Vocal Recording Preproduction

Stage 1: Vocal Recording Preproduction

There are 2 pieces of pre-production here.

Preproduction is an integral part of every session. I find it a vital piece that should be incorporated into your music production… Either consciously or unconsciously you are doing some form of preproduction. It only makes sense to clarify and optimize this process so we are getting the most out of every session.

Preproduction is simply preparation and planning. Aside from getting your recording equipment and tools ready for use, whats most important here when i refer to preproduction is that it is the thinking process that's necessary to add direction and purpose to each session.

First, one thing i want to drill into your head is that preproduction pays.

{link for more information on both parts of the vocal recording from both sides of the glass}

Performance & Vocal Preproduction. More critical to the results than any other factor is the performance of the song. Recording vocals effectively and mixing vocals are both crucial for obvious reasons, but you will not have a great song if the vocal performance is not great, in addition to being produced well...

This goes without saying for most people, but it is still critical to understand and remind ourselves of. Especially now, in the hey-day of daw music production...

While the sequence of steps to your process of instrumental/performance preproduction may vary, the following are the pieces of the puzzle and some tried & true methods and techniques.

Making Sure the Songwriting is Done.

There are times when the songwriting (writing of the song) is done in a haphazard or on the fly fashion. I've done it this way before, as well… But I've found it easier to have it written beforehand because it breaks up the processes of writing, recording & mixing vocals. This helps in more ways than one.

Focus is the main thing. Its just easier to work with, requires less simultaneous multi-mode processing, and gives us a pattern and blueprint to work with… Here is the lyric and melody and now let's execute. We can still modify this, and make changes to it, but it gives us a defined piece to work with.

Knowing The Song.

Knowing the music and lyrics to a song beforehand is helpful because it allows us to perform it with a defined picture of what the song is actually communicating, plus provides us with how the melody and the lyric interact.

Getting into the Right Vibration.

Getting your head straight, calming yourself, and relaxing your body and focusing on a performance is vital. This piece cannot be overlooked if you want to have a great performance & resulting song production.

While I go into much more detail about this in my rhythm & vibe concept, the key thing to remember here is that the frame of mind we are in, actually, and literally sets our body in a certain vibration. It is this feeling and vibration we are in that that sets the stage, so to speak, for the way we act, react, and feel. There is no mystery in the reflection being directly related to our results. In its simplest form, essentially if we are not into the music/the song/the project we will not produce a great song. I just don't think its possible.

At the risk of sounding corny, its important… We want to be in a healthy, inspired, state of mind. This state of mind directly effects our vibration which effects our posture, our performance, and the resulting production.

Sound physical health is what will give us the advantage here. Yes, more time in the gym will pay off. In everything you do.

Preparing the Voice.

Scales and properly warming up the voice will payoff. I had marked warming up my vocals before recording them as unnecessary in the past, but have found that it just makes my vocals better. The added flexibility, relaxed feelings on my voice, and increased stamina of my vocal chords have made warming up my voice before singing a necessary thing. For some people i would guess this may vary, and open up some debate… But in my findings, its like warming up a muscle group before working out, its just a good idea.

Recording and DAW Preproduction

This side deals with the logistics and preparation steps before recording vocals.

Obviously this includes turning on your computer, opening up your DAW production environment, and positioning the microphone for an already primed and ready vocalist who delivers the magic…

But let's talk about all the factors and how to go about utilizing some best practices to produce professional vocal recordings.

Effective Workflow Setup.

Project templates, plugin, & signal chain settings... Starting with saved templates can save a great deal of time! When you work a track for a certain type of project remember to save that track, or individual settings as templates! This is the smart way to do it. The next time you want to recall those exact settings, or are working on a similar musical project you can instantly call on those settings.

Obviously, if the settings are not pleasant or what you want… Don't save them. Tweak them until they are, and then save them.

Mic Placement

Mic placement will have an effect on sonic quality and room control. Don't confuse it with mic technique which falls into the control of the singer. Both of them together = details that add up and effect the resulting vocal recording in a big way.

Record vocals with a decent mic. dynamic or condenser… no not a usb mic. for just about everything you need to know about using "audio recording with microphones go here." {Link to other article on microphones and mic placement.}

Find the ideal place for the mic to go and put it there. utilize absorption and cut the room down.

Mic technique. Hopefully you or your singer has good mic technique. If not, encourage them to practice. as a rule of thumb tho, place the pop filter 3-6 inches from the mic.

Use filters. Yes of course, a pop filter, and you should definitely be using a pop filter. avoid plosives, pops, & wayward s's. But im talking about hi/lo pass filters. clear up the low end, clean it all up. filters out low rumble, ringing highs. 85hz is a good starting point.

Listen to the room. whats going on?

Are there fans, humming, or other sounds that you can hear? If so, rest assured the microphone can too. Point the mic directly away from wherever the loudest point in the room is.

Gain-staging, proper recording levels

Maybe more important than the quality of your signal chain is the quality of your gain staging. Gain staging simply refers to the the settings of your input volume controls. This may be across several devices, for example your mic preamp, converters, and fader position of the track in your daw or on your console.

Basically what you want to remember is… Turn up the volume on the strongest parts of your signal chain. This simply means that you are amplifying the signal at its strongest places.

Although signal chains can be long, daisy chained messes of super-expensive outboard gear… Typically in a home recording studio environment you will have a decent mic preamp which may be separate from your audio interface which includes onboard pre's, converters, and drivers to run the software.

Given we have a nice preamp, lets utilize it!

For example, setting 20-30db on your preamp, and boosting the fader position on the record-armed track way up past 0.0 to even out the input signal and record a healthy waveform recording makes a lot less sense than reversing these settings by increasing the gain on your best preamp and reducing the input volume on your daw track.

Second… It is almost ALWAYS better to record more dynamics and at lower levels. You obviously don't want to record so low that you can barely hear it and you have to add excessive amounts of make-up gain or compress the crap out of it to make it audible…

But the key point here is that you can always make a great performance louder, and have greater control if you stick to recording a flexible waveform with dynamics and not a smushed, often clipping mass of "dynamic-less" recording.

Good headphone mix.

The singers headphone mix is very very important. Talk to them and ask them about what they like… If you are the singer get to know what your preferences are. Heavy reverb, light reverb, dry? What instrumentation heard in the cans while performing are going to encourage a better performance?

Set the atmosphere.

The vocalist needs to be comfortable, focused, and inspired. Do all you can to influence or effect this. Adjust the temperature, dim the lights, setup candles, a lava-lamp, or whatever you can visually and esthetically to help everyone get into the zone… But most important is how you deal with and talk to them.