Setting up for recording vocals

One of the most popular questions we receive is ‘what’s the best way to record vocals for my track?’ Prep is key. Let’s see how…

01 >

We’re going to use SE’s 4400a large diaphragm condenser microphone for our vocal recording. We’ve ensured it’s in a shock-mount cradle, on a microphone stand, with a pop shield in front of it and the SE Reflection Filter around it, to address any highfrequency reflections.

02 >

You can plug a condenser microphone directly into an audio interface and switch on phantom power for its recording channel. But we’re connecting ours to a Universal Audio LA-610 for an additional preamp stage. Phantom power is enabled here, along with a gentle touch of compression.

03 >

We’re going to add an additional ‘preamp’ stage, this time in software. We’re using Univeral Audio’s Console software and configuring a Unison preamp, which models the behaviour of – in our case – the input channel of the Neve 88RS. Any tone and dynamics choices here will be ‘printed’ as part of the recorded sound.

04 >

Universal Audio’s Console software also allows us to set up monitor effects via an auxiliary send. This means we can add a little reverb to help the vocalist without committing this to the recording. Your DAW software will allow this too – just set up an auxiliary reverb directly from your recording channel.

06

Different DAWs allow you to record vocals in different ways. Some let you record one take on top of another, while others require one recording per track. We’ve adopted this approach in our session, recording each new take to its own track.

05 > We strongly recommend rendering a stereo audio file of your track and setting up a new, dedicated recording project in your DAW. See the ‘Creating A Recording Project’ boxout for more information. Put your backing track on a stereo audio track and then set up additional mono audio tracks, whose input numbers match up to your hardware recording channel.