what are your tricks for making vocals sound sweeter, more full, and just damn better? I'm talking more about recording in the studio here, not live performance.

Fifth, no, FIRST: mouth is 3-5 inches AWAY from the mic. Rule one. Do NOT eat the mic when you record. Mics are made to pick up the best sounds from 3-5 inches away. If you're eating the mic, it will be boomier than hell and result in the opposite of what you're currently looking for - sweeter, fuller, damn better.

First trick: a better microphone - large diaphragm with a pop-screen and shock mount.

Second trick: a soundproof tiny vocal room - the closet works. It traps all the waves and puts them into the mic. Ever wonder why you sound righteous in the car? Trapped sound waves in an odd-shaped room. The square room results in bounced waves.

Third: Compresion compression compression. And some compression.

Fourth: vocal control - learn to mix your tracks while you're recording so that the vocals are way way way out front so you can hear exactly what you're doing. Don't mix it so that you have to strain over the rest of the mix... put your voice WAY over everything else.

Lastly - the FEWER effects, the better. As soon as you're adding chorus, echo, reverb - you're diminishing the initial impact of the sound... all those effects take away from the sound wave, so use them sparingly and/or intentionally. KNOW that an echo will cut the impact in half. KNOW that a chorus will muddy up the sound... so, use chorus on backing vocals. use delay on slow slow ballads but reduce the delay volume to the point that you barely notice it's there when you're just listening to the vocal track solo. It's like hot pepper. A little goes a long way, unless you're out to make HOT PEPPER SOUP.

hope this helps.

otan said:

COPY. SAVE. PRINT.

Thanks!!!!

I thought of one more trick I use.

Mids.

Pump the mids on the eq of your vocals - not so much a to be noticable, but it will help your voice cut through all the other instruments that are competing for that sonic space.

And that's the key to ANY instrument coming through. Remember that you're lining up your instruments to fill in an audio spectrum, and everything's gotta fit nicely or else it's all competing for space. Your guitars and keys and voices, and some drums, will all be competing for the midrange, so if you've got the eq to use, go in and boost SLIGHTLY a different notch in the eq band for each instrument that's occupying the same space. It will help each thing cut thru better.

Hope this makes sense.

thank you! I have a nice mic, a shure ksm44, with popscreen, I have post compressor plugins, I will play with the eq... and I will have to sing better. Its for a children's song.

I need to get some cheap but good monitors.

ufoclub said:

Best headphones for under $100 are at radio shack - Titanium Pro 35 ($25 or less). Get a pair of headphones that have absolutely NO boost - a flat response is a good response. You don't want the headphones to color the sound at all - it gives you the best representation of what the original source sounds like.

I meant shielded bookshelf speakers... to hook nto my old digi 001.

otan said: