Recording

VOCALS

I prefer to record them last but there are no rules. If you prefer to record them first, then do so.

To record vocals, make sure the place is quiet, shut the door, tell the people who live with you to be quiet, and do not record while your neighbor is drilling holes through his kitchen walls! Also, turn off your monitors and use a headset instead to avoid recording the playback with your microphone.

Condenser or dynamic microphones?

Dynamic microphones are solid, they don' need a power source, they can take heavy acoustic pressure (like a kick drum or a saxophone) and they are not too expensive. They are also less sensitive to surrounding noises than condenser microphones. The cons are they lack clarity in the high range, which renders takes less clear and defined than with condenser microphones. They can be used with Jack or XLR plugs.

Condenser microphones are much more responsive and accurate. Their high sensitivity is double-edged, because they will capture any noise when recording. The fans of your PC are noisy? Chances are this noise will be recorded. Sound comes out of your headset? It will be recorded by your condenser microphone. Children are loudly playing outside? You might get that too. However, some condenser microphones are called "cardioid", or "hyper cardioid", and they only record what comes from a specific direction, ignoring (more or less) other sound sources from other directions. On the contrary, omnidirectional microphones record what comes from anywhere. Not ideal for a home studio. Condenser microphones are also more fragile (don't knock them) and must be powered through a "phantom power", whose standard is 48 volts. This kind of power is either present on your audio interface and can be turned on and off with a button, or it will require the use of an external phantom power source that you will then connect to your audio interface. You have to use 3-pin XLR plugs that carry the phantom power current. Finally, condenser microphones are usually rather expensive, some of them cost several thousand euros (or dollars, or pounds), but only professional studios or rich amateurs can afford those. On the plus side, the sound you get with a condenser microphone will have the best quality.

Be cautious though, a good dynamic microphone is worth better than a bad condenser microphone. No big secret here, for microphones like for anything else, very low prices are rarely synonymous with good quality.

A few known and renowned microphone brands: AKG, Milab, Neumann, Rode, Sennheiser, Shure...

Jack plug (left) and XLR (right)

Some pieces of advice: buy a microphone stand and a pop filter (you can also make one yourself with wire and a piece of tights from your wife / girlfriend / mother / daughter / neighbor). The stand will prevent you from manually holding your microphone and thus produce handling noises. As for the pop filter, it prevents the air to hit the microphone and produce unwanted blowing sounds when you pronounce some letters such as "p" or "b".

Microphone stand and pop filter

Furthermore, try to stay in front of the microphone when you sing, don't move from right to left or back and forth in order to avoid big volume variations. Dynamic microphones will not record you correctly if you stand too far from the microphone (8 inches, 20 centimeters would be a lot, meaning you can easily go too far). Don't let this piece of advice prevent you from "feeling" your song. If thinking about your position prevents you to have emotions, just forget about it but try to remember that the less you move away from the microphone, the better the quality. Nevertheless, if you have to really scream all of a sudden (I think about Frank Black from the Pixies, who goes from whispering to howling in an instant), you should then step back from the microphone in order to avoid clipping.

Just like the guitar recording, you have to set the recording level of your vocals before the take. Have some tries and check once again that the level doesn't go beyond 0 dB. Now, if you plan on having very different volume levels, using the howling moments as a reference will render the quiet moment barely audible. So, either you live with that (but you could bring some noise when compressing the quiet sounds during mixing), or you make several takes, with different level settings for the quiet and loud moments. You can also get the help of a friend who knows the song and will manually adjust the levels on the fly.

I also advise you stand up when recording vocals. Singing while sitting is a bad habit, as it prevents you from breathing deeply and could compromise your vocal amplitude. When standing, singers can better "live" their song. Look at studio recording videos: singers stand. Not only because it looks nice on the video, but for breathing reasons. Also think about carrying your voice. I am not saying you should scream (unless it is required in the song), but you should carry the voice. If you're mumbling, people will hear it. Think of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Elvis Presley or Freddy Mercury, they carry their voice. You can clearly hear when they refrain, then just let go. So let go, let your future listeners feel that you gave it all, that you lived your song. But once again, unless it is voluntary, do not force it. You are not taking part in a shouting contest!!!

Unless you have a natural gift (and even then...), be aware that singing requires work to be mastered. Nobody becomes a great singer without practice. Do not overestimate your capabilities. Each of us has a singing range (tessitura) that can only be broadened through training. This is the range of notes one can sing, from the lowest to the highest. Needless to sing a note that is too high-pitched for you. If you cannot reach it (not yet), forcing won't help you much. At best, it will sound awful, at worst, you'll damage your vocal cords.

No need to go on and on forever, recording is rather easy. As long as you pay attention to your recording levels and take care over your takes, you should get a satisfying result, good enough to finalize the song

MESSAGES

Moss
le 29/11/2014 à 09h04

Bravo, c'est clair et intelligent, sans les lieux communs habituels. Mais petite erreur sur la compression, ayant beaucoup travaillé sur le sujet : l'attack et le release commencent dès que le signal franchit le seuil, dans un sens ou dans l'autre. Il n'y a pas de temporisation mais un fade-in pour l'attaque et un fade-out pour le release, plus ou moins lents selon le réglage.

Neyutakim
le 21/10/2014 à 01h36

Super mon gars, et surtout un grand merci pour tout ce que tu fais !!! C`est vraiment cool !!! Vraiment !! Continue comme ça !!! merci.

SoloDuck
le 16/08/2014 à 14h11

Salut Grebz,
Nickel tes tutos, très très utile. Je suis assez fan des simu de LePou, juste un détail qui me chagrine, tu fournis les presets de tes démos .fxp, mais comment les charger dans les simu ? Je me ramasse une erreur "Metal - HyBrit.fxp This file is not a preset or bank for Poulin_HyBrit_Head_v1_1a." Y aurait-il des versions différentes ? A+ m/

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

<em>Bonjour,
Après vérification, les presets fxp fonctionnent bien chez moi dans Sonar et dans Reaper, mais je ne dispose pas d'autres séquenceurs pour vérifier. Je suis en train de réaliser des captures d'écran de chacun des presets, afin que vous puissiez reproduire les réglages, même sans le fichier de preset.
Vous pouvez accéder aux captures d'écran avec un lien que j'ajoute en-dessous de chaque preset téléchargeable.
Grebz</em>

zimblot
le 08/07/2014 à 17h34

Bonjour,
En préambule, je tiens à vous féliciter pour votre site et l'altruïsme dont vous faites preuve. Merci. Ma question : J'ai téléchargé sur votre site, 5ORCERY. J'aimerais savoir (si c'est possible) à quels styles de morceaux correspondent chacun des presets de ce plugin. N'étant pas "un chat" dans la MAO, je les utilise à l'intuition et quand même un peu à l'écoute, mais c'est vraiment empirique. Si vous pouviez me guider je vous en serais très reconnaissant.
Merci d'avance.
Cordialement.

Jazzhands
le 07/06/2014 à 21h37

Another free DAW to add is <a href="http://lmms.sourceforge.net/home.php" target="_blank">LMMS</a>. I use the Windows version.

Traduction :
Autre séquenceur gratuit, <a href="http://lmms.sourceforge.net/home.php" target="_blank">LMMS</a>. J'utilise la version Windows.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

<em>Thanks for the tip, but LMMS doesn't allow for audio recording. You can process audio that you import into it (audio recorded through another recording software of your choice, or any audio files you have at your disposal), but it's too big a limitation for me to consider presenting it.

It is a major drawback in my opinion, for all the people who want to record vocals or instruments through a microphone, or by plugging it directly.

Of course, for anyone who only wants to use virtual instruments or existing audio files, LMMS will be an option. And it's free, as you mentioned.

Among great free software that compete with commercial software, you have GIMP (vs Photoshop), Blender (vs 3D Studio and Maya), Open Office and Libre Office (vs Microsoft Office), but I'm still waiting for a complete free D.A.W. that could rival with Sonar, Cubase or ProTools and such...

Reaper is what comes closest to that dream as it can be used for free without limitations, but it's not a freeware and you are supposed to pay for it if you use it.

Traduction :
Merci du tuyau, mais LMMS ne permet pas d'enregistrer de l'audio. On peut traiter de l'audio que l'on importe (enregistré avec un autre logiciel d'enregistrement de son choix, ou tout fichier audio à disposition), mais c'est une limitation trop important pour que j'envisage d'en faire une présentation.

C'est un inconvénient rédhibitoire à mes yeux pour tous ceux qui souhaitent enregistrer des voix ou des instruments via un micro ou en branchement direct.

Bien sûr, pour ceux qui se contentent d'utiliser des instruments virtuels ou des fichiers audio existants, LMMS est un choix possible. Et gratuit, comme vous l'avez dit.

Parmi les excellents logiciels gratuits susceptibles de rivaliser avec des logiciels payants, il y a GIMP (vs Photoshop), Blender (vs 3D Studio et Maya), Open Office et Libre Office (vs Microsoft Office), mais j'attends toujours l'arrivée d'un séquenceur gratuit capable de rivaliser avec Sonar, Cubase, ProTools et leurs équivalents...

Reaper est ce qui s'approche le plus de ce rêve puisqu'il est utilisable gratuitement sans limitations, mais ce n'est pas un logiciel gratuit pour autant et vous êtes censé le payer si vous vous en servez.

Grebz</em>