In this episode, I am going to walk you through a tried and true technique for recording vocal,
that will get you amazing vocal takes every time.
It has to do with no using headphones when you record vocal.
You may be thinking it is a crazy idea, but I bet you would be hard pressed to tell the
different between loud headphones placed next to a microphone, and microphone placed in
the control room using this technique to record vocal.
Let us dive in.
[Music]
My name is Ryan, and you are watching Creative Sound Lab.
A weekly recording show with recording tips, pointers and off-the-wall recording techniques.
Today is about getting amazing vocal takes.
Perhaps the most amazing that you have recorded so far.
If it is something that you are really struggling with.
Maybe you find yourself in a jam where the vocalist get really discouraged when they
are trying to record.
They come back in and they realize wow I was really off pitch.
This is a perfect technique for those types of situations.
Today is all about record vocal without headphones.
You can do this in the control room, which is a popular place to do it, but you can do
it in the live room.
You can do it with a stage wedge or a monitor that would typically be used for live applications.
You do not just have to do it in your control room of your studio.
It is about getting the comfort level of your vocalist much higher than what they ever could
while hearing the sound of their voice through headphones.
Headphones are really unnatural.
Vocalist do not typically sit around their house singing into a microphone and monitoring
the sound of their voice through headphones.
When they learned to sing they probably sang in the car.
They sang in the shower.
They sang in natural environments and natural rooms.
Maybe they sang in a stairwell where it was really echo-y.
These are natural places...native states, of vocalists.
If we put them there, they are going to give us better vocal takes.
After all, if we get them in a more comfort zone, then the music will be better.
This technique is all about that.
It is about trying to make the music better by the means of how we record the musicians
that we work with.
This technique is all about how you place the microphone in the room.
Step one is to find a place that you can get your vocalist to stand in the room and were
you can also play the music through speakers so that they can be singing along to the music.
They will sing to what they hear in the room, and without any headphones they will sing
back.
Find a place where you can do this.
You can play the track to them and just like they are standing behind the studio desk chair.
So this is a perfect spot, this is my typical spot when I am using this technique.
So get them comfortable in a position in the room and start to get a vocal sound.
Go ahead and fire up 30 seconds and see what it sounds like.
It is a little different than recording in a vocal booth, because vocal booths allow
you to separate everything out.
You are able to put them in there and you have your own space to listen to what the
microphone is doing in real time.
This is not the case.
But the benefits are worth it trust me.
This is not the case - you have to basically record a few seconds and have a listen.
Do we like the sound?
Should we raise the microphone up?
Should we lower the microphone a little bit?
I am going to have an episode on how I approach just record a vocalist.
But really these are just decisions that we have to make as we are setting up.
This is the initial stage.
This is where we really have to tweak the microphone and get the position just the way
we want it.
We do that through just quick test recordings, and listening back and making adjustments.
From here, what we really need to do is put the whole studio on lock down.
Not necessarily locking the doors, but every knob, every variation in the audio track that
you are playing to the vocalist.
Even the height of the microphone.
You do not want to touch a thing.
From here, you can start recording your tracks.
Once you start recording tracks that you want to keep, it needs to be on lock down.
You can not touch a thing.
Do not touch the volume knob.
Do not make adjustments in the track.
If the vocalist needs back ground vocal tracks or they need more acoustic...these are changes
that need to be made to the so called Monitoring Mix, the mix that they are hearing.
That mix needs to remain constant.
Everything needs to remain completely constant.
Go ahead and record your tracks.
Three or four tracks.
To be honest with you, with this technique I typically do two or three tracks.
After that the vocalist is pretty confident they have the take that they need.
From there, this is the secret sauce of this technique.
You are going to ask the vocalist for the portions of the song that they are singing
(it does not have to be during the guitar solo) they are just going to stand behind
the microphone and breathe as quietly as possible.
They are not going to say anything.
They are just going to stand behind the microphone.
It is important that they stand behind the microphone because even them being behind
the microphone is changing how the microphone is getting noise from the room.
So you are going to ask them to stand behind that microphone and you are going to record
the bleed in the room during those sections.
So what you are going to have is several vocal takes that are the takes that you like, and
then you are going to have the whole pass or just the sections if you do not want to
wait through the guitar solo or the bridge.
And you are basically be recording the noise.
And when you have not changed anything from the time that you have recorded the main vocal
and recorded the noise.
Now we can go to the mixing desk and I will show you exactly what to do to cancel out
this noise.
So we are here at the mixing desk.
I have a song pulled up by Nate Huff and I just want to show you a couple of the different
tracks.
I want to walk you through what each of the tracks sound like without the noise cancellation
and with the noise cancellation.
I am going to show you what the noise sounds like.
I am also going to show you exactly how I am canceling out the noise that we are recording.
Remember we are asking our vocalist just to stand there for the entire time that they
are singing.
This is to record the noise that is coming into the microphone.
This is recording all the junk that we do not want.
So let us check out and see what that raw vocal sounds like.
It is just the dry vocal.
No noise cancellation at all.
This is pre noise cancellation.
[music]
So you can see there that it is really not so bad.
But let us go ahead and apply the technique anyhow just to really maximize what we are
doing.
Ok now here is the noise track.
This is just the noise.
[music]
Yeah so you can see that there is not a whole lot of noise, but it is definitely more than
headphones.
Ok so here is where the magic happens.
You have a track that has all the junk.
This is our noise.
This is stuff we do not want.
And because we have gone to this trouble of having our own track for it we can really
use it.
We can use it to subtract out and process the good stuff.
So this is the track of the actual vocal and it has noise in it as well.
But when we bring up a track, and keep the volumes the same, both at zero or unity gain,
then we can flip the phase of the noise track, and the noise will be subtracted out of the
vocal track.
So that is pretty cool.
We can actually take something and subtract it out using the phase.
Now we have kept everything the same between these two tracks.
Start to finish.
Once we go our vocal sounds I usually put tape over the faders.
I put tape over this fader.
I do not make changes to the mix.
That way the bleed in the vocal take is the exact bleed that we are hearing here.
Once again here is what that bleed sounds like.
[music]
Ok that is the exact bleed that we have in that vocal take.
All we have to do is flip the phase of this track and it will reduce that bleed.
Now in my experience, because I do not record in a chamber that has no reflections at all,
this is not a completely perfect technique, but it does a really good job.
Let us check out a see how good the technique worked.
[music]
Ok so right there, between those two phrases we can really hear the difference.
Here is without that noise cancellation that we have done.
[music]
Ok right there, there was that piano note that really came through and I also can hear
more acoustic guitar.
Once again here is with the noise track we are subtracting by using the phase.
Here is with the noise cancellation.
[music]
This is really good.
It really gets you about the same that you would have with loud headphones.
You can still hear a little bit of the music that would maybe come out in the form of headphone
bleed, but in this situation our vocalist is in a room, they are comfortable.
It is in a very native state for what they are used to.
And they can perform better.
I had mentioned at the beginning of this episode that it really messes with a vocalist pitch.
It really messes with their head and their ability to perform good.
And this can really subtract away from their confidence in a recording session.
They are in a new environment.
They may be nervous.
And so why do we want to make it harder for them to perform better.
This technique, although it may not be as good as sound proof headphones that do not
bleed at all and putting them in a vocal booth.
To be honest that may not give me the best recording.
They may feel awkward in the booth.
They may not feel as inspired to sing and do their best.
I would rather get the more inspired version of their song, than record the bored, nervous
and anxious version of their song.
So this is a technique that has helped me get good results.
This I believe was the first for second take.
He liked it so much he said that it was the vocal take he wanted.
I am happy with that.
We did not do more than, maybe three takes on this and it worked.
It really worked for this vocalist.
So I have a couple different tips with this technique.
The first one is to use only one monitor.
Either turn a monitor off, or pan your mix to one side or the other.
This way you have a single point in the room that is either radiating sound and a single
point in the room that is collecting sound.
You would think in theory that it would make it a lot easier, and you would get better
results using this technique.
The next pointer is, do not put the vocal microphone in that monitor.
So the vocalist is just hearing the sound of their voice in the room, and that is it.
If they can not hear their voice enough, then you need to turn the speaker down.
If they feel exposed and they want to hear more music, then turn the speaker up.
But do not put that microphone signal back into the speaker and pipe it back into the
room.
So just have the microphone completely muted, and they are listening completely naturally
to the sound of their voice in the room.
The third tip and pointer to getting this really great is controlling the bleed that
goes into the vocal microphone.
So what I have done a lot is use the on board equalization and just cut the bass and treble.
Just have a mid frequency heavy mix that the vocalist is listening to.
That way I do not get hi hat.
I do not get kick drum.
I do not get bass guitar in that vocal microphone.
This technique is really just treating that mid range, right where the vocal sits.
I do not have to worry about anything muddy flying around in the room, because I have
EQ it out.
I also try to go as low as possible on the volume of the monitor mix as well.
If you find this really helpful I have a free PDF download of everything in this video available
for you to download and keep as a reference for when you try this out.
Just go to creativesoundlab.tv, there is actually a link for it right here in the video.
You can sign up for my email list in which I will email you that PDF.
And when you sign up for my email list you actually get the entire collection.
So I am doing little perks, bonuses, and sound bits.
I am just putting everything into a massive pool and when you sign up for my email list
you get every single weeks worth when they come out you get it.
I really hope to see you there at creativesoundlab.tv.
I will see
you next week.
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