bedroom vocal recording....

[jkhuri44]

yo dudez.

i've just recently headed into a studio to record my vocals....i didnt much enjoy the experience for a number of reasons:

1. hate working to the clock (made especially worse by my lack of experience in singing)
2. really good studios....cost a bit much for my budget at the moment
3. dont know what to expect, which makes me uncomfortable...
4. sometimes i get an engineer that argues with reasonable requests...to my dismay.


which raises the question:

"how possible is it to record professional sounding lead vocals, in the everyday house"
...

i know several people here have done it.....spoke to heathen about it just today .....gave some good advice, but i also know he's got a good enough sounding room at his place...

My voice is pretty loud, which equals just enough reflections to get ugly....

assuming i've got great mics, compressors, eq's, and convertors...what can i do to a bedroom or living room to get things sounding close enough to dead....or at least "pleasantly live"....???

i know there are countless threads around the net on this topic....but i really do prefer the advice of people that exist, and actually do stuff...and more than often, people i will probably meet sooner or later :)

Cheers !

Jamil.

[Jason Dirckze]

Just concentrate on a great performance...

:)

[heathen]

Hey Jamil I agree with Jason, a killer performance will always beat a "perfect" sound with no vibe.

I still try to get most stuff done at night as there are a lot of birds and noisy kids around here. But you said it perfectly Jamil, a "pleasantly live" room or part of a room will work.

Or you could make a sort of makeshift booth with a few lengths of wood and some heavy blankets draped over it, that will stop a bit of the higher freqs from reflecting around the room and back it the mic, which will help a fair bit if the rooms too live.

Yeah my back room is weird, it's far from quiet but has a nice relaxing vibe to it and plenty of thick furniture and carpet, so modern minimalist style decor themed rooms would not work too well. Thick carpet is another good thing as it will reduce floor to ceiling reflections, if your floor is wood without carpet then your in trouble.

Also there are purpose designed refletion filters you can attach to a mic stand I think SE make one though I hav'nt used 1 and I'm not sure how well it would work either.

With hiphop it's not too much trouble with a few extraneous noises, but for something which needs to be clean you could have a battle but I reckon you'll just need to try a few different tricks and you'll work out a compromise.

Sometimes the guys would just nail the take at home with the cheapest shittiest mic and the vibe was too good to redo at my place (did like 20 takes to no avail), vibe is everything, one of the best was a vocal my mate PL did at 2am in the morning at his place while trying too be quiet so as not to wake everyone up, I swear the mic was halfway down his throat, took ages too get rid of the noise and get the eq right on mixdown but it sound bloody great, was technically bad but worked well.

It's all very possible to get great results from home.

[chris p]

Which sort of raises the question about the worst recording place you've experienced. On my very first recording project, one guy had to do a keyboard / vocals take at the place where he was staying - which was a mate's home, complete with wife and young baby. This dude got told in no uncertain terms that he was being too loud for the baby at 11pm in his bedroom, so he moved keyboard, mic and recorder into the cupboard and closed the door.

As it turned out, the remaining clothes that hadn't been turfed onto the bed provided the necessary damping for the small space, and the drama of it all provided the angst for a great vocal delivery - a bit of compression and a few db of eq, and there it was.

Jamil - my only real suggestion is to get someone else to engineer it so you can focus on the right brain performance and not deal with all the left brain technical issues. Preferably someone who will not argue with your "reasonable" requests - what did you want the crate of oranges and the orang-utan for, anyway?

[wez]

sometimes i get an engineer that argues with reasonable requests...to my dismay.

could you elaborate, i'm interested to hear about this.

[Kurt]

I built a handful of 3" rockwool panels for my "live room" (spare bedroom) I have them covering most of one corner of the room. I then set up a mic about a meter out from the corner, so the singer is facing into the room. I organise a couple of tall mic stands with a heavy blanket over them about a meter in front of the microphone (behind it really I guess). The result is a 2/3's enclosed "vocal booth" (also good for acoustic guitar and on one occasion, violin) I did try enclosing the space more completely but it sounded unpleasant.

I run mic/headphone leads down the hall to the other spare bedroom where the computer is. (3 bedroom house, one very tolerant missus)

The result is a fairly controlled, but not completely dead sounding recording space. Because of the size of the room and lack of damping in the other corners there is a bit of ugliness around 100-10hz but so far it hasn't been much of an issue.


Edit: you may of course think the vocal sound in my room is crap, I think it's ok though.

[Chinagraf]

[quote="chris p"]Which sort of raises the question about the worst recording place you've experienced. [/quote]

Some year back, maybe 12, I did a lot of the live location recordings for a show on the ABC called "Access all Areas". We would do interviews with artists and then record a live performance. The director, Michael Carson, came from a drama background and wanted to do the live performances in unusual situations. All of which were sonically pretty odd. He was a lot of fun to work with due to his non music show approach. Some of the locations I recorded, all with a mackie 1202 and a DA88 were :
-Dave Hole in a dirty old carpark on with his Marshall halfway up a fire exit on the landing behing Eatons recording studio
- Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter on the railway track at a railway crossing in the middle of nowhere near Port Augusta
- Paul Kelly and Shu De (Tuvan throat singing group) on top of a hill overlooking a large salt lake just outside Pimba in the desert
- Bad Boys Batucada in a laneway/carpark in Fitzroy, with them spaced all over the place, some of them at the top of stairs leading into office buildings
Ther were more, but it was fun to record in situations were you don't have much hope of getting a clean take. One of the things I noticed the most was and had to deal with was early reflections. You either had a lot of them like in a laneway, or absolutely none, like when we were in the desert. I was also blown away by how the DA88 handles everything we threw at it. It had red dust all over it, but never missed a beat.

[jkhuri44]

"sometimes i get an engineer that argues with reasonable requests...to my dismay."


as i might have said before...

i've been engineering this project myself, bar the drums, which we did at Electric Avenue, which sound infrickin real....

i went in to the said studio with a hired vocal chain to add to whatever the studio had in terms of vocal mics...which wasnt much....

hired an RCA 77DX + RCA Tube Pre + Pye Compressor.

Anyhooz....got told the nearly "20KG PYE compressor" was thin, before we even tried recording with it...

thats not the issue...main issue is, i wanted a little bit of EQ on the recorded track, maybe about 1 or 2 dB boost, maybe more...i dunno... and he didnt really wanna do that....do it in the mix...which is fair enough i suppose....but the idea is that im the customer, im engineering the project, and i bloody asked for it....

which kinda pissed me off, coz i like to perform to what im hearing, and i like to know that sound, which i interacted with, is the sound which is getting printed....in vocals i really like geting the sound just right (no drastic EQ and Compression though), then printing it....

[Kris]

You were told that at Electric Avenue?

[jkhuri44]

Chris,

on ur point of engineering....its kinda wierd....i'm so psychologically used to "operating" the gear myself while i record, that i sorta feel naked when im not doing it....which sorta screws me, psychologically.....its also a pain in the balls to try and describe the sound u want in ur foldback mix, when u usually fiddle with knobs and find it in 5 seconds...


"more reverb, less delay....smack that compression....godddamnit man, can u even hear what im hearing???"

hahahaha :P

but more seriously, i was thinking of having someone come over and help me out, get the "sound" i wanted....before i record...then just setup the room like that EVERYYTIME i wanna record....

that covers the engineering....all thats left for me to do is hit record :)

[jkhuri44]

Kris,

hell no!! :)....as i said, Electric Avenue were awesome...repeat ELECTRIC AVENUE WAS AWESOME! :)

if i had the money, i'd do it there in a heartbeat for sure :P

i recorded the vocals elsewhere....dont wanna name names though.

[Kris]

Sounds like you need to find somewhere else to record vocals.

[jkhuri44]

yo Kris,

well im quite seriously considering doing it in my room...or at home...

get some Apogee convertors or equal. into Nuendo..or Logic...some great hired mics pre's, EQs and compressors...and viola! just need to sort out my acoustics problem :P

[SteveL]

"EQs and compressors....and viola!"

Hey Jamil - no, no, a viola you do NOT want in your session.LOL! (but I know you meant to say voila!)

SteveL.

[Kris]

If you want some pre's for hire I have 2 x Purple Biz and 2 x Avedis MA5's. Waiting on some info from JLM regarding the TG styled pre's but for now these do me well.

I'd rent the U47 but I just can't let it out of my sight. I've tried and I just can't do it.

[jkhuri44]

yo, already got access to an O.G. U47..its with Gunter at the moment, when its back to its owner i can rent it :) so no sweat!


should be sweet for pres and eq's too...


looking to possibly rent an A/D though....anyone?

[jkhuri44]

whats the u47 like on a male vocal?? i've got a pretty mid-rangy sound/piercing when i get loud... a solid enough low end, but an ok one...

i'd figure the u 47 does better on a lower volume singers?

[Kris]

It can handle volume well.

If you have a "harsh" tone, you could try my Naked Eye ribbon.

[mfdu]

i do the lot at my place. from spoken word to vocals to full band set-ups.

my attitude is that i am there to capture the truth of what the artist is putting forward. yes, Steve Albini is my hero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Albini - the 'recording work' section.

my acoustic treatment = homemade fur covered, foam backed panels on all walls, heavy furniture, double-glazing, rugs on carpet, thick thick drapes. the lounge / control room is fairly live, and the dining room has 12foot ceilings, timber floors and a much livelier sound.

i don't use condenser microphones. i haven't used phantom power for over eighteen months!!! the heavier dynamic capsules help keep spill under control, and ribbons make everything thick and juicy. also, avoiding LDC's keeps the sound a bit tighter.
md421's are my favourate vocal mic - adjust roll-off to suit. the shinybox with cinemag output trannie is my go-to for bright female voice, or drum overheads. the standard shinybox is much darker, and very good for controlling nasty bright guitar amps.

i should point out - i dwell within a dark place, aurally. high-end and i don't tend to get along. i'm not dissing 'air', and i'm not saying i cut everything from 5kHz up, but microphones are my paintbrushes and i use a lot of dark colours!

i've done 5-part vocal groups in the dining room with great success (an off-axis mic at the end of the hallway gives me great reverb)
bands may all be set up in the lounge room, or else maybe drums into dining room. or guitar/vox into dining room. depends on what's needed.

i had my mum in on sunday, to put down some of her pieces on the baroque (timber) flute. the sound had great body to it, but she wanted it to sound truely 'in a room' rather than close and dry. the mic ended up being a tube LDC (i know i know - make a rule and then promptly break it - but still no phantom!) in fig8 - 3 meters back, 1 meter above her head and almost 90' off axis. positioned along the length of the room, so each diaphragm was opposite a wall panel to soften reflections.
we tried close md421, we tried shinybox cinemag and tube LDC in cardiod and omni.
i preferred the shinybox cinemag - it seemed to mate better with the woody tone of the flute, but by then mum was getting antsy and just wanted to get her groove on. so i let her roll.
please, no comments about band camp.

i always commit with eq and compression. if the client can't get vibed up, then how can they give everything in the take? i feed them back the sound they're giving me. and yes, my vulcan mind-powers get a work out, each and every session.

it all comes down to the client committing to the take - it's all about the performance. that's what the buying public click to (well, not that i have any real proof of that last statement . . . but to believe it, you gotta feel it, yeah?)

geez. is that of any use?

chris
mfdu

[Kris]

with respect Chris....

I reckon Albini just got lucky. Right place, right time with Nirvana. I don't really dig his style and think he's a fool for not taking a royalty on the bigger bands he produces.

[mfdu]

hi kris.

you just keep thinking that.

then listen to the Scout niblett album "kidnapped by neptune"

(oh ok - so maybe it's just me)

and remember - when it comes to waving that red socialist flag high, it's all about the beliefs and ethics.

hey - i'm a believer. yes, i was in the communist party at Uni in the early 90's. yes, my day-job is in local government.
yes - i support single moms.


:)

[Kris]

LOL.

[jkhuri44]

yo mfdu

fur on walls ey?? that sounds pretty good....i was gonna try and do that...cover my walls with material, then build a wall of rockwool to stick myself in...that sounds pretty good to me :P

re dynamics...i reckon i might try a 441 too....i really like the rca 77dx on my voice with a bit of eq.

so far ,condensors seem to be way too sensitive, and pickup crap like birds, and the wind outside....

cheers!

[mfdu]

yo mfdu

fur on walls ey?? that sounds pretty good....i was gonna try and do that...cover my walls with material, then build a wall of rockwool to stick myself in...that sounds pretty good to me :P

re dynamics...i reckon i might try a 441 too....i really like the rca 77dx on my voice with a bit of eq.

so far ,condensors seem to be way too sensitive, and pickup crap like birds, and the wind outside....

cheers!

fur covered panels are fun, but they gotta be foam / rockwool backed. buy the panels at any $2 shop - canvas art panels . . . see if you can stand them out off the wall by an inch or two.
it's nice too, cause they're mobile - move to suit the situation.

and yeah - i learnt ages ago that condensors don't play nicely in a home environment. initially it was the rode hyped top-end that was taking my head off, but that brought my attention to how they turn spill into a problem. with dynamics, spill is our friend - the way it should be!!!!

haven't had the chance to try a 441 or re20. got my eye on the heil large diaphragm dynamics they have at awave, too.

cheers,
chris

[Chris H]

Think i might add my two bob's worth here..... i 'm with you mfdy on the Albini style as he is a versatile recordist not a one trick pony etc but don't share your aversion to condenser mics. Just finished amixing a cd where the vox were tracked using an EV RE 20 and it didn't work great with the singers voice, got too gnarly when he went harder/louder. With vox i always shut the room out a bit by using whats available, often blankets hung over a boom stand or gobos about 5 feet at either side of the vox mic stand. I like the vox space to breathe a bit so i don't like the closed down dead vox booth that are in some studios. So a good sized room with the reflections dampened by what i suggested always works for me better than lining the walls etc.

[Guest]

I have to put my support in for a reflection filter, I use one in my lounge room that has wooden walls and floor. Add a rug and couple of carefully placed foam mattresses and away it works very nicely. It has made a huge difference plus I can take it with me when I do recordings in other venues, usually not studios, and it works a treat. I often use it in a very live concrete store room I record voice over’s in. They come out very well most times.

Tony

[mfdu]

that's a point. i forgot to say i use auralex foam iso pads quite regularly. for control, not isolation.

haven't got a reflection filter yet, but i do intend to. having read reviews from others, i'd be concerned about letting it colour the sound too much, but forwarned is forarmed.

also i forgot to say that i move furniture and wall panels around to suit each different scenario - the layout doesn't remain static. same as i don't really have a standard technique, apart from my 3-mic drum kit. and my 'aversion' to LDC's.

:)
chris
mfdu

[Guest]

The filter does colour things however I often use it with a rode K2 so it dulls it nicely. If you’re already painting with dark grey more black may not be useful ;-)

Another nice little home brand trick is keeping a collection of foam mouse pads around they work really well to put under things for isolation or clipping to things to stop them ringing sympathetically. I think I spend to much time recording in strange places.

[Martin]

tell us more about your vocal recording you need to do, how many songs? what kinda songs? what you want to record into? is it your own solo project? whats it for?

[Chris H]

Tony is the reflection filter you use the SE one? I thought they would not dull the direct signal to the K2 as they are placed behind the mic and being a half circle shape, dampen reflections from the rear and side?