When I first got into home recording, I didn't have access to all of the electronic toys available now. I had what by today's standards was a relatively simple 4 track analog tape deck with simulsync capabilities. The first thing that I learned as a young recordist that made a dramatic difference for my vocals was double tracking the voice; that is doing a second performance of the vocal, as near note for note as possible. The technique thickens the voice, give its more presence, and helps hide some imperfections. You can do the same thing now electronically with automatic voice doubling but I still like to do it the old way myself. As far as "distance", you place instruments and vocals in sonic space for the listener with volume, with panning, and with reverb and echo for the most part.

That is somewhat of a simple overview to show you something to try that should make a difference that you can hear immediately. Recording any sound is an art and what you capture on your vocal recordings is determinced by the kind of microphone you use, whether you aim it up or down at the performer's mouth, how much you allow the perfomer to change his/her proximity to the microphone during the performance, and many other factors. If you are a neophyte, you need to make sure that you know how to get the best recorded sound first before asking about effects. If I have to make a lot of EQ changes to a vocal, I feel like I didn't do a good job on the front end with the recording.

I just passed 60 and when I learned how to record, the state of the technology, and my budget was such, that I pretty much had to buy one piece of equipment at a time and learn to use it, before identifiying the next need and making antother purchase and learning to use that new piece of equipment. My first recorder came without a mixer, so I learned the recorder first, then purchased a mixer and learned that.....oh.....and I had to walk to school in 4 feet of snow up hill both ways. Now digital recorders come with a couple of godzillian plugins and features and folks don't understand why the manual can't help them understand them all and why there aren't a few buttons to push to make the recording sound just like it was done at Abby Road.

What I'm really trying to get across though, is make sure you learn those basic old recording techniques that were used to get sound onto tape before you start looking around for some kind of magic electronic effect to make your recording sound good.

Keith
2025 Audiophile Windows 11 RYZEN THREADRIPPER 3960X 4.5GHZ 128 GB RAM 2 Nvidia RTX 3090s, Vegas,Acid,SoundForge,Izotope Production,Melodyne Studio,SONAR,3 Raven Mtis