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.

Engineering: 101 "Your Signal Chain"

I recently decided that I’d expand my blogosphere a bit, and reach into the teaching realm with some basic engineering techniques that every artist should be doing if mixing their own material, or at a minimum, tracking their own material. Almost everyone I know in this business, signed or unsigned, is tracking at home these days. Some do so very well, and some do so very poorly. Considering I’ve done work for some of your favorite artists, you’d likely be surprised at who’s doing it right and wrong. Not to say there’s no gray area in this realm, there’s plenty, but I’d rather take a pinpoint approach and say if you’re going to do it, then do it with some “best practices” instead of “it works for me”. It may work for you, but as soon as you hand off that material to the engineer, you’re about to lose a friend… let’s not go there if we can avoid it.

What I’d like to do here, is get a general consensus of some topics you, the viewer, would like me to cover in these “Engineering: 101” postings. Since most of you who read this blog would rather email me than comment on the post, feel free to submit your topical suggestions via either method. Of course, it would be nice to have the suggestions all conveniently located here in this initial posting.

First let me place this precursor out there… I am not the end-all of engineering. In the grand scheme of things, my 8 years behind the boards is nothing compared to the people I try to emulate in my work. I don’t know everything, and I don’t presume to know everything, but I can certainly find out, or figure it out if you ask. Just because I say it, or do it, doesn’t mean it’s how you have to do it, or should do it. Even if I think you should… Also, I will often use paraphrased content from other engineers I've read from. I won't label it as such, as it's all my opinion as well, so if you find something on Google which resembles something I've written here, don't get all mad at me. Please consult your physician before starting any engineering plans prescribed by me.

With that said, let’s embark on today’s lesson… “Your Signal Chain”

The last few years have seen vast improvements in home audio technology. The Prosumer market is saturated with DAW’s and Digital Interfaces which all play a role in your signal chain. This is the most often overlooked area in home recording in my opinion, and it’s generally due to budget. You could easily spend upwards of $10,000 on A/D converters or pre-amps and microphones to improve one measly portion of your signal chain. However, I expect most of you are like me, and don’t have that kind of coin to spend. So we’ll assume we all want the best bang for our buck, and that buck is very short right now.

There are 5 main areas we need to be concerned with in our signal chain and they are:

1. The Source. This is the vocalist or instrument you will record. Some people will argue that it’s the most important part of your signal chain, but I’m not one of them. Especially in the realm of hip-hop, we can get away with some particular things that other genre’s can’t, typically being, poor vocals. Just remember, some of you dudes should never try to sing on a record… ever.

2. Microphone. To me, this is a very important piece of the chain. Many things to consider when picking your microphone for purchase, like self-noise (the lower the better), frequency range (the wider the better), and also what polar pattern it uses, so it can capture most of what you need, and reject other ambient sounds that you don’t want mucking up your recordings. I’m not of the belief that the more you spend on a mic, the better the mic will be. Blue Bottle anyone? So don’t be upset when your Nuemann u87 is full of static and I can make an NT1 sound better than it. Money can’t buy quality if you don’t know how to use it.

3. Mic Pre. Important, however, the only important consideration for this section, is that it is CLEAN. The mic pre has one job, and one job only, which is to boost the microphone signal to an acceptable level for tracking. Some mic pre’s color the sound, cause static, etc… you do NOT want that. Keep it clean, keep it simple. Do your research on your mixer or dedicated preamp. Read reviews, test it at Guitar Center, what have you. Just do your research, please.

4. A/D converter. This is generally in your Firepod, M-Box, Digi 002, or if you’re like me, a Prosumer Sound Card. This is a vital part of your chain, and a very common area where people often cheap out. A/D converters come in many shapes and sizes, and people assume if it’s got a certain name on it *cough*ProTools*cough* that it’s great quality. Well, this isn’t so. Many high profile companies have taken the cheap route on A/D converters as they assume you’ll be using a standalone converter and bypassing their integrated one altogether. Thanks for making that assumption! We appreciate your lack of effort…

5. Computer. You really want a hefty and powerful CPU with a dedicated Audio Only HDD on which to store your digital gold. Too many people are using their work laptops as their DAW’s as well. It’s really sad when you can build a dedicated studio PC for less than $400.

If you have static recordings full of ambient noise and garbled vocals, you likely have a problem in your signal chain somewhere. Got digital bubbles and pops in your otherwise clean recordings? You’re A/D converter isn’t performing up to snuff. Your vocals peaking and clipping in your recordings? Well, that’s a tracking issue, and we’ll cover that in our next installment…

Remember to get at me with your requests for topics.

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