Recording vocals

I was recording some vocals yesterday (done by someone else since my voice is grim) and I constructed a few simple things that made it much easier and sound miles better.

First I used an Audio Technica AT2020 condenssor microphone which, although it's only about £70 or £80 is bloody brilliant.

To avoid that horrible popping noise when the consonants "p" or "b" are pronounced with some gusto I fabricated a popper stopper from an old wire coat hanger, the foot from the Mrs' favourite tights, a cable tie and come gaffer tape.

Needed to record the vocals from another room, so it all had to be set up in the hallway at the top of the stairs which is incredibly echoey. So to remedy this, I constructed a makeshift vocal booth. I put a few hooks into the ceiling and sewed some washers on a couple of old duvets to hang them up with and lo and behold, a vocal booth was born. It prevented all the echo, the mic didn't pick up the music from the "control room" (ha ha ha ha) and it all sounded grand.

Headphones and mic into the booth, door closed, isolated vocals with no horrible room noise to make mixing it more difficult. Splendid job.

If someone tells me how to embed photos I'll put up a demonstration post to clarify any questions anyone has about it.

T-Bone

[Amadeus]

Fine post T-Bone! I for one will be implementing the duvet hooks into my my own little setup. As far as embedding pics goes, easiest way is to upload them to your gallery in the forum:

User CP > Pictures and Albums

You'll get the little piece of code from the gallery that will embed the pics into the forum OR out can click the little embed button from the toolbar above the message window (5th one in from the right) OR by adding [img] before the URL and [/img] after it.

[James Oakwood]

I prefer smelly sox - they keep ya quite a distance from the mic (hence no popping) and they don't need to be stretched over a coat hanger. I'm thinking of sending this cool tip to viz

[T-Bone]

The first thing that I did was use a 1mm drill to prebore holes around my loft (attic) hatch and then screw in some hooks. Preboring with a drill helps prevent the wood from splitting.



Next step was to use some washers and a needle and thread to sew the washers onto a couple of old duvets (comforters) using the hooks already up as a guide to the required spacing.



When I had finished that, I hung the duvets from the hooks.





Which left me with a small, insulted space. I used two duvets and doubled it over at the door which leads into the room I have my recording equipment. I tried a photo of this, but it looked like a doorway with a duvet in it, which is easy enough to imagine.



My obvious next move was to put the microphone onto the stand and place it into the "booth".



I then began work on the pop shield, or popper stopper as it is more commonly known.

I used an old wire coat hanger, a cable tie, the foot off the wife's best tights (stockings), some gaffer tape, snips and pliers.

First off, I used the pliers to bend the hooked part of the hanger into the shape that I required to fit my mic stand.



I cut a piece of the hanger out using the snips. I removed most of the large straight part at the bottom, but not all of it. I used the two bends at the corners to twist over each other and stuck it with gaffer tape. I then bent the wire hanger into a circular shape by hand (although if you wear gloves you can sit it on the radiator for half an hour to heat it up and make it easier to manipulate into shape)

Then on got the tights and held in place with a cable tie at the bottom.



I covered all of the other bare metal up with gaffer tape (duct tape) for safety reasons.



Next up, the big test, does it fit the mic stand?



And lo and behold, it looked all pretty.



And the job was, in fact, a good 'un.



Hope that helps out anyone who records vocals. It made a massive difference to the sound I was getting and makes working with vocals much easier without any background interference.


T-Bone

[Lodato]

How about a sample of the vox you recorded? if not but for the sound of this inexpensive mic you got a good take on with this set up.

[T-Bone]

As soon as the track is completed I'll get it straight up on the site

[AndyStokes]

Wow, Man. That looks like you were in a "constructive" mood. lol. I love getting into music like that. Trying new things and thinking of new ways are so much fun. Thanks for posting the pics!