Recording a megaphone

[HeadCrusher]

I'm going to record a band in the next few weeks and the singer uses a megaphone on some parts of one of the songs we're gonna record. I'm curios if I should just record it the way they use it live (right in front of the mic) or if I should record normal vocals and use a plug-in (which one?? :zombie later?
Any help (as always ) greatly appreciated.

 

[kev]

How about recording the normal vocals, then get an EQ curve of a megaphone to smack over it?

 

[Razorjack]

You could record the megaphone if you want but I think you will get better results recording the vox normally and EQ'ing later.

 

[JBroll]

You'll have more control if you record normally at first - EQ will be much more controllable, and you can always 'reamp' through a megaphone if the singer hates it.

Set a nasty high-pass, peak the highs, compress, mild clipping - in this order you should be in the ballpark, at least.

Jeff

 

[elmuchoescadawg]

Why emulate it when you can record the real thing? Stick a 57 about a foot away from it and see how you get on.

 

[JBroll]

Why emulate it when you can record the real thing? Stick a 57 about a foot away from it and see how you get on.

Variations in position can change a lot, and surprisingly it's very hard to actually carry this out in practice.

What's more, he can very easily just feed what he records right back out and through the megaphone, so if it doesn't work out he isn't doing take after take because megaphone positioning is fucked or he can't stand still or the levels get too high or anything like that. Finally, recording the megaphone likely won't even sound much like a megaphone on tape - they may decide that putting the original track through the chain like one I described actually sounds more like a megaphone because you don't have the benefits of perceived loudness as you do in real life. Trust me, there are reasons why we try other things first, and this is one of those situations where we have very little to lose by using as few effects as possible before hitting tape.

Jeff

 

[HeadCrusher]

Yeah, I had the idea that it might not be good to record the megaphone.

But if I "reamp": How am I gonna feed the Megaphone then? Voice coming out of the monitors into the megaphone or how?

 

[Skaldir]

Isn't there a Megaphone impulse response?

 

[JBroll]

You could use monitor->megaphone mic->megaphone or you could use an external in if the megaphone has one - you're trying to mimic the megaphone's frequency response and clipping, the mic isn't of quite as much importance considering the nature of the amplification circuit and the speaker. I'd suspect that, based on my experience with them, worrying about microphones on a megaphone is like standing in the deli section trying to pick the best-looking cut even though you know little Billy will only want it burnt to a crisp and salted over anyway, so you could ext-in or mic your monitor and still get what you're going for.

Jeff

 

[Nebulous]

Do a track witht the megaphone and one without. see which one comes out best, use it.

 

[NickL]

record the megaphone with nothing going in so you get some random feedback noises, record a plain vocal, eq the vocal, then blend the two together

 

[HeadCrusher]

I guess I'll record three tracks:
1 vocals
1 vocals + megaphone
1 megaphone only (like said in the post before)
Use what sounds best (as always ). I'm just a little afraid he won't be able to do the vocals on which he normally uses the megaphone without using it because he doesn't hear his voice like he's used to...