Recording a Good Lead Vocal

The thing I’ve struggled with most is recording decent lead vocals and by that I mean vocals that stand out from the backing track but don’t dominate it. I think this is because it’s intrinsically a hard thing to do. It is however the most important part of the song, so it's worth persevering with.

 

The good news is, there are a few, relatively easy things that will greatly improve your vocals. They might not sound exactly like a professional studio, but they'll be 90% of the way there.

 

First thing is to get the acoustic environment right. If you record your vocal in a normal room (as I do) you’ll get a lot of echoes bouncing off the walls. These end up being recorded along with your voice, and make it sound fuzzy and indistinct. You can play with the EQ all you like to try clear it up but you never will (I’ve tried).

 

To get over this problem, pro studios spend a fortune on specially constructed, anechoic vocal chambers and many home producers stick egg boxes to walls or hang duvets over them. If DIY is your thing, fine, these are tried and trusted techniques. Personally, I’m not a big fan of DIY (I kind of like songwriting) and my missus would go apeshit if I started sticking eggboxes onto walls, so I had to find an alternative approach.

 

Fortunately for me, SE Monro make a superb product that all but eliminates the problem of ambient echoes. It's a microphone insulation shield that sits around your microphone (see pic). It absorbs all the echoes coming back from the walls and prevents them getting recorded. It makes your vocal sound much clearer. It made a huge difference to my tracks and the £200 or so I spent on it was very good value for money. Solved 80% of my problems overnight.

 

The second tip I’ll give is a bit more obvious: get a good microphone. How much does it cost? Well, the sky’s the limit and I suspect after a certain point, there are diminishing returns. The main thing is, spend as much as your budget will allow and research it carefully. 

 

I started off with a cheap and cheerful mike (Audio Technica AT3035) that cost around £100. It was OK but no more than that. After struggling for a long time, I scraped together enough to buy a Neumann ai87 (mid-level pro mike). It cost £2K and it was a definite improvement but not the magic bullet I anticipated. The SE Monro baffle made much more difference.

 

I also use a cheap outboard compressor and preamp (see pic). The compressor helps eliminate any overloads and distortion caused by the large dynamic range inherrent in vocals, and lets me sing with a bit more confidence. The effect of the preamp is hard to describe but it somehow makes the vocal sound more dynamic. More Rock and Roll. 

 

The way you sing is important too. If you’re going for a big note, move away from the mic a bit, if you are singing quietly, go a bit closer. The pop-guard is great for ensuring you never get too close. I’ve also found that it takes me a bit of time to get my voice warmed up. I know a few singers who have exhaustive warm up routines. I don’t. I just accept that it will take more than one session to get it right and the stuff I record in the first session is unlikely to be the final product.

 

And finally, the controversial bit. I’m not the world’s best singer, and I use autotune to get my vocals right. I’ve met a few purists over the years who think I’m a tw@t for doing this and to be honest, I don’t much care. Autotune is a great thing but it has it's limitations and I'm afraid to say, you can't polish a turd. There is definitely a right and wrong way to use it.

 

I record all my vocals in short musical phrases. I bypass the autotune and record each phrase until it sounds more or less right without. This can sometimes take quite a few attempts and a very critical ear. I then turn the autotune on as a final polish and it seems to work well.

 

I currently use the autotune software bundled in Cubase and must say, it works pretty well. It’s important to set the scale for the key you’re singing in. If you don’t, it will force your voice into some very unusual places! Finally, unless you are using it as an effect, use it sparingly and keep an eye on the clock speed.

 

I EQ my vocals unimaginatively. I make a tight parametric cut at 200Hz (makes it sound clearer), a broad parametric boost at about 3kHz to make it sound more rock and roll, with high and low end shelves. I compress it a bit more once recorded, and use a bit of hall reverb or sometimes a stereo echo, depending on the track.

 

If you’re still with me at this point, well done! If you were to ask me for just one tip to make your vocals better quickly, I’d say invest in an SE Monro mike shield. Did it for me.