Engineering: 101 "Tracking Vocals"

It's been a month, and a long one at that. Sorry for the break in the action, folks. Blogging is serious business. Sirius Cat says so...

Anyway, welcome to our second installment of the Blogging Engineer. Today we're going to cover some very simplistic elements on tracking vocals in your DAW of choice. Regardless of your preferences, these simple techniques can help bring clarity, headroom, and an overall better quality to your recordings. Unless of course, you simply have horrible equipment which is beyond help. Which I doubt you do, so here we go.

Based on our last installment in this series, you should already have your signal chain setup correctly. If not, go back and read that blog. We'll wait for you, go ahead.... you done yet? Ok... how bout now? Ok good. Now that your signal chain is properly configured, let's get you tracking at the proper levels with the proper techniques to bring the best possible quality to you that we can.

1. Environment:
Your recording environment is extremely important. Are you recording in a booth? In a closet? In an open room? All these things must be taken into consideration for the natural reverb and ambient sound that you'll pick up in your recordings. The best option here imo, is a recording booth.

2. Mic Placement:
This is also extremely important. If you're recording in an open room, your recordings will be vastly different based on where you place the microphone. Middle of the room? More reverb, more ambient sound. In a padded corner? Less reverb, less ambient sound. Etc, etc...

3. Recording Media/Signal Processing:
What you're recording through and onto makes a large impact on the quality of your recordings. Digital or Analog, DAW or Hard Disk, etc... Recording via mixer, soundcard, both, or an M-Box or Digi003? These all play a role. Not to mention pre-amps and compressors.

If you have the space and the finances, I recommend building a vocal booth. It's a low cost investment with very high returns. There are plenty of blueprints etc. online to help you build your own recording booth. Or, if you're savvy enough you can design and build your own booth. I designed and built my own over 7 years ago, and it's never failed me. Every artist who comes through and records, raves about the quality of the booth and it's ability to knock down standing wavs. This is not to say "Go ME!" but moreso to say, if I can make one, you can definitely do it.

My personal preference is to eliminate everything from the signal chain other than the mic's power source whether preamp or mixer, and run directly into the soundcard to DAW. I want the clearest uncollored sound I can get when tracking vocals. I can compress in the box if I need to, and I don't run the risk of messing something up on the way in to the DAW. Like I said, this is my personal preference.

The biggest problem I run into with clients vocals they've tracked at home or in another studio is, volume. Apparently someone somewhere decided that hotter was better, and that's simply just untrue. Now, I can understand tracking hot vocals if you have a dirty signal chain causing some background hiss etc... But that's a problem with your signal chain, and you shouldn't be compensating for that in tracking. You should be fixing your signal chain... When tracking your vocals, you should be averaging a volume level around -18dbVU. It's an RMS calculation but simply put, this should keep your peaks aroun -12db and your valleys around -24. Plenty of headroom for compression and mixing when you layer multiple tracks.

The other issue I commonly run into, has to do with noise reduction. Most people don't calibrate their ambient noise in the room, and compensate for it after recording. You can eliminate that ambient noise almost entirely by creating an FFT filter based off an empty recording of your space. It's best to do so before each tracking session, to get a good sample of the room. Create a noise reduction envelope based on the FFT filter, and save it in your DAW. After tracking, you may need to run that filter on each vocal track individually to eliminate the ambient noise. It will make a world of difference in the end result.

Last, when tracking vocals, make sure your vocalist knows proper mic technique. Don't shout into the mic while two inches from the popper stopper, and certainly do not make a habit of standing a foot away while trying to record either. Three to six inches from the popper stopper is a good starting point for most individuals, and you'll make adjustments based on what they're tracking. Practice makes perfect.

As I said, simple yet effective lesson today. Hopefully it's useful.