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Hi guys,

first thanks a lot for the sharing of your passions.

i'll probably work on recording a "only vocals" project.
i'm wondering how to achieve a good take of the guy making drums and bass with his mouth .

this blows a lot of air and plosives onto the diaphragm,so 'I'm thinking about a dynamic.(sm7,d112,m88).

but, wouldn't it be nice to use an omni capsule as the bass response should be more flat (?)and i will get less proximity effect?(md 21 ?)

the less i struggle with low end notch eq the happier i stay :lol:

i'll need a good dynamic for other voices because till now i only have : tlm 193, sm57, sm58, beyer 201, m260

my only good preamp is an Api 512c,others are PreSonus digimax(this one is also my a/d converter with the insert returns...)

also thinking about something REALLY different from the Api,so i'll be able to extend the choices on colors.any idea ?i did like the difference between api and Vintech but never listen to other good preamps.

thanks you much for your inputs and hope everyone is enjoying nice experiences.

best regards.

Renaud Houben.Belgium.

Comments

anonymous Sat, 03/12/2005 - 21:08

renaudhouben wrote: Hi guys,

i'll probably work on recording a "only vocals" project.
i'm wondering how to achieve a good take of the guy making drums and bass with his mouth .

this blows alot of air and plosives onto the diaphragm,so 'im thinking about a dynamic.(sm7,d112,m88).

but , wouldn't it be nice to use an omni capsule as the bass response should be more flat (?)and i will get less proximity effect?(md 21 ?)

best regards.

Renaud Houben.Belgium.

Hello there,
You're correct in presuming to use a Dynamic for the purpose. The Omni (a condensor basically) does reduce the proximity effect, but is flat on the frequency response (it also picks up all the sounds equally around it!). Since you're going to record the human voice to mimic a bass instrument, you'll definitely require the lows. I don't feel you could compromise on this.
Coming to the issue of which particular mic to choose, you'll need one that would ideally provide a sequential Roll-off facility in the mic rather than at EQ which might turn out to be troublesome later. The SM7 is rather colored at the lower end and has a tendency to muddy the mix unles the artist has a good micing-technique. The RE-20 (a variable D) reduces the proximity effect and produces an excellent flat sound. But I don't suppose you'd settle for that as it would also rob you of the lows that you'd need.
The mic that I think will help is the Sennheiser MD421 II Pro (not the earlier basic 421). This venerable mic provides you with a costantly variable roll-off facility that you can effectively use to practically record anything. It is excellent for the spoken voice. Unfortunately, this mic has now come to be only known for recording toms. If you can, try this one out and I feel you'll not be dissatisfied. One could argue using the SM57 here, but it lacks the roll-off facility and has an overall reduced frequency response as compared to the MD421.