Hi Floyd,

Thank you for starting this thread and sharing your tips on recording. I always find it valuable to read what others do. I'm more than happy to share what I do as well. I'm by no means an expert and I've still got a long way to go before I get all this stuff under control. That being said, I'm enjoying the challenge.

  • I use a Shure SM 58 dynamic mic to record. It's plugged into a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum external sound card. I stand around 6 inches (15 cm) from the mic.

  • I record and mix in Reaper. To record vocals, I set Reaper to continually loop and record eight consecutive vocal tracks, one after the other without stopping between. Doing it this way, I find that all eight tracks will have a similar tone. This is important because I compile a final vocal track by picking the best bits from the eight tracks. Eight takes seem to work well for me as it's very rare that I need to punch in any vocals.

  • When I record the vocals, they are completely dry; no effects are added. Effects are added electronically in Reaper after the recording.

  • When I have my final vocal track, I use the Reatune plugin that comes with Reaper to manually correct any notes that are noticeably flat or sharp. I have Melodyne but I prefer Reatune because I like the control that Reatune has. (Reaper and Melodyne (and Nectar - see below - for that matter) can autotune a vocal line. I prefer the control of doing it manually and I can apply it to only those words or parts of words I want to.)

  • Once in tune, I add the plugin Nectar (by iZotope) to the vocals. This has heaps and heaps of presets and I just click on different ones until I find one that pretty much suits the song. I then adjust the EQ, Compression, Reverb, Delay and De-esser set by the preset to suit. (Personally, I've found that the presets are pretty good and often any adjustments I make are minimal. I used to set up my own compressor, equalizer, reverb, etc., and that proved to be very time consuming. While I managed to achieve adequate results doing it that way, Nectar is way way better and so much easier. It was money really well spent in my opinion.)

  • I also tend to roll off the bass end of the vocal using the EQ so that it doesn't interfere with bass guitar and bass drum.

  • Lastly, when the vocal is tuned and modified to suit, I use volume envelopes in Reaper to shape and to adjust some syllables. For example, I will inevitably sing some syllables too quiet or too loud and these stand out as not fitting in with the mix. To some extent, compression will correct these but it can't fix all instances, hence some volume shaping. Volume shaping is also very use to adjust any overly emphasized 'S' sounds that Nectar's De-esser doesn't fully correct. (Recording eight tracks of vocals usually takes me 20 - 30 mins. Comping a final vocal and tidying it up for the final mix often takes around a week to ten days.)

That's pretty much it.

Hope this is useful to someone!
Noel