Recording Vocals

[Imbeerium]

Hi, my band are going to home record a demo soon, weve got some fairly good gear, but with all of our tests we cant seem to get a good vocal sound, it always sounds really obvious its recorded in a house.

I was wondering if Andy (or anyone else for that matter) could recommend a way to combat this?

 

[ChurchofMetal]

I think it depends on where in the house you do it. A garage is probably a good place. Don't worry so much about the vocals now, you can make them sound good later by adding reverb and delay to them. You can get them to sound good. Is your singer good? hehe, that could be a problem.

 

[Razorjack]

I have got some very nice vocal sounds in a small bedroom that is next to my studio (converted study). It has a thick carpeted floor, two walls are made from plaster covered slats (sp?) and two are made from brick. I get the singers to sing with their backs to a window in one of the brick walls, while facing one of the slat walls. This allows the slat wall to absorb some of the reflections and overall the sound is very clear.

Even though the room has very little reflection I still like to place a second condenser about 1m away from the singer to get some ambience that sounds great during choruses.

 

[Imbeerium]

cool, thanks alot guys, ill try recording all over the place next week.
Any other tips would be great too!

 

[Jay H]

Don't use compression during recording if you haven't got a great one. Go and rent a great mic, and a great mic pre. Suggestions: Mic - Neumann U87, mic pre: Avalon 737, Manley, Great River, API.
Rent a great compressor when mixing. I'd say an 1176 is good, but sometimes you need a very coloured compression sound to make the vocals sound thick and loud. I often combine 2 compressors. 1176 and my BSS DPR-402. The last one is fast and very coloured, which is great for metal vocals.

Don't record in an undamped room. Record it in a closet with duvets and stuff on the surfaces beside you and thick carpets on the floor. You need a dry sound to be able to work with it afterwards. Fast compression release will bring the roomtone up, which is bad.

 

[deconjoe]

Dude, I think you don't need to go super high end with renting the best mics and comps to get a good vocal sound.... I record vocals on a Neumann TLM 103 which cost about $700 and a dbx 160 comp.... I think you would do better to buy a set up like that, because then you can spend the time that you should on vocals.... getting the good performances I think is paramount to having the best tone humanly possible PLUS, I've found that the best mic doesn't always sound the best, a lot depends on the singer..... hell I've gotten sick ass vocals out of 57s.....

Here's a sample of my less than $1000 vocal tone...

www.apocalypserecords.com

 

[metalizer]

I use focusrite´s liquid channel(it rules so fucking much) and a røde k2 microphone the results are awsome but it also comes down to using the right reverb i just bought the t.c. powercore firewire the reverbs are the coolest plugins i have ever heard. By the way does anyone have some great reverbpresets for vocals?