I'll add to the above that good vocal recordings start with the space you are recording in.

Then you have a mic choice. My mic 'locker' consists of the following:

ElectroVoice PL80 (over time, it is becoming my fave of all my mics. It's a dynamic mic with very little off-axis sensitivity)

ElectroVoice PL84 - I bought this for $25 on Craigslist, New Old Stock from a guy. Looks brand new. Nearly same size as the PL80, but it's a condenser, and you know what - quite noisy. Not in it's off-axis pickup, it just has lots of hiss compared to the PL80. I regret buying it as I will probably never record with it.

ElectroVoice (yes I'm partial to EV!) SRO-RE11 (this is probably from the late 60's/early 70's) My first church had a grip of these mics and they gave them away to us sound engineers when they replaced them all with Shure SM58s. This mic can give a vintage thin kind of sound without any EQ.

Samson something or other USB/XLR mic. Sounds pretty much like an SM 58. I use it now and then, but the PL80 knocks it out of the part most of the time.

PreSonus M7 Large Diaphragm Condenser - got it for $15, with a 15' XLR cable. I figured I was buying a 15' XLR cable for $15 and got a free backup mic. Never have used it.

CAD M177 Large Diaphragm Condenser - I've made most of my vocal recordings with this mic. Doesn't have great off-axis rejection, so I have to record in my make-shift vocal booth with this one. Has a high pass filter switch on it which is always engaged when I record pretty much anything with it - vocals no exception.

Once you have your mic of choice (I wouldn't necessarily advise seeking out any of the above - they aren't necessarily popular and easy to find microphones - just what I've come across over the years), then try to get a decent pre-amp, either built-in to your audio interface or an external mic preamp. A good mic pre-amp can make a crap mic sound decent, but a noisy pre-amp will make every mic through it sound like crap.

Here's some other tips that are hard to go wrong with besides having a pretty dead space to record in:
1. Use a pop filter. Always. Or a big old foam ball/cylinder designed for use with your mic.

2. Don't record anything with your mic positioned in front of your computer screen - you will comb-filter the living daylights out of your recordings. The computer screen is too close of a pure reflecting surface and will put a time delayed reflection back at your mic that is nearly as strong as the direct signal, which will result a flaky sounding recording that you cannot fix. There's no fix for comb filtered recordings.

3. Use a high pass filter on the mic if it has one, and even if it does, always, always, always add a high pass filter in your DAW at the very front of the processing signal chain, and vary the corner frequency upward from about 50 Hz until the recording starts to sound thin to your ear. Leave the high pass filter corner frequency there. In fact, you should do this on nearly every mic recording you make whether it's vocals or something else - with the rare exception being kick drum, floor tom and mic recordings of bass guitar amp cabinets. Seriously, this practice will take mixes to the next level of professional sounding mix over home-studio mix faster than any other, if you are minding the store on the above. At least it did for me.

4. Use reverb in your headphone monitor while you record vocals. Helps most people that tend to sing slightly flat to pull their pitch up a little. If that's not enough, use a synth or organ line playing the melody to help you track vocals on pitch) You can throw that melody line away in your mix, because you probably don't want it in the final mix - it's just an aid to help sing on pitch.

5. Resist the urge to use chorus or artificial harmonies on your vocals until you've checked off everything above.





Last edited by rockstar_not; 05/19/18 06:03 PM.
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