Recording - October 2009 - 6

Note to faithful writers: When sending email to talkback@recordingmag.com, please remember to include your name and where you hail from. Vocal problems and solutions Dear Joe: I really enjoyed your article (“Vocal Recording: begin with. And in a booth, of course, you’d lack any naturNotes From The Studio”) in the July issue of Recording. As al airiness, and must compensate with reverb. an amateur musician, I actually understood your article I try to avoid eq on vocals, and go for the tone I want by and found it useful—even though I’m an electrical engineer, mic choice and placement. Some vocal mics, like I generally find recording engineers speak a different tech- Neumanns (my preference), have a bit of a very broad nology language from mine. rise in the upper midrange and treble range, for air and I’m running a 2.4 GHz PC with 4 GB RAM running presence—the 4033 is flatter overall to my ears, with, if SONAR 6 Producer, with Waves Native Power Pack, iZotope anything, a slight emphasis in the high highs. Just be Ozone 4, Melodyne plug-in, NI Komplete 5; Mackie MR5 careful with using eq to add a presence boost at 5k or monitors, TASCAM FW-1082 FireWire interface, Mackie above. It’s easy to go too far; 1 or 2 dB is often all that’s 1202VLZ mixer, sE Electronics sE2200A mic, Audio- needed. If you’re trying to emulate mics that have that Technica AT4033 mic, AKG Perception 120 mic. designed in, be sure to use a wide Q (bandwidth) to The area I’d like to improve in quality is the hardware for insure subtlety. the vocal path. Currently, my sE2200A mic runs through Now, the Archuleta song seems to have more vocal the Mackie’s built-in preamp, then to the TASCAM. My compression than any of yours did. Compression can add vocals often “get absorbed into the woodwork”, so I boost a nice presence to a vocal, not in the sense of tonal around 5 kHz to get more breathiness. I fiddle with plug-in brightness or clarity, but by bringing out detail in the eq, compressors, limiters, reverbs, and pitch correction to get voice and performance, and allowing the voice to stay a more polished sound. My typical well above the track without having sound is on my MySpace below, e.g. “I to pull it too far upfront in the mix. Compression can add Love You”. My AT4033 sounds muffled. For subtlety, a nice opto-compressor I’d like to get more presence and nat(hardware or plug-in) is often favored a nice presence to a ural airiness with the vocals—a target for vocals; start with a medium-slow sound e.g. David Archuleta singing “To attack (~10 ms), long release, lowvocal, by bringing out be With You”. Considering budgeting medium ratio (4:1, 6:1) and an “overdetail in the voice and approx. another $2000–3000 for a higheasy” (soft-knee) threshold. er end mic and preamp. I tried a Neumann has some good mics from performance, and Neumann TLM103 and it sounded nice. around $1000–$2000, which would allowing the voice to I don’t have experience with standleave you enough for a good preamp alone preamps—I know an Avalon costs to go with with the mic. As you know, stay well above the more than my whole setup. Most of the the better the mic, the better the track without having to comments I read are “You get what you front end required to get the best pay for”, or “Any mic preamps less than from the mic. My Neumann through pull it too far upfront $500 are useless they run the tube in the mic pre in a Mackie mixer sounds in the mix. starvation mode”. Can you give some fine, clear and clean, but lacks the ideas on mics and preamps that would silky smoothness I normally get runfit my vocals? ning it through a Tube-Tech or TL Bob Pantano Audio preamp. You don’t have to go as high-stakes as an www.myspace.com/bobpantano Avalon 737, though that’s a really good choice. Even some of the “starvation-mode” tube pres (like ART or PreSonus) can sound a little warmer and smoother than Joe Albano replies: a standard console pre—you just have to be careful not to Hi Bob—Both mics you mention, I’d say, are a little on push them too hard, as they can have more unmusical disthe bright side. I don’t know that sE model specifically, but tortion than desired when pushed too hard. Around others I’ve heard tended to have a bit of a “sheen” to them, $600–$800 there are full-voltage “real” tube pres from and the AT4033 is a pretty dry but crisp-sounding mic. companies like Summit, TL Audio, and Universal Audio Listening to the songs on your MySpace page, I do hear that would coax that silky clarity out of a good mic. a bit of chestiness (bassiness) on a few of the ballads, if Before you jump into any new gear, though, see if any that’s what you mean by “muffled”. To my ears, it sounds of the comments on mic positioning or environment like that might be due to proximity effect—the bass apply, and perhaps try working with vocal compression a boost you get when singing right up close (an inch or so) bit more (as opposed to eq). If you find that compression to a directional mic. That usually works well for live, helps, you might consider picking up a “voice channel” hand-held situations, or for that big deep announcer (hardware preamp + compressor) rack. If you do, rememvoice, but for a studio-quality recording like you’re doing, ber to go easy on the compression on the way in, as transit might help to back away a bit more, 6"–8" typically. parent as possible, never more than 3–4 dB of gain You didn’t describe the environment around the reduction, leaving the heavy lifting for the mix. singer/mic—if it’s a small room or booth, then room resoGood luck with your quest for better vocal sound—let nances could impart a chesty quality to a vocal recording. me know if you make some choices and put some new If you or the mic are in or near a corner, that could push the recorded material on your page. bass up a bit, especially if your voice has a deep quality to Cheers—JA 6 RECORDING OCTOBER 2009

http://www.myspace.com/bobpantano

Recording - October 2009

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