Recording February 2022 - 16

Inside the
Studio
with Mark Hornsby
The Vocal Chain
A preamp walks into a bar...
Once upon a time in 2001, I
recorded a live album in a bar on a
Fort Lauderdale beach for the lovely and
talented Kat Bowser and Mark Krohn. It
was piano, two vocals and an eight-track
tape machine (remember those?). My
friend Dan Kennedy was nice enough
to loan me four channels of his then-new
Great River MP-2NV-a step up from his
original white-faced preamp. The 2NV is
a transformer-based preamp that is his
refinement of a classic 70s British circuit
(cough cough Neve cough). My vocal
mics for this performance? Two Shure
SM58 dynamics. To say I was blown
away by the sound is an understatement.
For the next year, I played those
recordings for everyone, trying to get
them to guess what vocal mic I had
used. I never knew a 58 could sound so
good. Fast forward to today...
Like most people, I use a lot of different
mics for a lot of different things. If I'm
camped out in a studio with all my personal
gear, I'll go down as many rabbit
holes as time will allow, swapping mics,
swapping pres, just having fun with the
gear. But when I travel to another studio
or live gig to record vocals, I like to take
one mic that I know will work great on
a wide variety of vocalists, where I can
tweak the sound via the rest of the vocal
chain. For me, that mic is the Manley
Reference Gold. It doesn't have a character
to it like a '47-style' mic or a ribbon
mic. Its transparency allows me to
shape the sound via different mic pres
and processors.
Preamp pontifications
On a basic level, you can distill mic
pres down to three flavors: Solid state
without transformers, solid state with
transformers, and tubes. Transformerless
solid state preamps usually go one of
two ways: They can be high-end, often
what we call boutique, with amazing
16 RECORDING February 2022
clear hi-fidelity. They are also found in
inexpensive budget mixers and interfaces
and can sound thin and harsh.
High-quality offerings can sound great
on anything and really shine on orchestral
and acoustic music.
Transformer-equipped preamps (similar
to those in classic recording consoles)
are great for rock music or anything involving
drums and electric guitars. Depending
on the design, they can go from
very clean to harmonically saturated
and driven. I like to use transformers on
drums because of their sound and their
faster slew rate-just make sure you're
using a Class A design, trust me.
Then there's tubes, probably one of
the sweetest sounds out there that gets
the least amount of credit. Good tube designs
aren't cheap but can be used seamlessly
across a wide pallet of sources.
If I show up on a session with my Manley
Reference and there are a variety of
preamps at my disposal, I usually follow
the above format. For an Americana
project, I'll reach for a solid state pre like
a GML or Grace Designs or a tube-based
pre like a Manley Labs or Universal Audio.
I'll use something with transformers
for a rock record, be it Neve or API. For
a pop project, I prefer tubes. And, of
course, it all depends on the vocalist.
What comes next?
Smack it
For compressors, once again, we
have options. FET compressors like a
Universal Audio 1176 are fast (and usually
bright), and they can have a great
aggression, but they don't have a lot of
vibe to them.
Optical tube compressors like a Teletronix
(UA) LA-2A are lush and syrupy
sounding, but you can't hit them that
hard. Other tube compressors can go
both ways. The Tube-Tech CL-1B is a
classic, great-sounding vocal compressor
because it has a hint of tube harmonics
but is still very transparent. Then you
have more aggressive boxes like the Retro
Instruments 176, which offers a killer
sound and lots of vibe, but you can hear
them doing the work. Whatever I choose
when tracking vocals, I make sure to
have only a few dB of gain reduction
happening. The VU needle might barely
move on the verse sections of the song,
whereas it might hit between three and
five dB of gain reduction on the bigger
sections. I usually set the ratio between
2:1 and 3:1 with a slower attack and
faster release.
Don't touch that!
What about EQ? In general, I have
found that if you have to use a lot of EQ
when tracking a vocal, you have probably
selected the wrong mic. That said,
if there is a Pultec-style EQ in the rack,
adding a little bit of air on top after the
compressor can be a nice touch.
The gain stage
Often, gain staging (managing the
input and output levels of each device
in the chain) can be confusing for some
people and cause a lot of problems.
Here's some advice: Start off by getting
a level with just the preamp-no
compression, no EQ. Then plug in the
compressor. Start by setting the makeup
gain to zero and turning the threshold
all the way down. Consider how
the compressor sounds in the chain
when it's not doing anything. Then, set
your desired ratio, attack and release,
and start to bring the threshold down.
Once you are hitting around three dB
of gain reduction in the chorus (usually
the louder part of most songs), split
the difference on the make-up gain by
turning it up by a dB and a half. These
techniques can be used with outboard
gear or plugins while tracking.
Keep It Simple
At the end of the day, a good mic, a
clean mic pre and a great vocalist will
get you where you need to be. But if you
have a $10,000 Ela M 251 plugged
into a super-cheap preamp, you probably
aren't going to be happy with the
result. Most outboard gear has a bypass
switch. Use it and check your work.
Then grab a 58 and head to the beach!
Until next time...
Mark Hornsby is an award-winning music
producer and audio engineer. He
is co-founder and president of EchoXS
Entertainment, LLC, a company dedicated
to providing artists with creative
solutions by some of the best people in
the business.
markhornsby.com
echoxs.com
http://www.markhornsby.com http://www.echoxs.com
Recording February 2022

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