improving my vocals with 001

Once I was recording vocals in a well equipped studio, and the vocalist and I were really into finding the "right" mic. So we took one of every type of mic out of the locker and set them all up in front of the singer - it looked like a press conference! We had everything out there from a $100 SM57 to a U47 tube and a $10k AKG C-12. We didn't label the mics on the console, so none of us knew which one was which. The number of mics was a bit unweildy, so after the first listen we pulled out all of the ones we knew weren't going to work. All of the small diaphram condensers and most of the dynamics came out at that point. We were left with 7 mics. After another hour, we decided on the top 3, and went out to see which ones they were: Neumann U87 ($2k), AKG C-24 tube (about $6k?), and Shure Beta 57 ($150)! I thought they all sounded great, and would never have guessed that the Beta 57 was one of them. After that I had a healthy respect for the 'ol Shure mics. (We went with the U87 because the vocalist liked the bassy growl he got out of it when he was really close). Every vocalist is different - I don't think that Humberto Gatica uses a 57 to record Celine Dion! But many times you don't have to spend mega bucks on a mic or preamp to get a vocal sound that works in the mix. My $0.02, Jeff D.

I have personally found that the Rode NT1 and the built-in pre's capture my vocals in a way I've never been able to capture them before. The NT1 is an awesome mic for the money ($199), and the built-in pre's aren't too shabby. I think the short, uncluttered link from my voice to the hard disk is also a major factor. Less capacitors, transistors, and resistors. Less is more in this case. I would like to compress to disk, though.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">quote:<HR>Originally posted by lwilliam: If we only had the problem of one guy I read about who was complaining that all his sounds were fat, big and punchy and he needed to make them smaller to fit them in the mix. Such a problem!!! <IMG SRC="http://209.213.222.5/ubb/images/icons/smile.gif"> Maybe it was an April Fools joke? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey, that was me! Beleive it or not, it was a serious question. I still haven't gotten exactly what I wanted, but what I did get came out pretty well, and I followed George Massenberg's advice and thinned out the guitar by using some cut EQ to get it to sit right. But no really, it was like everything wanted to be full and rich and prominent in the mix, but it was not apropriate for the song for it to be like that. I was after a stereo effect, to "locate" the instruments in a more 3D kind of way. Like the way a lot of minimalist acoustic recordings do. (Like those Chesky Jazz discs). Trying to make the illusion more real than real. <g> RE-20's are great for more than kick drums - try them on acoustic guitars and vocals. For some reason, people seem to forget how good those mics sound on a variety of things.

Corbel, to elaborate on some of these really good suggestions - some practical advice for the gear you already own... (if you haven't tried it). If you have the time - before you record your vocals, experiment with singing into the mic at different distances. (Right on it, 3", 6", 1'...). Record these. Also move the mic around the room (in the middle of the room, facing a wall, the back of the mic (null point of a cardiod) facing a wall, blah blah. Record this too. Compare 'em. This may be the least expensive way to improve your sounds. I found out that all those stories you've read (or will read)about mic placement are... true. Me like ProTools; me no like D-Verb. Nuke- I would have thought you were joking too, but I'm having the same sort of deal right now... I just can't decide if I should consider it a problem yet. I'll find out when I mix, but everthing's a little too darned big, even w/o verb. It doesn't seem like Eq is the answer... maybe it was all that compression (so I experimented).

...just i trick that i use sometimes, for beats as well: copy the region to a seperete track and invert it. than nudge it about 5-6 samples, and pan them hard left and right...