10 Things You Should Know About Recording Vocals
This was originally posted by Jesse Cannon over on the MusFormation blog.
While this is aimed at beginners, there are a lot of great reminders and even a thing or two us old farts might have forgotten about for awhile. 
10 Things You Should Know About Recording Vocals (For Beginners)
By: Jesse Cannon
Everyone is doing their own demos these days. I personally think this is one of the greatest things to happen to record making, the one problem I have is that often I can barely understand (or listen to) the vocals recorded in GarageBand or cheaply done demos. After the jump I will give you ten quick pointers that you may have missed that can greatly help you greatly, making it easier for all of us to listen to your demo.
1. Less Bass, Not More Treble – A general rule for any voice, of any type is before you add any treble make sure that you’ve cut all the bass you don’t need in the mix. When the vocal starts to sound too thin, you’ve gone too far. Only after you’ve gotten rid of all of the bass that you don’t need should you even consider turning up the treble on your vocal.
2. If You Recorded With A Cheap Condenser Microphone, You Probably Don’t Need To Add Treble – We’ve all heard demos with ear biting treble on the vocal. The fact is, most cheap condenser mics are designed with a HUGE treble boost. Just like I advised above, get rid of all of the bass first and be extremely cautious adding any treble if you used a condenser microphone priced under $500, since most of them have a great amount of high end hype.
3. Turn The Reverb Decay Down – One of the biggest annoyances in demos that I get is a reverb that is so long it sounds like you recorded it in a cathedral. Most reverb programs have a decay knob, play with it a bit. Always go with shorter than longer when making a mix decision; we’ll all thank you for this later.
4. Turn The Reverb Down As Low As You Can Take It – I know in some Indie Rock circles everyone is falling in love with reverb, but unless you’re cranking up the verb as an aesthetic, err on the side of having it too soft rather than too loud.
5. Unless You’re Going For The T-Pain Sound Use Auto-Tune In Graphical Mode – I have news for you…it takes about an hour or two of reading or watching YouTube videos to learn how to use AutoTune decently. If you don’t want your vocals to sound like every hip-hop song on the radio today, please switch to graphical mode and take an hour or do to learn how to use it well.
6. Pop Filters Aren’t Always Enough – Even when you buy some of the super expensive pop filters out there it doesn’t mean that all your pop problems will be cured. Vocalists can still pop P’s and kill our ears when we listen to your demo. If you turn down the bass on the vocal and have already applied a HPF (high pass filter) to the vocal and you’re still hearing a huge P, please punch it in.
7. Keep Your Mic Pre Gain Low – Unless you’re going for a distorted gritty sound don’t aim to get the waveform and level high. Keep it as low as possible and adjust it later with compression and fader volume. This will keep your vocal clear and prevent your microphone from picking up lots of ambient noise in your room.
8. Reverb Isn’t The Only Effect – Try slapback delays and quiet delays for giving your vocal some ambiance. As well, reverb settings with really short decay times (150-350 ms) can do a great deal for keeping a vocal dry and up front without it sounding dry and cold.
9. If You Can’t Hit The Notes Program A MIDI Track To Sing Along To – Keep in mind demos are often practice to get good at singing in the studio. If you’re having trouble hitting notes, singing along to a keyboard playing the melody can do worlds of good for your pitch and intonation. It only takes a few minutes to play your melody in and have a great pitch reference.
10. When Tweaking The Mix Keep In Mind That You May Need To Tweak The Other Instruments To Make The Vocal Work – I probably spend most of my time mixing getting the other instruments out of the way of the vocal. Keep in mind the sound of the vocal is very much determined by what’s eating it up in the mix. If you’re having trouble with your vocal sound try EQing and changing levels on other instruments.
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