Recording - February 2012 - 30

In fact, it could be better than a vintage, dark mic for your purpose. Tailor your gear to what you want to achieve, not to what you see other people getting. With a new singer, how do you go about picking the right key? The key I can usually figure out from hearing other recordings the person has done, by doing some background research on that person before the session. If the track is already heavily layered and the key is just a big problem, I’ll pass most of the instruments into Melodyne and temporarily transpose them while the person is in the booth. Then when the vocalist leaves, I’ll re-record MIDI and instruments accordingly. How to you go about teaching a singer the song? I provide a guide vocal which is very detailed and complete, sometimes even including some ad libs at the end. This used to be a big problem 10 years ago before Auto-Tune really worked, because if you didn’t have a good voice or chops to lay down energetic performances, it could actually hurt the session. But as I mentioned earlier, nowadays, with compression, eq, Melodyne and various tricks, you can have a very energetic guide for the vocalist to really understand what you’re going for. Uptempos are usually the most problematic for non-singers to demo. What if it’s a song for a female voice? If you’re trying to go for a Lady Gaga or Katy Perry vibe and you’re a male producer with no singing chops, your best bet is to use a vocoder. At the end of the day, if it sounds “genre appropriate” and cool and modern, the vocalist will understand and feel inspired to give it a go. Of course, I always encourage vocalists to add their flavor, ad libs, and just really go for it. If there’s anything I don’t like I can always edit it out, but you can’t really add anything if it’s not there to begin with. More takes is always better in this digital age. How to you go about teaching a singer the expression you’re after? The expression is always the most important and difficult part, and of course the hardest to explain. If my guide vocal I laid down doesn’t translate what I want, I always keep an iPod or an iPhone with Spotify handy, with some good examples of songs in the vein of what we’re doing. It’s easy to reference something on the spot and clarify the confusion.

phenomenal as the AKG C12 are just too huge sounding, with too much low mids for an ‘80s electro-track vibe. So even though I could put up four mics in front of the vocalist to try, there are usually conditions that make me choose something based on past experience. I usually choose two and then pick one. Another key factor is the preamp. A great mic through a mediocre preamp sounds completely different. I use a Manley Voxbox for condenser mics and a Langevin Dual Vocal combo or a Neve 1073 for tube mics. These are rather pricey items... Of course, I’ve named all the really expensive gear, but this principle applies to all levels of budget. Every expensive piece of gear has a similar, less expensive counterpart by some competing manufacturer or at times the same company. Take RØDE mics, for example. They even look like Neumann U47s but cost five times less and are also tube. Do your research, if you’re reading this and I mentioned the Blue Kiwi which costs $2K, you’ll realize you can get a Blue Dragonfly for $600 and they share a lot of the same qualities. Use that and you’ll get in the ballpark of the same sound. My advice is to get to know your preferences and buy the best piece of kit you can afford that still falls in line with those preferences. Meaning, if you make agressive hip hop with loads of compression, you don’t need a $4000 tube mic. Chances are that your vocalist is very aggressive and loud and even a $60 Shure SM57 dynamic mic could do the trick incredibly well.
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RECORDING FEBRUARY 2012

Of course, I’ll try singing it into the talkback mic as well as I can first. Problems can occur when what you need is more of a creative ad lib from the vocalist. I’ll usually try to hire people who are also writers and artists themselves, in whatever genre I’m producing. It’s hard for someone who usually sings country to understand what you mean by saying: “Give me a Mary J. Blige-style ad lib”, but an R&B or hip hop singer will know exactly what you mean. How about matching individual singing styles to the song? Yes—something else that’s hard to explain is exactly how much vibrato to use. Especially with classically trained singers, for that I’ll usually reference people like Sade, Everything But The Girl, Sarah McLachlan, etc.. You’re not usually aware of it when you’re just enjoying a song you

Recording - February 2012

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