Vocals!

[joshwheelermusic]

IMO tracking in a vocal booth is better more often times than not. Killing the air in a booth can give you raw vocal takes that are much easier to mix. It can also beef up the tone a bit, especially if you get as far in the corner as you can.

 

[joeymusicguy]

when i track my own vocals, i sit at the daw and use an i5 or an sm7

when i track other people, they're on the sm7 or the at404 in front of a real trap reflection filter "box booth"

here's a link to it: http://www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm

its pretty awesome, these guys make really quality stuff. works wonders for wherever i use it.

 

[joeymusicguy]

ah... thanks! good to know.

but i've another question. the sound of the room will obviously make a big difference with condensor mics, but do dynamics really pick up the room too? esp if you track with a compressor (even at lower settings 2 or 4:1), would the room be picked up with a sm57/58?

i feel like most dynamics dont pick up the room if the room is quiet (not other noises going on)

if you have a really loud vocalist, cranked compression will enhance the room's reflections quite well (which is probably bad unless your room sound is what you're going for)

i've had someone so loud that the sm7 was picking up room reflections, and that shit is hard to do man

 

[Force666]

um....WHY?

Cause inbetween takes he was giving Ken and Buzz a blowjob?

 

[AEL89]

I always do vocals with monitors cranked. SM7 in hand. The vibe of the performance just speaks for itself. Unless its some super professional, amazing singer with perfect pitching (even then I'd probably do it the same way) then this method works so much better than chilling on your own, scared to touch the super expensive mic in front of you in an uninspiring, dead box. I would bloody love a super expensive LDC and a dead box, though

I cut out all the bleed, tune, compress, eq if needed and you have great vocals with a great vibe

 

[jval]

for good condensers it matters. if you're using a dynamic like an SM7b it's usually fine in an open room.. as long as they're right up on it, you won't hear much room. It's also better to put it in the middle of the room so you're as far away as possible from reflections.
I've been wanting one of those Real Traps vocal booth things for a while. I'm assuming you'd say it's worth the $$ Joey??
I bought a u87 for vox and I haven't used it for that purpose in like 4 months... it loves to tell me how much my room sucks... depressing.

 

[Fragle]

when tracking with the sm58 i'll usually go for the control room / monitors cranked / aggressive vibe kinda thing....no problems even after compression.
when tracking with an LDC i'll set up a pseudo vocal booth in the control room, using the blanket thing mentioned above, and have the singer as well as myself wear headphones so there's no monitor bleed (after all i'm still in the control room).
as someone already said, the louder the vocalist the more isolation you'll need, at least if you're trying not to pick up room ambience.

 

[sentinel72]

this recording vocals screaming at the DAW with a SM58....

The monitors dont come thru in the vocal mic?

I know dynamic mics dont pick up mearly as much "outside" noise as condensers... But still, this works?

 

[AdamWathan]

for good condensers it matters. if you're using a dynamic like an SM7b it's usually fine in an open room.. as long as they're right up on it, you won't hear much room. It's also better to put it in the middle of the room so you're as far away as possible from reflections.
I've been wanting one of those Real Traps vocal booth things for a while. I'm assuming you'd say it's worth the $$ Joey??
I bought a u87 for vox and I haven't used it for that purpose in like 4 months... it loves to tell me how much my room sucks... depressing.

Jordan I sort of build my own version of that RealTraps booth every time I track vocals...

Just chuck a few broadband absorbers onto mic stands and set the mic up in the middle under the cloud in your live room. Doesn't look as nice but it works like a charm.

 

[jval]

Haha that's awesome, how do you get it on the stands??

 

[AdamWathan]

Haha that's awesome, how do you get it on the stands??

On the backs of the wooden frames I have an eyehook on each side that I put a big loop of picture wire through and knotted onto itself, then I just feed the wire loop over the ends of the boom arm... One sec I'll snap a pic...

The bigger loop is the one I use to attach it to the mic stand, the smaller one you see behind it is used to hang it from the ceiling when it's being used as a cloud.

 

[DeclanWhite]

i've had someone so loud that the sm7 was picking up room reflections, and that shit is hard to do man

mike from tdwp?