THE SECRETS TO RECORDING VOCALS LIKE A ROCKSTAR
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Recording the vocals for a song is one of the most crucial components of song production and one that can make or break it. If the vocals are underproduced and sound bad, your song will be hard to listen to and usually passed on (when pitching). If the vocals are overproduced, and overbearing, the listener can lose sight of the song and miss the whole point of it. In this article, we’ll highlight some of the most important aspects of recording vocals and how to get the most out of your singer, be it you or someone else you’re recording.
The first thing to think about is the environment you’re recording in. It’s important to not only be in a quiet room but always make sure the vibe is right; setting up candles, mood lighting, bottles of water, a music stand, and a pencil, are some of the things that make singers comfortable when they’re about to sing. You want the singer to feel at home.
Regarding outside noise, it’s essential to get as ‘dead’ of a sound as you can. The best solution is to have a vocal booth, but those can be pretty expensive. Cheaper alternatives are to get some acoustic foam to put on the wall next to the microphone, or an isolation shield around the microphone. Those are inexpensive and help a lot to deaden the mic sound.
The next environment to think about is the more technical one. When the singer puts on her or his headphones, can they hear the track well? Can they hear themselves well? Dialing all that in before you start recording makes the singer feel more comfortable, as they will deliver much better takes if their headphones mix sounds right.
In regards to their headphones sound, most singers I know also feel much more comfortable singing when they can hear reverb on their vocal as they’re singing. It will make them feel the song more and deliver a better performance.
The gear you work with, and how you use it is also crucial. The options are endless, but there are some basic practices that will get you closer. If you can help it, set a preamp level that gives you the most signal to noise ratio without overloading. In other words, make sure your singer’s loudest note doesn’t clip. Good singers also know how to “self-compress,” meaning they will lean back from the mic a bit on the loud notes to not over load the mic/pre. For especially dynamic performances, you can use very light compression, no more than a few DB, to control the peaks. In general, unless you are using a certain compressor for its characteristic sound, the idea is to not compress very much. Mixers don’t really like over-compressed tracks, as there is not much that can be done to fix them.
Alright so now you have your environment feeling good, the microphone is clear in the headphones, and the singer is happy. Where do you start? There are many ways to go about recording a song. I usually like to warm the singer up by running the whole song down from beginning to end a few times. That way they can get used to the sound of the headphones, get used to singing the song, and just get more comfortable in the session. Once they’re warmed up, we start getting into specific sections.
Recording a lead vocal: Now, there are many ways to get great vocal takes from singers, and different producers have different methods. Here’s one that usually works – recording the same section between 10-20 times. That means if you’re starting with the first verse that’s an 8 bar verse, have your singer sing it 10-20 times, and keep all the takes! What usually happens is that after a few times they get comfortable and get into the details of the lyrics and melody and perfect it. You might find that they start performing best on their 15th take! Just wait it out and capture each take.
Your job as the vocal producer is to get the best out of your singer. But it’s important to know what that means: Your responsibility is to the finished recording. If the singer sounds great when she performs ornate and complicated vocal runs, but the song does not call for it, it is your job to pull them back. If the song is a high energy face melter, but your singer sounds like they have not woken up from last nights sleep, it’s your job to bring them up to the energy level the song requires. I’ve had my singers do jumping jacks in the booth, or just scream at the top of their lungs, to relax them and get them in the right zone.
It’s helpful to have a basic understanding of the mechanics of the human voice so that you can better communicate to the singer what you want. For example, some singers can sometimes sound too bright or nasally. And conversely, some singers can sound too deep and bassy. the reason for those cases often comes from where the singer sings, their chest, their throat, their head (nasal cavity, etc.) To fix these issues, we can use what’s called the “North/South/East/West System.
When your singer sounds too bright or nasally, have them open their mouth vertically (North/South), sort of like they are making an “O” sound. Now have them try a few takes with that in mind. This makes it almost impossible to “sing through the nose,” and drops their voice to their chest, giving a thicker, fuller, more bassy sound.
If on the other hand your singer sounds too thick and bassy, and the song requires a brighter approach, have them open their mouths wide (east/west) as if they are smiling. This will push the voice up from the chest into the head and throat, and make it sound brighter.
Lastly remember that when singers perform live, they use a lot more than just their voice to convey emotion and deliver a performance. Facial expression, body language, and eye contact are just some of the different tools that the singer has to play with, in a live performance. In the studio, the ONLY tool they have is their voice. The speakers don’t lie. You as the producer have to find a way to get your singer to put everything they would put into a live performance, but only using their voice. This sometimes means over annunciating words or exaggerating emotions, in a way that might feel unusual to the singer, but sounds great coming out of the speakers. Remember, you want your singer to feel comfortable and confident, but your responsibility is always to the song. The best producers get their singers to trust them, and trust in the vision they are trying to achieve.
Once you get enough takes, the next step is comping. Comping is a process of listening to every take you recorded and picking the best lines or words. Every DAW today makes it very easy to comp through many takes, but if you’re not familiar how to comp, I’d suggest researching it on youtube. The way I usually comp is I listen line by line and pick the best take. For example, I listen to only the first line from takes 1-20. Let’s say I like take 14, I select it and move on to the next line and do the same. It is a tedious process, but I promise you it will take your vocals to the next level. When you really pay attention to every single detail of the vocal and pick the best one out of 20 takes, you usually are left with a spot on, best sounding vocal take. If by the way you’re listening to all the takes of a certain line, and you can’t find even one take that you like, then you have to rerecord that line as many times as you think you need and repeat the comping process.
There are many different things to listen to in the comping process:
Pitch, time, emotion, sound, energy, distortion, unwanted ambient noise, pops, breaths, the way “T” and “S” is pronounced, and much more. Almost every one of these things can be “treated” or “corrected” after the fact, with the notable exception of emotion. A pitchy note can be tuned, and an out of time phrase can be moved. But there is no plug in that breathes emotion into an otherwise “dead” performance.
Once you have a lead vocal recorded and comped, its time to move on to the background vocals.
Assuming your lead vocalist is recording the background vocals as well as the lead, he or she must ‘put on a different hat’; They are now the background vocalist.
The key component to recording background vocals is having unity with all the tracks. For example, often I will record ‘stacks’ of the chorus. Stacks are the chorus sang in unison, but just doubled, tripled or quadruple for thickness. If you decide to record the chorus four times, you must make sure that they all stack perfectly and sound tight. That means that all the pitches and rhythms align. That’s the key to having background vocals sound tight and together.
If your singer is not great at this, no big deal. You can achieve “tightness” by manually editing the tracks, or using a plug in like VocaLign.
Not all vocal harmony parts have to be in stereo, but as a rule, you should have at least two of each harmony part, so that if you wanted to do a stereo harmony, you could. All the rules of “tightness” that apply to stacks apply to harmony as well.
It’s important to note that most popular music that uses stack and harmonies benefit from tightly recorded/edited vocal tracks, but not having the vocal tracks be super tight, can achieve a different musical sound. Gang vocals come to mind, or a gospel choir. Not making those tracks tight will actually add to the “crowd” feeling that having a bunch of people sing together brings. The point is, use your judgment based on the musical situation you are in.
Once you’re done with the background vocals, move on to the ad-lib track. That’s the track where you let the singer sing around the melody of the song, lifting the song higher. Again, record this the same way you recorded the lead vocal – do many takes and then comp for the best.
There are many other aspects to recording vocals, but if you start with the points outlined here, your vocals will stand out and always sound great. Happy recording!
Award winning and multi platinum selling songwriter/producer Chen Neeman's songs have been recorded by artists such as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Joe Jonas, Zendaya, and The Muppets, among others. Chen is dedicated to helping aspiring songwriters learn how to write better songs through personalized one-on-one coaching sessions via Skype, FaceTime, or in person at his L.A Studio.
Find out more about Chen’s Pro Songwriting Coaching, at HitSongCoach.com