Vocals

[Pantone247]

can anyone give me any tips on recording mixing vocals

I'm all down with getting a good level and finding space for them, but its EQing them to sit right in the mix thats a pisser.

anyone any tips??

[dudley]

hmmm

i never eq vocals, always think they sound weird
just get the initial room sound right, put a smattering of reverb on, and make 'em nice and loud

[egg_]

Recording vocals and getting them to sit right is the hardest thing of all I reckon. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is getting a good recording of a good performance. If the vocal doesn't sound cool on its own with no eq, re-record it until it does. Stand different distances from the mic, sing loud, sing soft, put on a mad voice, put on a quiet voice etc. etc. If there's big volume variations in the singing, experiment with compression/limiting the vocals as they go onto the tape, too

When that's done, here's what I've had best results with. Pan everything to the centre and disconnect one speaker so you're mixing in mono. Set all the tracks to levels where you can hear everything, and then listen to the track a couple of times and try and hear where the voice is clashing with the instruments (or where the instruments are clashing with each other) - if the voice sounds less loud when a guitar is playing, then there's a clash and you should make a little EQ cut or two in the guitar. Just keep listening over and over looking for where instruments are stepping on each others' and the vocal's toes, keep making little cuts or boosts until you're happy.
Then select a nice sounding reverb and send varying amounts of everything so it (even a tiny little bit of bass and bass drum) - this puts everything in the same room.
Then go to stereo and see how it sounds. At this stage if the voice (and/or guitar, which can also be v difficult to sit properly) still isn't sitting right, keep tweaking and try using a bit of compression here and there

Overall I'd concur with Dudley and avoid to much EQ on the voice itself - make the adjustments to the instruments instead. Having said that though I'd nearly always roll off the bottom end on the voice, and I'd often give it a tiny boost around 1.1K just for the Ts and Ds and maybe a little high-high end for 'airiness'

[ritchie]

rent a neuman u87 mic, the differnce they make to the quality of vocals is immense..

[Pantone247]

aaaahhh but you are all forgeting my voice registers about 2 octaves below normal folks

anyway... so the deal would seem to be rather then EQing the vocals, EQ around them rather then the voices themselves??

interesting....

[Goff]

tape

[The Ian]

The omo way...
Two Mics one up close and personal tudder really really far away (for the atmos)... and eh, keep singing till you get it right... try not to splice, as a singer you will be much happier in the end if you get it in one take...