5 Do’s & Dont’s When RECORDING Vocals

when we think of any iconic band or artist we usually default to the vocalist but why is this as a singer myself it's pretty obvious because the vocalist is doing the one thing that we're all kind of capable of doing singing we can usually at least mimic or mock what a singer's doing or hum it at the very least this isn't to say that we don't praise guitarists like jason richardson jeff loomis misha mansour but you have to be part of the rock world to appreciate what they do properly regardless of whether you're an engineer mixer bedroom producer or songwriter there's one thing we all inevitably have to do track vocals at a professional level and by the end of this video you'll know the five do's and don'ts tracking professional vocals i'm gonna assume treatment is a given so we're not gonna get into all that so what's happening fam miami here with jst and today i'll be doing the vocal demonstration showcasing the right and wrong way to do things when tracking vocals i'll be using a pretty affordable tube mic too we got the uh the road k2 here you know real budget friendly it's awesome i've been recording myself in other vocalists over the course of a decade so this is something that i just do subconsciously at this point i actually need all of you to sub consciously by hitting the subscribe button below and if i bring up any points in this video that don't ring a bell i hope you do so you can be notified when we upload new videos that transition was not as good as your last one dude how am i gonna beat that last one it was immaculate and you made a transition using the word subconscious and didn't even bring me into it you're slipping bro ignore him my transition game is still crazy let's get into the first topic no specific order here's a quick one using microphone isolation tools i'm not going to waste a whole topic on this i'm just going to suggest for tracking vocals don't use things like this if there's better for podcasting and stuff like that what is this the the eyeball chaotic eyeball thing yeah let's just skip past that number one knowing when to use pitch correction this is a big argument between people because they choose to have a singular stance on it track with auto tune never use auto tune etc the reality is it's not a one-size-fits-all situation remember this if nothing else from this video feel and passion will always be more important than hitting the right note in the studio i can tune a vocal but i can't give you a personality you know what i mean let me show you an example of just trying to hit notes versus bringing personality into a take all the vampires walking through the valley move west [Music] you have to be able to tell the confidence the vocalist has in themselves and the confidence that you have in the vocalist in a very short amount of time pro tip if the vocalist is confident in himself but you're not sure if you'll be able to tune it later route the vocal so he hears it with no tuning but you do that way you'll always know if a take is usable even if they're not hitting notes the way that they think they are this works great for bands that are super against ever hearing auto-tune on their voice and if they have no confidence just put some light tuning on their monitoring to help move them along if someone goes into the booth and starts doing the lip trills like just stop it bro we know you didn't warm up don't try and pretend now when you're tracking and can tell that a singer is just trying to hit notes of the song this is the time you want to just pull up real-time tuning software to help give the vocalist the confidence that they're going to need to finish that performance number two using mic placement to your advantage let's point out the obvious first the usual distance you stand from a microphone is six inches to a foot that's not what we're going to focus on today just know that you want to keep a pretty similar distance to the microphone in your performance this is because of the proximity effect going too close to the mic will introduce low end frequencies that cause you to have build up of your subs frequently oh you thought that was going to be a transition we don't got time for all that today because we have to talk about knowing your vocalist style and trying to create a good balance if you have a vocalist that sings from their diaphragm the best way to use mic placement to your advantage is not have them right up on the microphone we want a good balance for them and they'll already have tons more low end than somebody who would be singing from their nasal cavity so we want them to back away from the microphone and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night someone that is tender or sings more from their nasal cavity can actually use this to their advantage by going closer to a microphone think of billy corgan from smashing pumpkins puddle of mud newfound glory bowling for soup that kind of thing and it's all downhill from here you know what i mean they don't tend to fight the same issue so pushing them closer on a mic actually adds some weight to their voice and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and of course mixed voice or head voice this is the sweet spot in which i like to sing about a hand's length away from the microphone and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night and if i stand outside i'll be waiting for you all night being the right distance away from the mic is literally a form of eq'ing before it even hits the daw use it wisely number three gain staging this one is pretty simple pay attention to the gain meter and dynamic songs this is definitely going to change from softer parts to higher parts but a mistake a lot of people make is not gain staging right so people hear their monitoring and think they have to go closer or further away from a microphone that's not the proper solution just make sure that you're getting a healthy signal that's not clipping push for some color if your preamps capable most budget ones aren't when it comes to color because under gaining can add unwanted noise to the signal and too much gain well we don't usually want clip vocals unless is an artistic choice so make sure that you aren't hitting the red but there is something red that you can hit that subscribe button transition game leveled up and i have redeemed myself proper monitoring this should be a no-brainer but how do you expect a vocalist to perform properly if they can't even hear themselves the way that they want to that doesn't mean you need to listen the same way if you want to hear a dry tape just make sure that they're all set up it will put them in the space of the song instead of feeling like they're trying to become part of the song also you want to use something really low latency for my monitoring i always use howard benson vocals because it's very simple to turn on delay reverb low-fi effects you know all that basic stuff on the fly check check okay what you're hearing is what i like to hear in my monitoring um it can be a bit much you can turn the echo off check check check okay but pretty much down you know so this is pretty much yeah like what i would want for my monitoring whatever you're using just make sure that they're comfortable and if it's someone doing vocals for the first time do not take their word for it check beforehand that things sound the way that they're supposed to in their headphones that you provided i'm just saying it's part of being an engineer selecting the proper microphone for the vocalist this is not always the most expensive mic remember when you're using expensive microphones they're typically very pristine i have mics that can hear a fly in the room and i'm not exaggerating when you have a really amazing vocalist it's fun to pull these out but when the vocalist is subpar and lacks technique you're better off just using an sm7b it's gonna hide that bad breath control those weird little sounds people make between words the and uh of course the lip smacks that become oh so apparent when you're tracking into compression so let's go over these one more time knowing when to use pitch correction proper monitoring using mic placement to your advantage gain staging and selecting the right microphone like i said you can't give a singer personality but you can definitely show them how to express it the right way each one of these tips is a little piece that make up the entire pie make sure to utilize these the next time you do a session and you'll be one step closer to having your perfect mix if you're an engineer on the come up give this video a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe you only have to do it one time and tap that bell for notifications so when a video drops you know the location until next time i am out of here mic drop except as engineers we know i'd never really dropped this thing because that get really expensive later

Channel: Joey Sturgis Tones

Views: 9,127

Keywords: home recording, audio production, mixing tutorials, Joey Sturgis Tones, Howard Benson Vocals, vocal tracking, professional vocalists, how to track vocals, gainstaging, microphone choice, what mic is best for recording, pitch correction, audio engineer tutorials

Id: SaYiifNJKew

Length: 9min 57sec (597 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 08 2021