Manuel Scaramuzzino
Updated: Aug 11, 2023
Being a mastering engineer gives me the opportunity to work with a lot of producers, bands, and mixing engineers. I work with experienced professionals but also with beginners from all levels. Working with the latter I've noticed a series of common mistakes. In this article, I would give you some advice particularly helpful when dealing with recording and mixing voice.
In order to avoid the proximity effect, don't put the microphone too close to the singer.
If you have the opportunity, experiment with different microphones. Do it, and use the one that best suits the voice you are recording.
The experiment also with dynamic microphones (especially if you are a bedroom producer). Some very good vocals, even in the studio, have been recorded with a Sure SM57. The advantage of dynamic microphones is that they are less sensible to the surround noises and the bad reverberation of the room.
If you have one use a portable isolation booth.
Try to angle the microphone if you feel it helps to reduce some annoying "s".
While recording pay attention to saliva noises. If there are some ask the singer to drink some water.
Use a pop shield (or pop filter) to reduce the plosive like "p", "b".
If you need to tune the vocal, do it. If you don’t need to, it means you are working with a good singer. Of course, the tuning software can be used also for creative purposes.
Forget trying to turn a bad vocal recording into a good one in post-production (editing). It just won’t happen. In that case, you'll have to compromise a lot or consider re-recording the vocal.
If the recording is too dry, try using two reverbs one room and one plate.
If you find yourself playing too much with EQing a vox, the recording is probably not good enough to be mixed.
Don’t over-compress the voice. Most of the time using two compressors back-to-back with less gain reduction works better. Set one compressor to reduce the peaks and the other one to control the RMS.
Pay attention to sibilants and plosives “s”, “c”, “p” and reduce them with volume automation if you need. For sibilances you can also use a de-esser. - I like to use a combination of both de-esser and manual de-essing.
Pay attention to breaths and reduce them with volume automation if you need.