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Vocals and the Spoken Word
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Vocals and the Spoken Word by Marc Schonbrun

These days, getting good vocals or spoken words recorded can be one of the greatest challenges of recording. The human voice is one of the hardest sounds to re-create because listeners are supercritical if it doesn't sound exactly as it should. We are, quite naturally, very used to hearing the human voice.

Choosing the Right Microphone for Voice

If you ever had the occasion to sing on stage, you probably sang into a dynamic cardioid microphone. Dynamic microphones are great because they handle loud sounds well, reject other noises from the sides, and are virtually indestructible. While dynamic microphones might be perfect for the stage, they aren't always perfect for the studio. Dynamic microphones don't re-create the full frequency spectrum very well, which can be a problem that sometimes shows itself in vocals that don't sound natural. However, a dynamic microphone is your best choice for live sound in most cases. For studio recording of any vocals, choose a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. Large-diaphragm condensers are those microphones with the large, fat heads. They allow you to pick up all of the frequencies present in a human voice.

Figure 11-4: Vocalist with condenser microphone and pop filter

Save your best condenser microphone for your vocal work because it will allow you to pick up the nuance and detail of the human voice. If you work with vocals a lot, investing in a good microphone will pay off time and time again.

Pop Filters

As discussed earlier, plosives can kill a recording by distorting or clipping the signal either to the microphone or input channel. Plus, they sound just plain awful. On digital recorders, anything that is clipped is instantly turned into garbage noise—a square wave, to be exact. Clipping ruins whatever you are recording. The simple solution—the pop filter—filters excess air through its mesh, and only the normal sound reaches the microphone. Pop filters are a must for vocal recording and can be obtained at a relatively low cost.

The Proximity Effect

Microphones exhibit a special phenomenon called the “proximity effect.” Simply put, the closer you stand to a microphone, the more bass frequencies come through. As you step back, the bass diminishes. If you are close-miking a vocalist, this phenomenon creates a muddy sound. The easiest option is to have the singer step back a little, but then the track might sound distant. If so, you can do a few things to fix the problem. Many condenser microphones are equipped with a bass roll-off switch. The bass roll-off switch will usually cut the bass frequencies from around 100Hz and below (but it depends on the source), which is where most of the proximity effect occurs. If your microphone doesn't have such a switch, you can EQ either on your outboard or virtual mixer by cutting 100Hz and below.

Figure 11-5: Apple's Logic EQ plug-in

Figure 11-5 shows what a 100Hz roll-off looks like in Apple's Logic EQ plug-in.

Voice Monitoring

The vocalist should monitor through closed-ear headphones. The level of the sound coming to the vocalist's ears is critical to getting the best performance. Hearing too much or too little of her own voice can cause major pitch problems. Adjust the mix until the singer feels comfortable and you notice that the pitch remains relatively constant. Typically, a singer doesn't enjoy hearing the dry sound of her voice through the headphone mix. Reverb is usually needed to sweeten up the sound and make the singer more comfortable. If you're recording in a DAW, adding reverb is easy enough: just insert a reverb plug-in and mix it to taste.

Isolating the Voice

Vocals are something you definitely want to isolate, because it's important to cut down a lot of the excess ambient noise in the room. Isolation will give the voice a relatively flat, neutral sound, which offers you the most control over the sound. Ambience can be added with reverb later.

Holding Pitch

For a singer, there are few things more important than holding good pitch. Not everyone is blessed with this ability, so you might have to rerecord until you get something you like. But that can lead to frustration on the part of the singer, which can make the situation worse.

Figure 11-6: Melodyne

Technology to the rescue! Melodyne (shown in Figure 11-6) analyzes the incoming pitches of any audio track and allows you to retune one or all of the pitches. Auto-Tune, a plug-in by Antares, first made pitch correction possible. Melodyne took it one step further and gave unprecedented control of not only the tuning of the notes, but smaller nuances like formant and even the amount of vibrato. You can even change a note's pitch completely without hearing any ill effects.

If you work with singers, Melodyne is an amazing tool. A recent update to Melodyne has enabled pitch correction to work on polyphonic sources (like chords). In the past, you could only tune single-note lines. With the new Meoldyne DNA, you can tune or even change the pitch of a note inside of a guitar or piano chord! Amazing!