L.A. & LO - Dat Dance Ugly

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Johnny Stimson - Hot Air Balloon

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Amira - Do U Like That.mp3

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Visit Amira’s myspace page at: www.myspace.com/amira2007

Shagg - I’m So Fresh

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Micheal Williams - Black Billionaires Club

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Shiela DeBlasian - I’m Ready

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Michael Chenoweth - Closer

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Mic Placement for Vocals

There are so many recordings coming in these days from artists who are recording in their apartments or houses. Software is so inexpensive that it’s pretty easy to setup a recording spot, load in the beat and make some noise. I find myself having more and more conversations with guys looking for ideas on how to improve their sound in these situations. So here are a couple ideas related to micing.

Since we’re used to seeing performers with their mouths right on the mics when they’re performing, the tendency is to think that’s the way to record. It’s not. So the next question is, “how far should the singer/rapper be from the mic.” For a general rule, you’d be safe to stay four to six inches from the mic. However, I’m hoping to persuade you to listen to what’s happening and make a choice that fits the song.

If you had the time to experiment, here’s what I would suggest. Get one or two lines from any song; start recording with the artist’s mouth two inches from the mic; back up to four; back up to six; continue all the way to one and a half feet. Then go back and compare. Jump from the beginning to the end to the middle and all around so you can get a feel for the differences.

There are two important things that are going to happen that you need to pay special attention to. First, you will notice that when the vocalist is closest to the mic, there will be much more lo end. And as he or she moves away from the mic, the lo end will diminish. Second, when the vocalist is closest to the mic the sound of the room will be the least noticeable and as he or she moves further away from the mic, the room will become more noticeable.

In the old days, we designed studios so that sound could not bounce around a room. There would be a hard surface on part of one wall and if you looked across the room you would see it was paralleled by a soft surface. These days, those luxuries are usually not available and frankly, I find them a little sterile and unwanted.

I’d prefer that engineers become familiar with the sound of a room and then use the mic to make it work with the track. Of course this means that you need to be aware of what’s going on in the track. If you have a really aggressive track with a lot of low end, you don’t want to have a vocal that was recorded a foot and a half off of the mic because it will sound too thin and it will feel like it doesn’t fit with the track. On the other hand, if you have a track that’s very orchestral and gives the sense of a large room, it’s going to sound really off if you have a vocalist that is recording right on top of the mic. This situation would call for some distance from the mic to help the vocals match the openness of the track.

In the latter example, you might run into a situation where getting too far off the mic reveals that you’re in a very small room which also wouldn’t match the open sound of a symphony hall. In this case, you might come in until you lost the room sound and then use your EQ to roll off some of the lows so that the vocalist sounds like it belongs in the same room as the track.

Experiment with it and let me know what you come up with.

Jesse Vick - You Got to Let Go

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Young Solo - Oopie d doo Song

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