Part 3: The Chain (not the Fleetwood Mac song)
So in parts 1 and 2 we covered how to setup your room, what types of mics you can use, and how to make your vocalist comfortable so they can perform well under the pressure of the red light. In part 3 we will talk about the actual signal chain into your recording software.
The simplest chain you can have is just directly in through your interfaces pre-amps and into your DAW of choice. The only thing to consider with this setup is mic position, and pre-amp level. Start with a normal mic position by pointing the mic at the vocalists mouth and being about 6 inches back. Use the popfilter to stop the vocalist from getting right up on the grill, unless you’re using something like an SM7b or an RE20. Condensers and ribbons should have a little breathing room. Now bring your pre-amp up so that you have peaks in your DAW between -12 and -6dBFS. Notice that I’m recommending a peak value as the digital meters in your DAW will probably default to measuring peak and not RMS like an analogue VU meter. Now that you have a good level, listen to the recorded signal and decide if you need to adjust the mic position. If it needs more body, try angling down a little bit to capture more chest resonance, and if it’s too “essy” or spitty, you can try turning the mic off axis a little. If you are still getting pops or too many mouth noises, you can back the mic off a little more. Some interfaces have built in FX processing like a channel strip or other plugins. This will allow you to apply FX to the signal before it gets recorded. Be careful, because you cannot undo this processing later, you are stuck with it. Just like in the analogue world if you used outboard gear before the tape machine or DAW. Some DAWs like Reaper also allow you to record through plugins but this usually comes at the cost of an unacceptable amount of latency, so I won’t go into this here. If your interace allows you to use effects it can be a good idea to use them while recording if you feel like you know what sound you’re after. However, I would suggest using light to moderate settings so that you still have some flexibility later in the mixing process. For EQ, you can try some broad strokes of about 1-3dB. Try taking out some boxy or nasally frequencies, or add some body or air frequencies depending on how your vocalist sounds. It’s important to make sure that you are familiar with their voice and the song they will be singing before you start doing this though. Another common tool for recording is to use a compressor on the way in. You will get a more even level, and you should be able to record hotter because the compressor will catch some of the peaks before they clip. I would suggest using a medium to slow attack, and a medium to fast release, and a maximum of 3dB of gain reduction while recording. The idea is not to get an audible compression sound, but to just slightly augment what the vocalist is doing as well to provide a little safety net while recording. If you have access to analogue emulations, then I’d recommend some classic vocal compressors like the 1176 and LA-2A. While EQ and Compression are the most used effects units for tracking, it can also be important to supply some reverb to your vocalist while tracking. You don’t need to record that reverb, but you might want to just in case you get a happy accident. Singing with headphones on can be an unsettling experience as you lose the sound of the room and some of the higher vocal frequencies that you would normally hear. Reverb can help the vocalist feel like they are still singing in a natural space by emulating the reflections they are used to hearing. Now that we’ve covered the how, of tracking with vocal effects, we should touch on the why as well. Many people now advocate for recording everything as cleanly and simply as possible to give maximum flexibility in later stages. In my opinion, this is just admitting that you don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t know what sound you’re after. This just reduces your role to putting up a mic and hitting the record button. Plus, it’s boring, and removes your artistic input as a recording engineer. Not only that, but you will be sending back a dry and uninspiring sound to your artist’s headphone mix. Everyone performs better, when the sound they hear is an inspiring, and great sound. It gives them confidence, and confidence leads to a better performance. A better performance leads to a better mix that is more enjoyable to listen to. So if you can supply an inspiring engaging sound to the headphones through some light EQ and compression, a little reverb or delay, why not do that? If you are really, really worried about not having maximum flexibility for your mixing process, you can split the signal and record both a wet and dry sound at the same time. Just make sure the headphones are getting the wet signal for the reasons mentioned above. You can use a Y cable or a patch bay with a mult to split the signal, or you may be able to digitally route the input from the interface to more than one track in your DAW. The other argument for recording with effects is the phenomenon known as “happy accidents.” This can be anything from an unexpectedly good vocal sound or performance, to time based effects that you hadn’t thought to use, or anything else. You will never know until you try. Happy Mixing!
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