Hello friends.
Unlike usually, I'm having a female Pop-singer in next week and was doing some test recordings todays with my U87-style mic for it but the result felt "distant" and far away and I was hoping for some pointers. I was about 6 inches / 15cm away as recommended, had 15dB of preamp going to peak around -12 with a little bit of compressor (th: -8, soft knee 2.5:1). Signal looks great, no noise whatsoever but I'm having a hard time controlling it. I have to gain it up and throw sort of hard comp on it, like 8:1 and add air to it to get more it to sound less distant but now it sort of "going in and out" of the mix. Where am I wrong? Do I need to compress it harder going in?
It's a problem I've had for a while in several styles of not-so-hard vocals and thought, maybe someone here has had the same troubles .
I was hoping to achieve a sound sort of present, close by and intimate. When I watch videos of singers like such in the studios, they don't seem to sing closer to the mic, so doesn't seem to be proximity effect. Or am I just way too timid with my compression going in?
Or can something like this be caused by reflections? For testing today I had the mic and myself placed directly facing the bulletproof glass out to the console, so it's possible the sound reflected directly back into the mic. But it's a cardioid, so does that matter?
Edit1:
I have started over remixing it and am now going through:
DeEsser->EQ->RVox Vocal Comp->Another "regular" comp to catch the peaks from turning it up->Fresh Air to add high end back in->Reverb
and am achieving something more along the lines but still not quite there.
How would y'all compress a vocal like that going in? More preamp and controlling it with more comp?
Thanks in advance!
Unlike usually, I'm having a female Pop-singer in next week and was doing some test recordings todays with my U87-style mic for it but the result felt "distant" and far away and I was hoping for some pointers. I was about 6 inches / 15cm away as recommended, had 15dB of preamp going to peak around -12 with a little bit of compressor (th: -8, soft knee 2.5:1). Signal looks great, no noise whatsoever but I'm having a hard time controlling it. I have to gain it up and throw sort of hard comp on it, like 8:1 and add air to it to get more it to sound less distant but now it sort of "going in and out" of the mix. Where am I wrong? Do I need to compress it harder going in?
It's a problem I've had for a while in several styles of not-so-hard vocals and thought, maybe someone here has had the same troubles .
I was hoping to achieve a sound sort of present, close by and intimate. When I watch videos of singers like such in the studios, they don't seem to sing closer to the mic, so doesn't seem to be proximity effect. Or am I just way too timid with my compression going in?
Or can something like this be caused by reflections? For testing today I had the mic and myself placed directly facing the bulletproof glass out to the console, so it's possible the sound reflected directly back into the mic. But it's a cardioid, so does that matter?
Edit1:
I have started over remixing it and am now going through:
DeEsser->EQ->RVox Vocal Comp->Another "regular" comp to catch the peaks from turning it up->Fresh Air to add high end back in->Reverb
and am achieving something more along the lines but still not quite there.
How would y'all compress a vocal like that going in? More preamp and controlling it with more comp?
Thanks in advance!
