelines - these get me close and it's only a minor tweak or two from there) for vocal compression.

1 - Low ratios. Typically I'm at 2:1 or less for vocals (Scream-o and some rap material is a different situation)
2 - Moderate movement of needles - if you see the gain reduction meter bouncing a little during the piece, you're fine. If you see it pegged in any direction, your thresholds and ratios are off (either way too agressive or "off").

As for the room suggestions - I'd venture an educated guess that this is your primary problem. As others have already mentioned - get it out of that cubby! If your sound is boxy, it's because what you're recording in sounds boxy. Quick note - singers do not sing in vocal booths to cut tracks. Voice overs are done in vocal booths. They're intended to be as dry as humanly possible with no extra room sound (so that it can be added later). Vocals are usually cut in a good sounding room.

So much good music has been recorded with a Shure SM58. So much VERY VERY bad music has been recorded on $100 condenser mics.

Cheers!
Jeremy

Cucco wrote:
What you have is not an interface. It's a USB preamp. You're using your computer's soundcard - ergo, you don't have an interface.

Yes it is an interface. (why would a preamp have USB ports?)

mannyr wrote: No, no no.

The unit im using is an audio interface with a preamp inside as well, and is transmitting to USB.

Nevertheless I still think it's the soundcard, and yes it will be quieter once i reduce the gain, but theres a special software AU compressor that I use that really never distorts sound when I raise the gain once its in the computer.. is this a workaround??

If you are recording via an interface the problem can't be with your soundcard: you aren't using it.

IIRs wrote: [quote=mannyr]No, no no.

The unit im using is an audio interface with a preamp inside as well, and is transmitting to USB.

Nevertheless I still think it's the soundcard, and yes it will be quieter once i reduce the gain, but theres a special software AU compressor that I use that really never distorts sound when I raise the gain once its in the computer.. is this a workaround??

If you are recording via an interface the problem can't be with your soundcard: you aren't using it.

Uh duhh, whats wrong with me haha.

Well I mean she's screaming 1 inch away from the mic with the gain turned up all the way - I think that if the preamp/interface is an inexpensive one it will pull that distortion crap.. so maybe I should just try with less gain? Its not a compressor issue trust me.

Personally I thought it was a level issue. Levels too high = fizzy sounding distortion. You just need to try setting the icicle level lower if possible. I'm not sure what controls it has, but you could always boost the signal in the software you use... your converter messing up the incoming signal because you have it set too high however, is a much harder to fix problem.

Guitarfreak wrote: Personally I thought it was a level issue. Levels too high = fizzy sounding distortion. You just need to try setting the icicle level lower if possible. I'm not sure what controls it has, but you could always boost the signal in the software you use... your converter messing up the incoming signal because you have it set too high however, is a much harder to fix problem.

I'm pretty sure it's just the soundcard in the interface thats weirding out because of the fact that the one and only level you can adjust on it is the gain, and i shot it up all the way.. woops..

But I think if I just don't do that itll work fine.

No. To me, and I would venture a great deal more, an interface is a device that provides input and output from a computer. A preamp would have a USB port because a preamp has a mic input and an output. In this case, it's a digital output relayed across a serial port. Would a preamp with only an AES output no longer be a preamp?

http://www.bluemic.com/products/Icicle It's a preamp. A $59 preamp.

We're arguing about terms here, but to me a preamp is a pure analog device. The Icicle has a preamp and a D/A converter, correct? The term I'd use for that is "interface." (A very simple one.)

I share the guess that Manny is setting the gain wrong on the Icicle and you are getting a clipped signal before it hits the computer. Regardless, what you should do now is turn off all of the effects and spend a lot of time trying to get a nice clean vocal signal. While I'd agree that a better interface would make your life easier, I believe that you can do a lot (especially a lot of learning) with the tools you have.

BobRogers wrote: The Icicle has a preamp and a D/A converter, correct?.

A preamp, a D/A converter, plus the means to interface with a computer: its an interface.

A USB port is not equivalent to an AES output: as AES signal could not be input into a DAW without the use of an audio interface. The Icicle plugs directly into the DAW without needing an interface because it IS an interface.

BobRogers wrote: The Icicle has a preamp and a D/A converter, correct?

Not quite, if we are being pedantic. The Icicle has a pre-amp, A-D converter (not D-A) and a USB interface.

According to the meagre specifications, the Icicle has a clip level of -7dBu at minimum gain, which should mean that it's not possible for a dynamic mic to overload it even by screaming.

I would contend that an interface requires bilateral communications. Yes, there's a USB protocol interface built in, but it, in and of itself is not an interface. It is purely an input device.

A preamp need not be only analog. What about the AES 42 standard. It's a standard prescribing the use of digital gain for microphone level digital signals. A microphone preamp, by its definition, is a device which is used to increase the gain of an incoming signal to a usable and specified output level. There's nothing that dictates whether a preamp be purely analog and certainly nothing that dictates that it can't be digital.

If the user is using the Icicle only, then they are required to have some other device for output. The Icicle does not have line-level output, nor does it receive bilateral information from the computer. I would strictly and purely call the Icicle an input device that has a USB specification interface. Yes, it can *interface* with the computer, but it gives no way for the computer to *interface* with the user.

We are splitting hairs here playing semantic word games when it's not necessary and not helpful to the topic. The simple facts are - if the user is using the Icicle, he is also required to use some sort of output device. If he's relying on his soundcard for this capability, then he's not using an "interface" for that purpose (assuming that we define soundcard and interface differently - agreed, a soundcard *interfaces* with a computer, but the purpose of an audio interface and a soundcard are different).

If you'd like to refer to a soundcard as an interface, then that's fine - he's using 2 different interfaces. Both are, for most intents and purposes, less than ideal.

My computer keyboard is an interface, despite being only an input device.

Yes, it can *interface* with the computer

So its an interface!

The relevant point as far as the OP is concerned is that the Icicle is handling all the interfacing for the input, so his recording problems cannot be blamed on the soundcard.

Agreed - his problem is not with his soundcard and with the input device. Bear in mind, your keyboard is not known as an interface. It's known as an Input Device. That's the definition according to CompTIA.

Now - seriously, can we stop picking apart words?