Vocal Recording Techniques, What makes for good technical vocal |
Tue 16 May 2006, 17:18
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#11
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Rookie Group: Members Posts: 29 Joined: 04-Apr 06 From: New York - UK Member No.: 78,897 |
hmmmm...whats a good, resonably priced, pre-amp then?
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Thu 18 May 2006, 01:38
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#12
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Advanced Member Group: Members Posts: 479 Joined: 08-May 05 From: Portland - US Member No.: 65,373 |
The Presonus Tubepre for just 100 bucks ain't bad...really. You can go up from there.
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Thu 18 May 2006, 02:36
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#13
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Rookie Group: Members Posts: 29 Joined: 04-Apr 06 From: New York - UK Member No.: 78,897 |
so what is this preamp gonna do exactly? Does it make the sound clearer? Or just boost it some?
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Tue 30 May 2006, 20:16
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#14
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Member Group: Members Posts: 53 Joined: 10-Feb 02 From: Huntsville, AL Member No.: 3,371 |
so what is this preamp gonna do exactly? Does it make the sound clearer? Or just boost it some? Well, the typical preamp does several things, but there are three basic functions: (1) Nearly all mics produce output levels that are very, very low compared to a typical "line" level. If you were to plug a mic directly into, say, a power amp input, you wouldn't hear much if anything. The first thing the preamp does is provide additional gain, to raise the mic's output level up to "line" level. Most mixers and some A/D interfaces have mic preamps built in. Among the gear that is affordable to us non-celebrity types, built-in preamps range from fair to awful. They can be all right for, say, miking a guitar amp or a drum kit, but their deficiencies tend to get exposed when used to record demanding tracks like lead vocals or accoustic guitars. Really high-end mixing consoles have great preamps, but we can't afford them. So manufacturers have taken to building separate preamps for the purpose. Most of us don't need a whole console full of great preamps; we only need one or two, so we can buy a box that contains a mono or stereo preamp of superior quality and not have to mortgage our houses for it. (2) Some preamps are designed to emphasize or "color" certain frequencies for specific purposes. For example, preamps that contain tube front-end circuits are often said to make vocals and keyboards "warmer". In theory, you can accomplish the same thing with EQ, but it's sometimes more practical to just use a good preamp made for the application than drive yourself crazy trying to tweak an EQ. (The same consideration applies to mics.) Also, many preamps have some basic filtering funcitons designed to solve certain problems. For instance, mics that have a cardiod pickup pattern are notorious for "proximity effect", which means that the bass response goes up as the singer gets closer to the mic. To keep the sound from becoming too boomy, many preamps have a high pass filter that can be switched in to roll off the low bass some, and compensate for the proximity effect. (3) Nearly all modern mics, except for certain dynamic and ribbon types, have "pre-preamp" circuitry built into the mic itself. There are several reasons for this, but let's just say for simplicity that most mics require some source of power. Some mics can be powered with batteries. But there's a long-standing practice in the studio equipment world that mics usually get their power supplied to them from the preamp; this is called "phantom power". (It uses a clever way of feeding the power to the mic back up the mic cable, using the same conductors that the audio comes in on.) A switch that is often marked "48V" or some such is the switch on the preamp that turns on the phantom power to the mic. -------------------- Dave Cornutt
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Wed 3 Jun 2009, 15:00
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#15
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 31-Mar 09 Member No.: 107,571 |
I think a good thing to have in mind when recording vocals is that the vocalist is the most important part of the signal chain - make sure they are fully warmed up and relaxed to produce that memorable performance - I generally apply a compressor in the signal chain when dynamics are excessive and in terms of mixing, after the recording stage, emphasize the 5kHz frequency (or around this region) for vocal presence and a boost between 10-15kHz to cut the vocals through and make them sound more airy. Taping a pencil vertically to the pop shield improves its ability to prevent s and p blasting.
I like to use the AKG SolidTube 6-12 inches from the singer with low frequency roll-off filter on to produce warm, intimate sound. This post has been edited by artofmixing: Wed 3 Jun 2009, 15:06 -------------------- |
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