Copyright 2017 by Kevin de Wit

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Ashlee Payne
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2 Copyright 2017 by Kevin de Wit All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below. Published By: Kevin de Wit 60 Bellbird Close, Pakenham Victoria, Australia, Contact: Published in Australia

3 Introduction Over the years of providing mixing services I have heard all qualities of songs and elements of the songs. I have worked on material that was flawless and material that was not really that great. In every case I have always tried my best to get the material to the quality the client expects. Even with the good quality material I was still getting some very common problems with the vocal recordings. These problems most of the time can be fix but you get much better results if you prevent the mistakes in the first place. These mistakes are not only in vocals they are in instrument recordings as well. I am specifically calling out vocal recordings here because it is the main element in a song. Also with the amount of compression that we generally put on a vocal track it brings a lot of these problems even more to the front and become even more obvious. I wanted to help you get your recordings to the next level and prevent these problems from occurring. None of these tips are difficult, actually most are quite simple and maybe should even be common sense. Yet they keep occurring in most recordings I work on. Copyright Page 3

4 Tip 1 Closed Back Headphones When you are recording vocals, get yourself a pair of closed back headphones. They don't need to be great audio quality as you are only going to use them for recording but you want them to keep as much sound as possible from leaking out into the vocal microphone. This will keep your vocals nice and clean. There is nothing worse than a great vocal that contains the sound of a click track in the background, especially on ballads. Some vocalists prefer to remove one of the sides from their ear, so they can hear themselves naturally in the room. This again can cause a massive problem because the sound is not being contained by their head and is just going straight into the microphone. Copyright Page 4

Tip 2 High Pass Filter If your audio interface has a High Pass Filter, then turn it on. Your vocal recordings don't need all that extra low end rumble muddying up the mix.

5 Tip 2 High Pass Filter If your audio interface has a High Pass Filter, then turn it on. Your vocal recordings don't need all that extra low end rumble muddying up the mix. Your mix engineer is only going to remove it anyway, so save some time and don't record it in the first place. A High Pass filter reduces the amount of audio content down below the value that the High Pass Filter works at. If you look at the picture below you can see the dark yellow section to the left of the sloping line is what is being filtered out. Just check the manual for your audio interface before you turn it on just to make sure it isn t an extremely high filter. Anything 100Hz and below should be fine. If it is higher than that I would turn it on and off during a test recording to see if you are losing to much of your vocal sound. If you don t notice much difference, then it is good to use. Copyright Page 5

Tip 3 Don t Bump the Microphone Get yourself a good microphone stand and have the microphone on one of those shock mounts to prevent vibration and some bumping.

6 Tip 3 Don t Bump the Microphone Get yourself a good microphone stand and have the microphone on one of those shock mounts to prevent vibration and some bumping. These do not prevent the recording of someone bumping the microphone or the microphone stand though but it will reduce some of the floor noises and other vibrations. If you are someone that needs to move a lot and use your hands while singing or rapping to get the emotion across then great, but give yourself room to do that without touching anything including the pop filter. You don't need to be that close to the microphone anyway. When a mix engineer starts to work on your vocals and starts adding compressors etc. to get the vocal loud and proud guess what. The bumps come up too and they can quickly ruin a perfect vocal take. Copyright Page 6

Tip 4 Reading Lyrics Do you stand there in front of the microphone with some handwritten notes of your lyrics? Do you struggle to read your own writing and ruin take after take?

7 Tip 4 Reading Lyrics Do you stand there in front of the microphone with some handwritten notes of your lyrics? Do you struggle to read your own writing and ruin take after take? Does the vocal performance lack energy and emotion because you re to busy trying to read bad writing? The first step you should take at a minimum is to get your lyrics typed into a computer and printed out, so you can clearly read them. What I think is a better option is to get those lyrics into an ipad or some other form of tablet. Having your lyrics on paper can be annoying to hold and also turning pages can cause a lot of noise getting into the recordings. A tablet is silent and turning a page is just a swipe of a finger and it makes no noise. Put the tablet in airplane mode or at least silent during the recording to avoid the lovely noises you get when a new or Facebook message comes through. Copyright Page 7

8 Tip 5 Finish Phrases Cleanly Let your vocal and the reverb of that vocal fade out cleanly at the end of phrases or the end of the song. When a mix engineer gets going on your song and there is a break in the vocal, it is very annoying to have the vocalist move, shuffle, bump or cough right after they sing the last word. The reason, is that the engineer then needs to cut that noise out and make a fade which can cut off the lovely natural reverb of the recording. If you watch a professional vocalist or musician record, when they sing that last note they let it ring out and they then don't move or make any sound for a good period of time. This lets everything naturally fade out and create a nice long clean space for the mix engineer to work with. Copyright Page 8

9 Tip 6 Use a Pop Filter You can generally tell straight away if someone has used a pop filter or not, because the track will have lots of P pops. P pops are when a vocalist sings a word containing the letter P. Ps naturally generate a fast, strong gust of air which goes straight into the microphone and overloads it. The use of a Pop Filter or Windscreen basically filters the air from entering the microphone. These are not very expensive to buy and they just clip or screw on to the microphone stand and then sit in front of the microphone. You don't need an expensive one just any cheap one will do. Unless of course you need to get the diamond encrusted 18 carat gold Pop Filter. Copyright Page 9

Tip 7 Don t get too Close to the Microphone Lots of images online and in magazines have always shown a vocalist with their mouth almost touching the microphone.

10 Tip 7 Don t get too Close to the Microphone Lots of images online and in magazines have always shown a vocalist with their mouth almost touching the microphone. If you are using a Large Diaphragm Condenser microphone, then you should look at moving back about a foot. These microphones are so sensitive there is no need to be that close. When you see, someone singing live they are generally using a dynamic microphone which is less sensitive and helps to reduce the amount of background noise and instrument bleed into the microphone. These microphones do work well close to your mouth, but these are not what you generally use in the studio. Being that close to the microphone results in something called the proximity effect. This will result in unwanted bass build up causing your vocals to be muddy. A good way to control your distance is to leverage off tip 6 and place your pop filter at a foot away from the microphone. You can then sing right up to the pop filter giving you the feeling that you are comfortable with but without the problem. Copyright Page 10

Tip 8 Keep your Recording Levels Down Clipping can occur when the recording level is so hot that certain parts of the recording go above 0db. This can result in unwanted distortion and clicks.

11 Tip 8 Keep your Recording Levels Down Clipping can occur when the recording level is so hot that certain parts of the recording go above 0db. This can result in unwanted distortion and clicks. Once distortion is in your recording it is impossible to remove. With the great quality of gear these days, as well as most equipment being digital and not analogue, there is no need to push your levels that hot. You don't want to record too low but keep it at a middle level where you are well above the noise floor but also well away from 0db to prevent clipping. Too many people still think it is necessary to push the signal right to the limit but this is a left over from the days of Tape Machines and noisy equipment. The reason was because there was so much noise you wanted to get the recording as hot as possible to be so much louder than the noise you wouldn t notice it. When setting up levels make sure you sing at the loudest part of the song and try to put as much effort into your vocal that you would during the actual performance. A lot of vocalists will get a little bit more excited and louder during an actual take as opposed to when setting up, so take that into account and reduce your input level down 1-2db from what you worked out was right during setup. Copyright Page 11

12 Tip 9 Do Multiple Recording Passes When recording vocals, you want to try and capture the best performance possible. This means recording multiple takes/passes of the vocal tracks and then selecting the best take. It also allows you to break each take up and select the best part of each take and join them together to create the perfect take. This is known as comping. Make sure you listen back to your performances to make a selection and don t rush it. Take your time and make sure you are performing to the best of your ability. To get the most emotion and feeling from your performance I prefer to have a vocalist perform from the start of the song to the finish several times. If you need to focus down a little more then do it section by section e.g. Chorus, Verse, Bridge. Some professional studios and producers go to the extremes of getting a vocalist to sing one line or even one word over and over again. Personally I don t see how you can express the right emotion by breaking it up like this. Copyright Page 12

13 Tip 10 Get a Good Microphone Get yourself a microphone that has a great reputation but is within a price range that suits you. Unless you are a famous artist there is probably no point in spending $5,000 on a microphone, but you also don t want to buy a $50 one either. Work out a good budget and look for several microphones in that price range, then go and try them. Just because a microphone has a great review doesn t mean it is going to sound great on your vocal. All artists sound different. Everyone has different characteristics to their vocal sound and tone. This means that not all microphones are going to work well with you. You might find that a cheap microphone works good on your vocal but a more expensive one works for one of your friends. Copyright Page 13

14 Bonus Tip Here is a small but important bonus tip. Have fun while recording. Don t put too much pressure on yourself. If you are having fun and enjoying the process, then that is going to come out in your vocal recordings. If you find this hard to do, then try to smile while singing and move your arms and lift them up above your waist. This might sound strange but trust me it works. Copyright Page 14

He has also been working in the IT industry providing architectural designs for large corporate enterprises.

15 About the Author Kevin de Wit is a Mixing and Mastering Engineer working with artists and bands all over the world. He is the owner of KdW Mixing & Mastering, an online business dedicated to providing audio related services. Kevin has been working in the music industry in one form or another for over 25 years. He has also been working in the IT industry providing architectural designs for large corporate enterprises. When Kevin isn t working in either music or IT, he is a single father of two children and loves to play guitar and record his own music. He has a very unique family with one child suffering from Severe Autism and the other a Mild case of Asperger s. He lost his wife to cancer when the children were very young, but none of this has stopped his will to survive and succeed. If anything, it has given him more drive and determination than ever before.

Copyright 2017 by Kevin de Wit

Copyright 2017 by Kevin de Wit All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic