Recording VOCALS from start to finish

in today's video we will do a vocal recording session from start to finish main is over there in the live room ready to lay down some vocals for us but first I'm going to run you through the microphone setup and all the outboard gear compression EQ and we'll of course finalize everything with a rough mix she can take home and listen to what she has done today so let's stop talking start recording let's go okay let's head into the live room uh maybe grab a mic first from the machine room then do some setting up let's go all right what do we need first of all Bob filter very important I think we're going to do a u47 today that's the 47 let's set up the mic first power supply with a power cable because we are using a Tube Mic it's a flea 47 it is a very good u47 replica as you can maybe tell I will be positioning this mic upside down so I want to make sure that it doesn't drop on the ground so the first thing I'm going to do is plug in the cable over here if I did something incorrectly and it drops at least it has the cable for insurance and then let's plug it in really simple really simple but struggling let do Channel 4 over here then we of course need a headphone over here for her to listen to what she's doing so we've got this bearinger headphone station there's no need in knowing exactly what it does right now because it's just a vocal recording I'll go over it in separate videos she's going to listen to exactly what we are listening to over there let's head into the control room and make a nice vocal [Music] chain we are on input four over there in the live room so we are going to grab number four over here and let's batch that then we of course want to go to the 1073 that is over here and then we need to take the output of the 1073 and we are going to the cl1b that's right there and then I want to go to a channel on the desk because I might want to do some compression or EQ on the SSL itself and then I'm just going to check roughly check the gear if it's set how I kind of want it to be when main is going to come in and uh it's not going to blast her ears or be super quiet so I'm thinking of going for about 35 Deb of gain to start with I'm going to apply the EQ of course cuz I want that 1073 EQ what works N9 out of 10 times for me for female R&B vocals is the fixed setting over here maybe later on during the vocal recording I'll notice that the fix setting is not really right and then I can always switch to manual and still dial in those attack and release times to my preference all right then let's head into Pro Tools to set up the session and then we're almost ready to go all right so I'm routing everything over here the mic is coming into Channel 21 so we are going to want to put that input of those channels into input 21 and then the output routing I really like to do on the SSL so I have a more hands on field this will allow me to apply compression and EQ on to those channels and make a rough mix with the analog gear over here and just be more Hands-On and make things go a little bit quicker okay so before we are getting Main in behind the mic I want to check if it's actually coming in so I've got Paul in the live room so as you can hear and see in Pro Tools we're getting signal the next very important thing to check is if he has any delay on the headphones so Paul do you have I think so yeah I can hear myself like a half a second later okay so we're clearly getting a delay through protols so what I need to do is I need to go to setup playback engine and I'm seeing that my Hardware buffer size is 1024 samples which is the highest buffer size which means there is a big delay going on I like to start at 64 sometimes times my Mac doesn't really want to do 64 so I can go to 128 and if I really have to I can go to 56 okay I think it's time to check some vocals Juno are we rolling yeah you don't mix so okay how are we on your end good yeah what we are going to do is we're going to run through everything check your levels uh first I'm going to dial in the preamp and compression and everything so sound will be changing a little bit you've got your balance over there but I'm basically doing everything for you let's just do one run and then after this run I'll check with you what I can change about your [Music] balance okay let's see how we are on level please way very [Music] low I'm liking the sound of the compression and the amount of the compression maybe she goes louder later so now yeah she goes louder breaks laying in this bed I'm made L with no Direction okay so if it stays on three or four DB of game reduction then I'm good but if we okay she's getting louder so I kind of want to take this down then we're creating more head room for ourselves and the compression is not doing as much okay here taking out a little bit of that harsher highend with the ssq rather boost a little bit of high end while we're still in the analog domain so that's the first test take so how's that um if the the music could be a little bit hard louder that would be great sure okay let me do one more test run okay so what I like to do when we are on the SSL I like to add a little bit of that's a c compression on the monitor so this is not being recorded this is just for our rough mix over here that way I can mimic what I do later with clip gaining and uh leveling everything out and compression uh at a later stage uh do you want to do entire takes do you want to focus on specific Parts um let's just start by the beginning mhm and then want to like I think the the first half of the first verse and then take it from there great so I just pretend cuz every lonely night to lose and fight oh I'm swiping in my bed I couldn't find you so hold to what I have this is not the end I'm addicted to the love I thought I had and want I'm here on my own okay so you want to punch in from okay so we'll punch from there this is the so it's very important here that I'm in quick punch and then give you a little bit of free roll and we'll get into I couldn't find you what I the end this u47 mic was great for the lead vocals it's nice and in your face it has a lot of top end which is great but now we could do the backing vocals with the same mic but that's not how we roll over here so I kind of want to grab another mic and that mic will [Music] be the u67 same process as with the other mic we going to move over to pop filter and now we can turn on the power supply so that is input number three over here going into the second 1073 and then we'll go into input 22 on the console so I've got all the these backing vocals the demo backing vocals uh ready over here what do you want to do do you want to listen to them first and then rord yes every single one yeah let's just listen to them one by one and do them one by one so we'll just listen to Back In vocal one un mute it and then you'll do it yeah great let's do it heart AES hurts it breaks in this lost with no [Music] dire okay let's go again yeah so I close my eyes hold my pill tight lost with no direction for so I close my eyes hold my [Music] tight so we did all the vocal recording now it is time to make a rough mix for them so I can send that over and they can listen to what we have done today to get emotional strong and T I seem unbreakable but when the sun goes down and the Cur fall there's no one left to hold me so every night my heart aches it hurts it breaks Ling in this bed I'm made loss with no Direction longing for affection so I close my eyes hold my pillow tight can't seem to find the light lost with no Direction quing my [Music] reflection so every now my heart aches it hurts it break laying in this bed I'm made L with dire longing for [Music] affection thought I had you want I'm here on my own so I close my eyes hold my pill questioning my reflection anytime I need to do a quick Master on a recording session I gravitate more and more towards the master plan my music hack because it's just super simple to dial it in later on in a mix we're going to dive into all of that harshness and everything but now it just needs to be present loud and when I'm going to mix it I need to listen to my own rough mix and think back to this moment and hate myself for making it sound too good and too loud and two present let's print it and then we're good to [Music] go tell me it's going to be okay hold my hand and please leave the way so every now my heart aches it hurts it breaks laying in this bed I'm made lost with no Direction longing for affection thanks so much again for watching leave a like down below if you like this video and let me know down below what other videos you would like me to make is it drum recording is it full band recording is it mix break I know you guys are waiting for those they will come back no worries and let me know down in the comments what mic you are recording vocals with Cur and that's it for me I'll see you on the next one later you I hold what I have this is not the end I'm addict

Channel: Thomas van Opstal

Views: 49,845

Keywords: vocal mixing, home studio, vocal recording, recording rnb vocals, female vocals, rec vocals, vocal mic, best vocal mic, tube mic, recordingstudio, set up microphone, patchbay, patching, vocalchain, ssl, ssl4000, mixingconsole, liveroom, studiotour

Id: gLOYMh3n60o

Length: 14min 57sec (897 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2024