Recording screaming vocals, HELP!

[DjentyTard]

Hi guys, I have been practice harsh vocal (I'm doing fry scream, I used to do false chord but it starts to **** up my voice) for 2 years already but I'm still a newbie on recording. I have a Shure PG58 and M-audio fast track USB, but when I scream into the microphone and record it through M-audio interface, it sounds like crap. The microphone seems cannot catch my fry distorting sound but only the crack sound, so the result of recording through these equipments sounds not distorted at all but like gurgling. Then I tried to record my scream by my iPad and phone, it sounds really good.

Here is my vocal cover video (I turned on the compression tab in the software) :


Any advices about how to record screams please, thanks

 

[guitarguru777]

Get a real mic.....

Get a SM7B and live life happy

 

[DjentyTard]

alright...time to save some money again

 

[guitarguru777]

Work on your timing as well, thats a BIG part of it too. Live something like a 58 is fine, but in the studio you need something you can really "get up on" and sing.

 

[Studdy]

PG series are not the greatest, but if you can't get a decent vocal sound with an sm57 or sm58 the sm7b wont change your life. I love my sm7b dont get wrong. But to say its night and day from the sm58 and that its the problem, i doubt it. Plus sm7b really relies on having a lot of decent gain, which most prosumer preamps dont have. On the cheap, try a at2020, i wasnt a fan of the noise floor of the mic but it seems to sit just nice in the mix, and it needs very little gain. But i do track 90% of my vocals on sm7b.

 

[guitarguru777]

Also good advice, I am just a buy it ONCE kind of guy. Why by cheaper mics which over time will just wind up costing you more money. Get the professional tools so you can rule that factor out and you will know if its your technique or not.

 

[AntonioPetrole]

SM7b needs buttloads of gain, which isn't something I could imagine your interface will put out without a high noise floor. Get a SM58 and you'll be fine. Your vocal performance is going to be 80% of the sound that comes into your interface and DAW, not your mic (although obviously yes, the mic matters). A better mic isn't going to make you a better vocalist. With that being said, as far as fitting in the mix, the SM7b is killer for most vocalists (I've had a few where they just don't sound right on it) and makes mixing it 10 times versatile. I feel like I can slam a vocalist through an SM7b with 30db gain reduction and it still sounds somewhat natural. I use my SM7b with my ISA One preamp, which has tons of clean gain.

Keep practicing man! You'll get to where you want to be with it, don't worry about the small details. Also, I have a PG58 from when i was young, it's the worst haha. Get a pop filter to

Edit: Also, your ipad and phone most likely degrade and compress the signal, so it's going to sound great because you can't hear the finer details. Take any mix you've ever done that you think is bad, record it playing with your phone and listen back, it will sound 10 times better because of that reason

 

[DjentyTard]

SM7b needs buttloads of gain, which isn't something I could imagine your interface will put out without a high noise floor. Get a SM58 and you'll be fine. Your vocal performance is going to be 80% of the sound that comes into your interface and DAW, not your mic (although obviously yes, the mic matters). A better mic isn't going to make you a better vocalist. With that being said, as far as fitting in the mix, the SM7b is killer for most vocalists (I've had a few where they just don't sound right on it) and makes mixing it 10 times versatile. I feel like I can slam a vocalist through an SM7b with 30db gain reduction and it still sounds somewhat natural. I use my SM7b with my ISA One preamp, which has tons of clean gain.

Keep practicing man! You'll get to where you want to be with it, don't worry about the small details. Also, I have a PG58 from when i was young, it's the worst haha. Get a pop filter to

Edit: Also, your ipad and phone most likely degrade and compress the signal, so it's going to sound great because you can't hear the finer details. Take any mix you've ever done that you think is bad, record it playing with your phone and listen back, it will sound 10 times better because of that reason

yeah man, the iPad won't record the finer details and with its natural compression, reverb, it made my screams sound better. I'll work on my vocal and saving money for a new mic at the same time. Do you think PG58 for a live mic is fine? because the sound come out from big ass Amps so I don't think there will be any crackling sound.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

Whisper screams suck. That's probably why it sounds like shit.

 

[DjentyTard]

Also good advice, I am just a buy it ONCE kind of guy. Why by cheaper mics which over time will just wind up costing you more money. Get the professional tools so you can rule that factor out and you will know if its your technique or not.

yeah, i was completely an idiot for getting the mic that I don't want. because i was thinking one and a half year ago, i was still a noob of screaming so I think a normal mic will work just fine but after practices, when I finally can do some actual screams the mic start to mess with me (or other cheap tools).

 

[DjentyTard]

Whisper screams suck. That's probably why it sounds like shit.

What are you talking about? Did you mean power fry is whisper?

 

[Terminus]

Ok so for a while now i've heard about this 'fry' thing, so is that just another way of saying high pitched (as in say, most black metal vocals)? All I know is high or low in terms of metal vocals.

 

[DjentyTard]

Ok so for a while now i've heard about this 'fry' thing, so is that just another way of saying high pitched (as in say, most black metal vocals)? All I know is high or low in terms of metal vocals.

Fry is a vocal technique, not a pitch, black metal is using fry but they made the throat extremely tense so the pitch can go really high. Fry doesn't only include high pitch, you can do mids and low with fry but the low (growl) doesn't sound as good as false chord. However, fry can offer decent high pitch scream so yeah. If you add your own voice into fry and push really hard it's called power fry.

 

[Terminus]

Even with that description I'm still clueless. Good thing I'm not really a vocalist.

 

[DjentyTard]

haha I'n not really good at explain these stuff either mate

 

[theNeologist]

I use the SM7b and love the mic for both cleans and screams...but it still took some adjusting to know the mic and more importantly, how I sound with the mic. Like someone said..a better mic doesn't make you a better vocalist....it just captures your performance better (or differently). So maybe a better mic will capture more of the fry sound as opposed to the gargling sound...I don't know. I don't entirely know the sound you're going for to know where the problem lies. Maybe try squashing the shit out of the vocals with a heavy compression to see if that will change the dynamics of the vocal to make the fry more prominent. Or find the frequency that enhances the gargle sound and cut it with some eq to let the fry come through. It's really so hard to say without hearing you in person vs recorded.

 

[Spectivum]

Fry is the economic scream you can do it longer and articulation is better.
I still prefer to listen to the old school death/black technique. I want to hear that the singer is ready to die on every track, not that it's a walk in the park.

 

[DjentyTard]

I use the SM7b and love the mic for both cleans and screams...but it still took some adjusting to know the mic and more importantly, how I sound with the mic. Like someone said..a better mic doesn't make you a better vocalist....it just captures your performance better (or differently). So maybe a better mic will capture more of the fry sound as opposed to the gargling sound...I don't know. I don't entirely know the sound you're going for to know where the problem lies. Maybe try squashing the shit out of the vocals with a heavy compression to see if that will change the dynamics of the vocal to make the fry more prominent. Or find the frequency that enhances the gargle sound and cut it with some eq to let the fry come through. It's really so hard to say without hearing you in person vs recorded.

I know what you mean man, in my cover video I already add compression to my vocal because without compression there are too much gargle sound and cracking shit. Actually I was quite childish thinking that a better mic will make me sound like a pro vocalist already. I'd better keep practicing now, but I still think I need a new mic at least its better than sm58

 

[DjentyTard]

Fry is the economic scream you can do it longer and articulation is better.
I still prefer to listen to the old school death/black technique. I want to hear that the singer is ready to die on every track, not that it's a walk in the park.

I tried death growl and it doesn't feel really good to me, because you need shit loads of air in order to project that brutal sound and its really easy to make me dizzy even faint. And it fucked up my throat as well, I wanna protect my voice so fry is the best choice to me. Power fry is not weak, you still need to project it well with air, its all about control. I would not like to hear something like death is brutally awesome but fry is just like walk in the park. just saying, no offense, but the dude who's saying fry is whisper make me really fucking pissed.

 

[Gujukal]

Maybe its not the mic thats wrong? It sounds to me that you have to practice on your screams, do that before u buy a new mic. Use some typ of distortion, like a tube screamer VST will maybe help some.