All right nearly time to start recording. But first of all, a few more other things to consider. So, of course, as always, when you start to record an acoustic sound in a certain room, it makes sense to work out which spots in a room sound good. So earlier, we've gone through the room, and we found out that right here, it actually sounds really nice, never just placed a microphone where you think it looks good. It's important to place a microphone where it actually sounds good. So what you do is you sing around you you you move around the room and find the best spot.

Now another consideration as I told you earlier, is that you face the microphone towards an absorbing surface. This minimizes any sort of reflections getting into the microphone, and that minimizes coloration through comb filtering, and it reduces the amount of ambient sound so the amount of reflection And reverb that the microphone will pick up. Another important consideration is the bob shield. Now the bob shield has a job of filtering out a distortion that gets picked up by the microphone as a result of wind you know wind flowing towards a diaphragm. Wind is the big enemy of sound, because as we know that, when we deal with sound, all the air particles mainly vibrate around a stationary point. Whereas with wind wind we have a continuous flow of air particles is that continuous flow of air particles gets pushed against the diaphragm, it causes the diaphragm to pop into the stores which is an unpleasant sound which is something what you want to avoid.

Now, the thing about the SM 58 the Shure SM 58 microphone is that it has a built in pop shield underneath the basket that you see inside it. There's this foam layer that that filters out the wind from the sound Yeah, the U 87. And all the other microphones do not have a popular Like this, which is why we have to use an external Bob shields this this Bob shield so that maybe you can try this for yourself at home that whenever you sing a p friends is B is that the best sort of letter to to do this with the best sound to lose with? If you create a PDF, you can always feel a bit of wind coming from your lips. Yeah, moving towards your hand, it is that wind that may die from course to where to distort. And of course, that's not what we want, which is why we use one of these.

Yeah. So so if I took for instance in an SM 58, I hope you can hear me then the if I create a p sound, then there is no distortion to that sound, because the microphone itself or has a pop sealed. But if I do that same p on au 87 for instance. Then you will hear a distortion and that's the sort of distortion we want to avoid by using a bob shields if I now do the same p sound with a popsicle if between me and the microphone. You'll hear that the P will stop the story. Alright, now it's time for the good bitch.

Sarah moss, thank you for joining us. Sarah's gonna sing for us in all these different microphones and we're going to see what it sounds like. What I'd like to do first is, you know we've found the right spots with the right conditions. Now it's time to find the right microphone to record with. So what I would normally do is I would in it sort of relaxed environment, I would get the vocalist to sing for me just without any microphones just to get an idea of what her voice sounds like. Now we've done that earlier.

And so your amazing voice or your you're going to get a treat here and voices is quite forward sounding quite as strong mid range, upper mid range, which already makes me think what kind of microphone I'm more likely to use. For instance, if a two of my favorite microphones here to Sony and Norman Norman has a characteristic that that reinforces the mid range a lot, whereas the Sony is slightly softer sounding in the mid range. Now the thing about microphones is that very often you want to play against type. Now since Sara has a slightly harder voice, this means that I probably want to choose a microphone that is slightly softer sounding. Because if I use a harder sounding microphone that might reinforce the hardness of Sarah's voice and then you would end up with over hard or harsh results, which is probably not what you want.

So the trick with microphones is very often to play against type. But let's have a listen anyway. And what I want to do is I want to start with the industry standards faithful sm 58 is such a common microphone. I think that's everybody in the world knows this microphone. I'm never gonna say anything bad about it. We'll then move on to the more studio industry standard u 87.

And then we get to we'll get to experience the difference between a dynamic microphone and a studio. Great capacitor microphone. I think that's a good place to start. And then I gave away one of the nice you Today Let me hold in my arms. Oh can I say baby paste a cuz when you go away I get lost I get lost in a world far away. And ally gives away a nice yesterday Let me hold in my arms.

Oh, can I say baby please stay away I get lost I get lost away all right so I think you can clearly tell the difference between the two microphones the U 87. Clearly has a lot more high end a lot more high end detail. Which is, of course, because reasons I explained earlier the effect of capacitor microphones they pick up the higher frequencies much better. Alright, you can clearly see a huge big difference between dynamic and capacitor microphones. And what I would like to do next is make the next step I'd like to go over From the industry standard studio workhorse microphone at the Norman u 8070s. I want to go to a vintage microphone and I want to introduce the Sony c 37.

And ally gives away a nice yesterday Let me hold in my arms. Oh, can I say baby please say cuz when you go away I get lost I get lost in a world far away. So I think this illustrates the difference between there between a regular Norman u 87. Nothing wrong with that microphone and then you go to the vintage level. I think it was quite clearly a big increase in terms of quality I thought sounded fantastic. The next microphone, I want to introduce is the Norman u 67.

And taking into account that the U 67. is a bit more mid range II a bit like Sarah's voice is so my worry is that To you 67 is not gonna be quite as good as what we've just heard but but let's have a listen we'll find out and then nice yesterday Let me hold in my arms Oh can I say baby please stay because when you go away I get lost I get lost in a well faraway thanks for that Sarah sound is also great but I have to say I think the Sony for me is is the right microphone I think sure it's not bad as you can tell I even think I prefer it a little bit over the the U 87. But still the Sony has the best characteristics for for Sara's voice again, the reason is because her voice is has plenty presence, plenty mid range frequencies and it is it is exactly those frequencies that deployment tends to boost a little bit.

So if you put two and two together, it means that that's that's it that way This you have potentially a situation whereby the sound can get too harsh we don't we don't want that because Sarah has a beautiful voice and that needs to come across. The Sony does the best at that because the Sony is a slightly rounder sounding microphone. So it is very important with microphones like I said earlier to play against type. If you have a harder sounding source, you need a softer sounding microphone. If you have a softer sounding voice, then a harder sounding microphone will will will register more of the detail of it's that softer sounding voice I think that's all it takes you all up you can decide within the within a shorter timeframe is what we used it into were to decide what what the perfect microphone is. In my case, you follow your gut feeling and you're right there.

Now we've chosen the microphone now it's time to get really settled in. So what is it there's a few more things to consider before we start tracking. So remember, this is a cardioid microphone cardioid microphones they exist. But the proximity effect the the effect that lower frequencies are boosted more as we get closer to the microphone. Now we want to get fairly close because Sarah's got a very sexy voice, if I may say, and to register that very well, we want to be close. But the payoff is of course, that we that we pick up more low end.

Now, you don't want to pick up too much low end. So there is usually sort of like an ideal distance. Now, it is important to realize, of course, that as I get closer to Sarah, and further away to Sarah, that of course, there will be a level difference. So clearly, if I have the microphone further away, then the level will drop. Yeah, this can easily be compensated for of course, but that's not the thing. That's not the point of this exercise.

What I want you to listen to, is not so much the drop in or the increase in level as I move the microphone further away or closer in. But I want you to listen to the frequency spectrum. I want you to hear that as I get closer, we relatively hear more low end, there's gonna come a point where it gets so close to the sun, maybe You didn't get to Bumi and that's not of course something you might you may want any case, let's have a listen sir if you could just sing without any backing track so we can just concentrate on the sound of your voice. My love I say only for tonight, this reason to the night as wide who was flyover telephone wise, I can be in your head in less than five. Wearing drunkenness like a suit of arms counting the pavement cracks like lucky charms.

It's been three years and you're still mine. Every once in a moon everyone soon. Oh, wow. You can clearly hear this like a low end EQ. The closer I get, the more lower frequencies we pick up from a voice and the further away I get the less and and clearly I'm sure you could also tell that as I move the microphone further out, we also hear relatively more room sound obviously because it'd be As the direct sound is getting quieter, so therefore automatically the ratio between direct sound and and reverberant sound changes in favor of the reverberant sound. So but between a small distance like that you could see there was an enormous difference in in quality of sound.

So, I think the next thing to do is to be realistic. I did this without a backing track, so we could clearly hear the effect of me moving the microphone. But now of course, we have what you know, you can argue what is better, we don't know until we hit a track. So I think we should now do exactly the same experiment with the track here. So because only with the track that we have an idea of how much of those lower frequencies on Salesforce do we actually want? We don't know until we hear the rest of the of the track.

So so so if you could pay them off the track, then we'll do the same experiment. One more time. And then and then this time, okay, we'll do it within the context of the musical material. So, yesterday Let me hold in my arms. Oh, can I say, baby please say cuz when you go away I get lost I go away with us. Alright, so I hope you could hear the difference there you could clearly tell I think that if I get closer in we hear more of the lower frequencies.

I hope you could also tell it if you get too close if I was getting real close to the pop shield, it was becoming too gloomy. their voice didn't sound natural. No longer. Yes, it's nice if we have a little bit of proximity effect, but too much is definitely not too good. I think Sarah I think you both in a degree agreed it won't be around here somewhere. That's what we had the perfect sound.

It's Just a matter of trying out. And another interesting thing is that I think that in my experience from from working with with a lot of professional singers is that it always makes sense for me to agree as a sound engineer with the artist so that they both agree that if they are the most comfortable singing, that's probably the right place for the microphone also. The next consideration is sibilance. sibilance is a big deal with vocal recordings, especially your vocal recordings that are done whereby like now, we are relatively close to the sound source sibilance. When we talk about sealants, we refer to all the frequencies that are produced by our teeth and our lips as we produce SNP sounds. Those type of sounds, now these sounds are are in harmonic sounds.

They're they're quite quite powerful sounds, because because they are produced right on the exit of the mouth and they're, they're virtually next door to the diaphragm. So these these sounds, they can potentially be coming across as harsh when we close mic, especially. So when you use large diaphragm microphones, and I'll try and explain why that is. So essentially, you can think of the microphone and indeed also the diaphragm are essentially reflective surfaces. So when a sound wave hits a reflective surface that that is limited in size, like a microphone, and two things happen, some parts of the sound, they are able to curve around a microphone and continue to travel further. Other parts of the sound, they reflect back now, it is those reflected sounds that are the issue here.

Because as the reflected sounds come back, yeah, they merge in with the sound that is still coming on. It's still coming in giving you an increase in level. So what determines which sounds curves around the microphone, and which sir, which sounds reflect back off the microphone. What determines that is the wavelength so did the actual size Have the wave of the specific frequency determines which frequency reflects back. If we're dealing with a frequency that has a wavelength, which is the same size or smaller than the size of the actual microphone, then these frequencies, they do not have the ability to curve around frequency that have a larger wavelength, they don't see the microphone as an obstacle, and they are able to move around it so they don't reflect back. Now, it just turns out that if you have a microphone with this kind of size here, frequencies as low as perhaps five or six kilohertz, when they reach the microphone, they get reflected straight back.

And as they do so they merge in with the sibilance that is still coming from the mouth, giving you an increase in level plus also a tiny bit of comb filtering because of the time difference between the direct sound and the reflected sound. In other words, an increase in level comb filtering means nasty sounding SS. Yeah, that's the reason why people use DSS. So with Small diaphragm microphones, this is less the case because when a small diaphragm microphone defeat that same theory applies. But because we're dealing with a small sized microphone, it means that we're dealing with a situation whereby only frequencies with a much smaller wavelength reflect back. And it just turns out and on small die from microphone.

Yeah, these frequencies are so high that are outside our human hearing. Yeah, so this effect is much more audible on large diaphragm microphones or large body microphones. So when the trick, the trick here is to and I'd like to, by the way, I'd like to demonstrate that shall I do that now. So if I make some sibilant sounds, if I talk straight into the microphone, you'll make an s sound s, s, s, s and this kind of sounds, if I do that on access with the microphone straight into it, you'll hear that these sounds are a lot more harsh sounding than if I have the microphone under an angle like so. 123 If you now listen to the SS, they sound much softer and much more Much more like a real person. And what's going on now is that every time I make an S or a T sound, then of course, the same thing happens.

But because I sing not straight into the microphone, what happens is that the higher frequencies they reflect back, but because I sing it under an angle, the reflection comes back under the opposite angle, so the sounds do not merge together. So you don't have the increase in level and you don't have the comb filtering, so you have much more smoother sounding sibilance. Thing is because of MTV and video clips, everybody's always, you know, used to where to get the vocalist to sing straight into the microphone. It's nearly always a mistake. Certainly, if you have a large diaphragm microphone, always get into seeing a little bit past it. So what I'm going to do next is I'll do this without a pop shield, so that we can all see it really well.

Of course, we're going to reintroduce popsicles later if we're going to start tracking for real, but I'm going to move here now have sort of determined the optimum distance. I'm going to move the microphone sideways, right? So we're going to get Sarah is going to continue to to sing forward. And we're going to move the microphone around her. And just we're going to listen to the to the siblings range. And we're going to place the microphone where it simply sounds the smoothest and the most natural.

That way we don't have to use DSLRs. That way we don't have to use any EQ in the high end to reduce sibilance we've done it just by putting a microphone in in the in the correct position. Today, let me hold in my arms. Oh, can I say please stay away. Come with us. Come with us the wrong way.

Well Well, I think that was a that was a great example of how you could control the the sibilance just by placing the microphone just a little bit. Definitely. It was kind of cool when they when Sarah was singing the microphone right in the middle, it sounded great until she sang an S and then it sounded kind of harsh. And if I moved the microphone either side a little bit, it was much more smooth. I thought around here somewhere was was the perfect situation. So just remember, this looks really counterintuitive, because if you want to take away two pops you Sarah singing forward like so.

And you can see that she's singing almost past the microphone rather than straight into it, you know, but this is absolutely fine because we're still dealing with a cardioid microphone. The microphone is still quite sensitive here. You know, it's not that it's insensitive in any way. So now, I need to I need to remember what that spot was, you know, and I now need to get the mic sent and place the microphone in a fixed position. Okay, final thing I want to demonstrate is this is that just in a very similar way as to how we had control over the amount of lower frequencies by by playing with the proximity effect earlier on, there's also a way how you can control the amount of higher frequencies that you can hear I'm not talking just about the sibilance frequencies, but I'm talking about frequencies even higher than that, or the range from five or 10 kilohertz all the way up to 20 kilohertz.

Basically, if if and I'll demonstrate this first on my voice and then we'll do it on Sarah's voice. It turns out that if you will have your microphone at the same height as my mouth, so to speak, and then you'll have a slightly darker sound than when I have the microphone slightly lower. If you have the microphone slightly lower than the sound also becomes a little bit brighter It is as if we're boosting the high end on a high shelf EQ just a little bit. It's not a massive difference but it is subtle, but it can be just beautiful. And remember it is a type of using equalization Without the downsides of EQ phase distortion primarily, so it's a way of enhancing the Tamra a little bit better. The reason that we have a slight high end lift is because the higher frequencies as they exit the mouth, they tend to they tend to go downwards.

This is because the pellets itself is reflective. And if these these higher frequencies, they hit the pellet, then they are reflected downwards outside of the mouth, which is why more high frequency content transfer traveled downwards. So if you want to pick up a bit more of those higher frequencies, then it often helps to have the microphone slightly lower. If you have of course too much of that then you move the microphone back up. So that's the sort of high end EQ so less high end, more high end less high and more iron as opposed to the proximity effect, more low end here, less low end more low until it's lower. So that was just one more way of controlling the sound.

EQ wise, just by using microphone placement. Of course, all of this is to where to help the mix engineer The more perfect you can get the sound at source. The easier job to mix engineer has when you're when it comes to mixing the final result. So this last up and down trigger control the amount of high end I got that from a really great book. It's called mixing with your mind it is written by Michael Sophie. Check it out.

Couple more points about the pop shield. We saw earlier that we moved the microphone around the source in order to get an optimized sound. Now one thing is that important is that this may well confuse the singer so what I usually get the singer to do is to pretend like the bob shield is the microphone so they sing into debt as you might move the microphone around it to find the optimum spot. Another important thing about a popsicle is that it's very wise to put the pop shield attached to a separate microphone stand. Because a lot of people when they attach the popsicles to the main microphone stand, what may occur is the fact that when the singer touches the popular itself, the mouth or nose, then then that will be will be audible on the on the on the signal. So So having the box sealed on a separate stent allows for the singer to occasionally touch or hit the box without it ever being audible.

One thing that often gets overlooked is the importance of the headphone mix. This is very close to my heart, I think it is very important that the vocalist has a great mix of the of the music, the band or the ensemble that they're singing to. This is this is so they can not only do their best possible performance, but but also to actually enjoy it. And if they enjoy what they hear if they if they get off on what they're listening to, they are more excited and they will do a better performance. I think this is something that is important to spend, spend some time on what I often do when when I work when I record vocals, then then that very day, then the mix that I have up in the control room. It's not just the control mix, it's actually the headphone mix itself is what I'll do in in on vocal recording sessions.

I'll make sure I have the same pair of headphones, as the singer is using in the in the recording room driven from the same headphones and so I'm hearing exactly See the same but what they are doing very often are make sure that the the auxiliary cents that are being used to drive, the headphone amplifiers are post phase, allowing me to actually fade in and fade out at specific points in time to to perhaps add reverb or certain effects anything to make a singer comfortable so so they can do the best performance. When it comes to adding effects to the headphone mix. There's a lot of debate about whether you should or whether you shouldn't. My take on it is that you should do anything to make the singer make comfortable. If they sing better if they're more comfortable singing to a little bit of reverb you should give it to them.

In any case, what you can do here in the control room if if if you want to really want to hear what's going on without the effects you can you can take them out of the out of the out of the mix boss here. The main thing I want to get across is the fact that the vocalist has to be comfortable in every single way. I get a lot of questions from from students about whether it is wise or unwise to record vocals with or without compression or with or without equalization going to tape. So, so now in principle, I'm against using any sort of signal processing after the microphone preamp stage, I think these days, especially if you're recording digital, if you're recording a 24 bit depth, it's the safest to record without compression. And without EQ. The real reason behind my thinking is that when you record vocals, you may not have a complete finished idea of of all the elements that are going to be in the mix for instance.

So So when you're recording you're at you're not mixing just yet. So it is only when you have all the other elements in front of you within the mix that you have an idea of how much to compress a vocal or how much do EQ a vocal at which frequencies for instance, that final decision you cannot make until you are in mixed mode. And you're not when you're recording when I record vocals, always with records without any sort of signal processing EQ or compression. Now, that doesn't mean that that recording vocals with compression or with a certain amount of EQ is always wrong. Yeah, but if you're going to do it if you are going to to to compress to tape or EQ to tape, then I would strongly advise you to to record two copies at the same time one which is unprocessed and one which is processed.

One good argument for for recording. For instance, with a with a nice compressor to tape is when you're in a studio that has fantastic outboard equipment. And you know you're going to be mixing the same track later on, on a laptop, for instance, in a situation whereby you do not have access to the data So in that sense, there is a scenario whereby I could understand the reason why people would record with with signal processing in line with the microphone preamplifier. But as a rule, when you do that, I would strongly advise always to to record the vocal, completely dry and untouched as well at the same time. Another thing, which we touched upon earlier, when we consider the different microphones, we saw that some microphones like for instance, the U 87, u 67. But other ones too, they have high pass filters built into these microphones and these high pass filters are there to to compensate for proximity effects.

Now once that is great, and I don't want to say anything bad about those things. I also think that a high pass filter on microphones are very often quite limited in terms of the frequency usually it's just an on and off switch that works at one or perhaps two specific frequencies. I found that if you record a microphone without any type of EQ, Whatsoever it's uh you can these days with with good plugins or with goods and lock equipment like we have here, you can much more accurately set the exact role of frequency on a high pass filter at the mixdown stage, doing the same thing compensating for any proximity effects. So So as a rule, I would say try and record without any signal processing, knowing that when you do the mix down stage, that's when you know what signal processing you need to do and to which extent you have to do it.

So I hope you enjoyed the vocal recording masterclass. I hope it gives you some some help in making the right choices as you start on your next project, and I'll see you on the next masterclass.