Tips for Getting Smooth Vocals in the Box

[Greg Houston]

Right now my verb envy is for whatever Beck is using on the Morning Phase album.

[Mister Natural]

I guess there must be ~44 techniques to getting a great vocal take but one of the things I've found(and I think the OP alluded to) is the choice of mic. I tried a several standard large diaphram condensers in my large-ish tracking room & hated them all for their unflatteringly laser-like detail. Additionally, I couldn't sneak a tiny fart while recording without it also being printed. The neighbor's dog barking, the squeek of a chair elsewhere in the house - all in freaking technicolor.
Sold them all and am sticking with dynamic mics for vocals going forward(in my case: Shure Beta 57a for females and Beta 58a for boys). I feel like I have so much less "noise" to fight against with them and more straight-forward clean vocals.

best of luck !

[Greg Houston]

Or, just buy an SM7B and nectar from izotope. Just as good.
Any EQ will do really, if you know what you're doing.

Probably sound advice, particularly regarding the mic. I have the basic version of Nectar, and at least for me my lack of success with it I would say is just about equivalent to the results I got with Voxformer, though Nectar of course has a lot more features. I'm sure they would both work a lot better with a better vocalist, mic, and pre.

Regarding the EQ, again if someone is having difficulty with this particular issue, I strongly encourage you to try out the Voxengo Overtone GEQ. Yes, you can cut the unpleasant frequencies with any EQ, but Overtone GEQ actually fills the space with good frequencies. I have tried so many EQs on my voice and this is the only one I personally have come across that has a pleasant smoothing, enriching quality to it. It's free. It can't hurt to try it.

Edit:
Just to put it another way, with ordinary EQs I feel like I am losing something when I start cutting the unpleasant frequencies. With Overtone GEQ it sounds like I am actually gaining something.

[Greg Houston]

Sold them all and am sticking with dynamic mics for vocals going forward(in my case: Shure Beta 57a for females and Beta 58a for boys). I feel like I have so much less "noise" to fight against with them and more straight-forward clean vocals.

I had a 58A about 20 years ago, and now that I think of it that mic was probably considerably more flattering to my voice than anything I own now. I also hear you on the bleed issue with condensers. My computer fans (upgraded "quiet" ones) are particularly problematic with the Rode NT1-A.

[malleus maleficarum]

Rock solid vocals 24/7 >

Shure SM7B > Cloudlifter

Apogee Duet

Cytomic The Glue

DMG Audio Equilibrium

Valhalla Room

Valhalla Ubermod

[sadkin]

With some regret, I don't actually record with a mic as often as I'd like considering fulltime job and family, etc. But when I do get to recording my vocals, right before I start I quickly barricade my computer with pillows while I am tracking...i know, i know. But it does the trick. I also try and record when no one is home to because I am self conscious and because keeping the sound out of laughing and wrestling kids, even when they are upstairs, is futile.

So just when you thought I couldn't have more of an amateur setup:

Sterling Audio ST66 large diaphragm tube mic (it is okay, about what you'd expect from a $400 mic)

UA Apollo Quad using 'Unison' in order to track with the UAD 610B pre (I have the hardware UA 710TF pre and the API Vision 'Unison' plug-in but the 610 narrowly won my heart and preference...with my voice)

UAD Ampex ATR-102 (yum)

UAD Fairchild 660 (again, like I had done with the mic pre's, I've A/B/C'd different compressors on my voice, in most cases I preferred some of the subtle, velvety edginess with the 660 over the UA LA2A mkii ...of course I like the LA2A's, I am lucky... 'we' are lucky to live in these times, almost gross, gluttonous that one can split hairs between models of LA2A and a Fairchild)

Waves RS56 (I love what it does to the high end on most vocals, I've never heard a plug-in EQ sound quite like it before)

[Uncle E]

To balance out captain obvious level "just track it better idiots"

I'm surprised you guys took so much offense to his comment. These days, not nearly enough emphasis is put into good practice tracking and getting good performances.

[an-electric-heart]

I recorded this at pracky about a week ago, on the vocals there's just eq, comp and a bit of long plate reverb, you'll notice I haven't even bothered with acoustic treatment, sounds perfectly fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agiGi1G6du8

[an-electric-heart]

Whoops, double post

[Uncle E]

Right now my verb envy is for whatever Beck is using on the Morning Phase album.

The reverbs in the Toontrack Ambient Mixpack remind me of the reverbs on Morning Phase.

[fese]

Another trick that helped me a lot with harsh vocals is rotating the mike a little bit on its axis, so that you don't sing directly into the diaphragm but a bit from the side. That gives a slight rolloff in the high frequencies which can help especially with mikes that have an accentuation on those (like my NT1A or sE 2200a). And I usually don't need to deess anymore, which I always found unsatisfying.
Computer and street noise are annoying, but I find that in the context of a whole song it doesn't matter that much anymore. I have a homestudio, not a professional studio, I cannot expect to get the same results. Redefine it as "analog" and you can save on all those channel strip/tape emulation plugins that reintroduce noise nowadays

[Uncle E]

Another trick that helped me a lot with harsh vocals is rotating the mike a little bit on its axis, so that you don't sing directly into the diaphragm but a bit from the side.

Yes! There was a great video of Michael Jackson recording where they tried him out at several different distances from the mic. If Michael Jackson will go through that effort to track properly, everybody should.

Computer and street noise are annoying, but I find that in the context of a whole song it doesn't matter that much anymore. I have a homestudio, not a professional studio, I cannot expect to get the same results.

I've been recommending the Shure Beta 87A to a lot of people in your situation. It's a great sounding condenser mic and, since it's a live mic, it rejects a lot of environmental noises.

[Greg Houston]

My situation is resolved or I wouldn't have posted a thread trying to help others with it. Mic technique seemed like a given to me. Perhaps it isn't. Though I might eventually pick up another mic in the future, the ambient noise I pick up from computer fans is never noticeable in the mix.

[fese]

Another trick that helped me a lot with harsh vocals is rotating the mike a little bit on its axis, so that you don't sing directly into the diaphragm but a bit from the side.

Yes! There was a great video of Michael Jackson recording where they tried him out at several different distances from the mic. If Michael Jackson will go through that effort to track properly, everybody should.

Well, I didn't get this idea from old Michael himself (he was always a bit secretive back then), but from a Rode tutorial video on the NT1A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOy0EglZPRY
They have a lot of tutorials there, of course featuring their products, but nevertheless useful.

[Greg Houston]

Right now my verb envy is for whatever Beck is using on the Morning Phase album.

The reverbs in the Toontrack Ambient Mixpack remind me of the reverbs on Morning Phase.

Yup, those are definitely in the ballpark. Thanks. I'll probably spend the next three months fiddling with the reverbs I have trying to get something similar.