The ability to record great vocal tracks in the studio is a benchmark skill for any recording engineer who wants to be taken seriously. These are the tracks that are going to show your clients if you really are the savvy studio guru that those “me at the sound board looking smart” pictures portray you as. Just as the vocal track is exposed and nearly naked, so will you be. So read on, and master each of these essential vocal recording concepts.
How to fine-tune a singer
Great vocal recordings start with a great vocalist. I would love to tell you that you will be blessed with scores of amazing vocalists beating down your double studio door to record their next hit, but that would not be true. Some days, you get the pleasure of recording a highly skilled master, and on other days, the vocalist will make you want to crawl under your studio desk and find a happy place to hide. Ironically enough, it is the latter of the two that will be insisting that you share your opinion with him about how his voice really sounds.
I have a friend who owns a nice studio with bragging rights for having recorded some very notable names in music. One grueling day, we were enduring possibly the worst vocalist we had ever heard. This singer sounded something like a grey whale tripped out on acid. After my friend was consistently pressed for an honest assessment …show more content…
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that any one mic is the best choice for all singers. Each microphone has its own characteristic response curve (how it responds to different frequencies). Incidentally, each vocalist has unique tonal characteristics about his or her voice. A woman with a strong presence at 5kHz is not wisely matched with a mic that also boosts that same 5kHz range. In short, the ideal situation is one where the mic is not only high quality, but is a good match for the particular vocalist’s. Let’s look at a few examples of some nice vocal
How to fine-tune a singer
Great vocal recordings start with a great vocalist. I would love to tell you that you will be blessed with scores of amazing vocalists beating down your double studio door to record their next hit, but that would not be true. Some days, you get the pleasure of recording a highly skilled master, and on other days, the vocalist will make you want to crawl under your studio desk and find a happy place to hide. Ironically enough, it is the latter of the two that will be insisting that you share your opinion with him about how his voice really sounds.
I have a friend who owns a nice studio with bragging rights for having recorded some very notable names in music. One grueling day, we were enduring possibly the worst vocalist we had ever heard. This singer sounded something like a grey whale tripped out on acid. After my friend was consistently pressed for an honest assessment …show more content…
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that any one mic is the best choice for all singers. Each microphone has its own characteristic response curve (how it responds to different frequencies). Incidentally, each vocalist has unique tonal characteristics about his or her voice. A woman with a strong presence at 5kHz is not wisely matched with a mic that also boosts that same 5kHz range. In short, the ideal situation is one where the mic is not only high quality, but is a good match for the particular vocalist’s. Let’s look at a few examples of some nice vocal