Vocal recording at home - tips?

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What do I need to get a half-way decent vocal take at home.
Lots of blankets? Big room / little room?

One of those weird half ball vocal "booth" things that fit on the mic stand?

I did try to use the search function to see if there was a thread, but the search function sucks balls.

Cheap tips are better than expensive ones at the mo. 

ta.
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Comments

  • KeefyKeefy Frets: 2272
    I use one of these and it cuts out the reflections that say 'recorded in a tiny room'.


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  • rze99rze99 Frets: 2261
    Use a pop shield in front of the mic
    Use a channel strip with compressor
    use the noise gate in the DAW
    singer to use tightly closed back headphones to avoid spill. 
    Spend time to get the headphone mix right for the singer and encourage them 
    do a few takes you can pick and choose best delivery of certain lines. 

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  • I think that people will tend to over emphasise the gear and room over performance. Unless its a totally shit chain and room its going to be like 80-90% there compared to a pro setup anyway and unliekly to be your weak point.

    For example Ed did this with a £30 superlux in his living room into a scarlett 2i2 



    I commented that it sounded better than our studio stuff and his take on it was that because he was working at home and not on the clock her could iterate on his delivery a lot more.
    ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    I think that people will tend to over emphasise the gear and room over performance. Unless its a totally shit chain and room its going to be like 80-90% there compared to a pro setup anyway and unliekly to be your weak point.

    For example Ed did this with a £30 superlux in his living room into a scarlett 2i2 



    I commented that it sounded better than our studio stuff and his take on it was that because he was working at home and not on the clock her could iterate on his delivery a lot more.
    Very much this.
    But that doesn't mean you can't get a better sound at home with a bit of care.

    Thing to concentrate on:
    Having the right mic for your voice.
    Having a quality outboard Preamp, EQ and Compressor (or a channel strip).
    Experimenting with different spaces in the house.
    Having decent bass trapping in the room, especially corners.
    High passing vocals around 80hz-120hz depending on the range of the vocalist.

    Things I'd tend to avoid:
    Using household furnishings in lieu of bass trapping- they aren't dense enough, they don't work on the bass frequencies. If you've got no other choice then fine but bass traps aren't expensive. 
    Vocal reflection filters. I've done extensive testing, they aren't completely useless, just mostly.
    Noise gates- you have strip silence, use that noise gates are a blunt instrument for vocals.
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    edited September 2020
    I'm not a fan of reflection filters either.

    A much more effective way to minimise reflections is to hang some heavy duvets around the singer, and especially behind them. They'll be more effective hung away from the walls rather than on the walls. If you have a couple of spare heavy mic stands it's usually possible to cobble together suitable supports. Obviously, proper acoustic treatment is better still, as is a good-sounding recording space that doesn't need damping. Don't feel you have to turn your room into a 'vocal booth' if it actually sounds nice to start with.

    Personally I would not compress or EQ on the way in unless (a) you have very nice outboard to do it with, and (b) you know exactly what you're doing. Don't use a noise gate under any circumstances.

    Some people sing better if they hear lots of reverb on their voice, so figure out how to put a reverb in the monitor path and try that out.

    Take time to get the monitor mix right. Being able to properly hear the bass can be important for pitching. So can volume -- human perception of pitch changes with level. weirdly.

    Try to eliminate external sources of noise such as fridges, computer fans, traffic etc. Remember that if you later compress the vocal at the mix you'll be bringing up low-level noise to the point where it can be problematic.


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  • When we did the vocals for our album Exegesis, we made a timber frame and threw loads of blankets all over it, a make-shift vocal booth basically. The raw tracks were dead enough where I could add my own flavours to it. It also helped that I wasn't the vocalist at the time! :lol:

    When I sorted out the old flat with acoustic treatment, I didn't need to do any of that. The room was perfectly acceptable for tracking vocals in.


    Bye!

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  • John_AJohn_A Frets: 3775
    Yep. Duvets and blankets.  It’s really important to record in a dead room if you want good results 
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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6378
    Paul White / Hugh Robjons in SOS column Studio SoS always recommend pop-shield, vocal screen like you mentioned and duvet hanging behind - for a flat vocal that can then be tinkered with to your heart's content.
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

    Feedback
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  • Cool! Thank you.


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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    edited September 2020
    John_A said:
      It’s really important to record in a dead room if you want good results 
    In practical terms, when you have to record at home, making it really dead is often the only option that sounds OK. But all of the best-sounding vocals I've ever recorded have been tracked in large but controlled spaces like studio live rooms. Certainly I would never ever choose to use a vocal booth if the studio had a good-sounding live room.

    Also I am a heretic and I dislike pop shields. Sometimes they're necessary, but usually you can avoid popping through mic placement.

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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357

    For some recordings you want no reflections at all. I've done vocals for computer games recording actors and actresses doing their lines. making panting noises, dying of swords being stabbed in their guts etc. All completely bone dry as you don't know the acoustic properties of where this audio will be used .... you can add reverb but you can never take it away. We used to do stuff like this all the time as well as podcasts and meditation audio books ...boring work and all have to be dry as a nuns which meant building a special vocal booth with massive absorption to avoid chest hump.   

    For your average rock  \ pop vocal though you can get away with a very amateurish setup as your generally gonna add verb, delay, lot of compression etc. I've done shedloads of vocals in my house just getting the singer to face a wall. During lock down I built a vocal booth in my garden and just hung a load of towels on the wall, did 3 or 4 songs with that which came out fine. 
    I think this is the lowest budget vocal I ever recorded, I had an Mbox mini and a cheap condensor, can't remember what it was but like a C1 or similar. The I hung a dog blanket in the corner of my dinning room and Katie did the vocals under it for this promo. 



    Producing the vocal comes from experience, as you can only mix what you tracked but over the years I've tried some things which have came out well so I tend to track vocals in this tried and tested fashion 
    I tend to at least double track a lead vocal, checking in solo'ed mode to make sure the phrasing and length on end notes is the same before moving on to the next line. I also sometimes do a lower monotone vocal, so the singer sings the line but only on the root note, not following the melody. Then that's compressed quite heavy and mixed very low under the lead vocal .. you don't really hear it but it thickens the voice. then use harmonies on little parts of the line but again mixed so low it thickens it without being an obvious harmony. For the harmonies I really want to be heard as proper harmonies I will quad track them and mix them panned across the stereo field. 

    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4028
    Danny1969 said:

    ...We used to do stuff like this all the time as well as podcasts and meditation audio books ...


    @Danny1969 As it happens I have to record some stuff like that really soon.  I can DIY a dry recording and would be interested in your thoughts as to what might be necessary afterwards.  Even though my big computer is dead I can edit the audio on my laptop to get rid of the sounds of swallowing and all that, but what about compression?  Wondering what settings might be a ball park for Voice Over?  Anything else?
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  • Let me know if you need any help Oli - denoising or whatever.

    Bye!

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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357
    Grunfeld said:
    Danny1969 said:

    ...We used to do stuff like this all the time as well as podcasts and meditation audio books ...


    @Danny1969 As it happens I have to record some stuff like that really soon.  I can DIY a dry recording and would be interested in your thoughts as to what might be necessary afterwards.  Even though my big computer is dead I can edit the audio on my laptop to get rid of the sounds of swallowing and all that, but what about compression?  Wondering what settings might be a ball park for Voice Over?  Anything else?
    Well I recorded all kinds of people ... one big project was for New Theatre Royal ... they wanted these podcasts made of local people reading about their home cities. One session we had 14 of them in. A mix of male, female adults and 6 kids around 12 to 13 ish. Some needed gentle compression and and a slight EQ but some needed all the lip smacking sounds edited out and massive fader riding and a 5:1 and low threshhold compression just to keep the level reasonably consistent. They had sent in their own producer but every time I asked him a question he replied he would take my guidance on this one ! The kids had to do their's at the same time as that's how they rehearsed it .. they were quite loud so that went alright.

    Basically the more level you can get from their mouth the easier it is. On the softest podcast speaker we had to use so much gain that the noise of the mic preamp was a problem and I could hear the sound of the voice hitting the control room / live room divide glass. Their producer never mentioned it so either couldn't hear it or didn't know what it was :). Another time we recorded an audio book with a modern day witch who spoke so quietly the gentle hum form the air con blower 5 metres up in the air was a problem despite the fact we had her in the booth 

    So acoustically it's actually harder than recording vocals ... as generally when people are singing they are generally creating a usable SPL .. and you get to put on effects and the music masks a lot of things. When you hear the spoken word on it's own you can generally tell where it's been recorded. like when a BBC radio presenter gets to present from home you can hear the difference straight away from the normal studio show. Of course being podcasts means it will be heard on headphones so any crap refections will be heard more so. 


    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4028
    Cheers @Danny1969 ;Danny, a thanks for the offer Drew @WiresDreamDisasters ;
    Time for me to put the kettle on and get to it!
    :)

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  • There's some great stuff in there especially from Danny...  Bush-Ka project sounds and looks great with the costumes and choreography - it must be very intense to go for that level of perfection when putting on a show like that.  
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  • I think a tribute act is more memorable if time/money is spent to be authentic. I saw a Ramones tribute a few years back who sounded/looked nothing like the Ramones and it was all a little flat in that respect.
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357
    Our Katie is very good at being Kate costume wise which is just as well because just standing there singing the songs would be a pretty poor show. I just need to dress in black and stand to the sides which suits me. In the theatre a proper tribute works well but we had a Bon Jovi tribute do our local pub once and the Jon really stayed in character the whole time including New Jersey accent ... which seemed a bit bizarre in a local boozer :) 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    Danny1969 said:

    making panting noises
    Bit of funky bass and saxophone in that mix as well? ;)
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    I think that people will tend to over emphasise the gear and room over performance. Unless its a totally shit chain and room its going to be like 80-90% there compared to a pro setup anyway and unliekly to be your weak point.

    For example Ed did this with a £30 superlux in his living room into a scarlett 2i2 



    I commented that it sounded better than our studio stuff and his take on it was that because he was working at home and not on the clock her could iterate on his delivery a lot more.
    This is excellent advice IMO.

    There can be a paranoia about it where it's possible to think that cheap gear will limit the record to rubbish before it's even started but it's really not the case at all.

    The price difference between budget gear and "pro" gear is enormous but the actual difference it makes to the sound is nowhere near proportionate.

    I think it's true that most listeners wouldn't ever think about the sound quality of the vocals for a second, they'll just be listening to the song. The worry comes that the recording could be so bad that it stands out immediately as bad sounding without anyone having to listen for it. And that's what isn't at all the case - even very cheap gear won't stand out as sounding unusual so most people would never appreciate the difference if you used 20 grands worth of gear instead.
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