Hey Im Trying To Decide What To Buy So I Can Get My Vocals Better

[BIGSTL]

i was told i should invest in a good preamp but i dont know which one i should get


heres my set up now i have a tacam 122 and a shure ksm27 and i use audition 1.5





minus the black box in that picture this is a old pic and i retured that a while ago when i changed mics


i only use my home studio for vocals i dont make beats or play an instrument so my only concern is to make my vocals sound better.... i master with waves and am semi familiar with how to use it.. but i could always use help, like if you have a list of what you do that can always be helpful..

if you have any suggestions on how to make my vocals better or to go back to what i said first thing and you think that preamps are the right route please let me know what kind you know is in the 0-400 range that works good and not too complicated

any help is greatly appreciated....

[BIGSTL]

like when i try and record it sounds wayyyyyy to bassy then i try to master it to get it lighter then its get hissy

if you can understand that lol any help would be great...

[Andrew07]

Post a clip, and how much do you want to spend

[brandondrury]

shure ksm27

I've heard nothing but good things about the Shure KSM mics. You should be able to get fine vocal sounds with it assuming it works with the voice you are recording. I couldn't imagine trying to record all my vocals with a single microphone, however.

like when i try and record it sounds wayyyyyy to bassy

I'm guessing the KSM 27 is cardiod. This means you have to deal with the proximity effect.

EQ is not the way to fix vocals. You need to use the right mic and put it in the right spot. That's about it. It really depends on the singer / vocalist more than anything.

You could dump money into a preamp, but I don't think it's going to do what you think it's going to do. Post a clip on Bash This Mix and we'll go from there.

Brandon

[BIGSTL]

alright thanks

[Andrew07]

Your monitors don't look like they're positioned properly. Reading up on how to position and align them would probably have a bigger impact than anything

[BIGSTL]

do you think i should just get mini mbox 2 (protools)?

[brandondrury]

do you think i should just get mini mbox 2 (protools)?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

The problem is not your gear. The problem is how you are using what you alredy have.

Andrew07 (a Pro Tools user) just pointed out a GLARING flaw in your rig. If Pro Tools was the answer, he'd be the first one to tell you.

There is no direct correlation between audio quality and the recording software you use. They all sound the same. Stick with that you have and improve your monitoring environment.

Room acoustics is a big deal. Your monitors are nowhere near accurate in that room. Moving them around the room can make a devestating effect on the decisions you make during tracking and mixing.

Brandon

[foolsfortune]

BIGSTL,

I don't mean to sound rude or smartass but lessons could be the secret weapon. I'm a crap singer but i started taking lessons with an extremely talented guy. He is talented both as a singer AND as a home recordist so we modified my lessons to be singing/recording lessons and improvement was noticed right away.

I had a very experienced vocalist in my studio last night and I had been hating my vocal sound yet he walks in and uses my gear and sounded great.

Please don't be offended, maybe you're a great singer but I just noticed this guy having killer tone, control and mic technique were key to us getting good tracks.

[DT Chris]

I think he's just talking about the sound quality recorded of vocals, not how to make himself sing better

Equipment can affect the outcome of the sampling of vocals in recording. My singing is quite dynamic, I use a lot of air on some parts, others just a slight breeze. My range is quite wide, even with mic technique, the mic itself may fault by not picking up frequencies in my voice that it needs to reproduce that 'killer tone' you speak of. I've had live performances where the way the in-house engineer mixed me, certain frequencies would simply disappear or 'cut-out' and people would tell me later they couldn't hear me singing at parts... this problem was solved when in with a cover act, we had a single engineer that took over at each performance, and he was familiar with my voice, and how to mix certain places where he knew I'd be close to the mic, but singing softer, and other parts when it was a full-out howl....

As is mentioned many times on this forum, the choice of equipment, the mics to be used for any particular singer is important. For me, live anyway, SHURE SM57 {edit} has been good to me. For bassier, softer, or crunchier parts, I go close to the mic, and for the high or soft parts I move away from it. Never seen it used in the studio - usually there is a more expensive mic in use...