Easy vocal recording with just one mic

In this short series, I’m going over some tips for getting better sounding vocal recordings. We’ll keep it simple, intuitive, and optimized for the home setting.

The first steps to improving the sound of any vocal recording are vocalist preparation and mic placement.

Vocalist preparation

Each vocalist and vocal style is just a little bit different, so you’ll want to tune the techniques you choose during recording to match the individual vocalist you’re working with, and the goals you have in improving their vocal sound in the finished recording.

You can’t have a great vocal recording without a great vocal performance. Recording in a comfortable, open area with pleasing lighting and a relaxing, low-pressure atmosphere will absolutely have a positive effect on the recordings you end up with.

Watch what you consume on performance day: anything that coats your mouth, causes irritation, or dries you out can affect vocal delivery. So, I usually advise minimizing spicy foods, dairy, coffee, high-caffeine tea, alcohol, and smoking right before a vocal performance. Often times, a simple glass of water or a light ginger or lemon tea work great for increasing vocal comfort, and can help minimize any dry mouth or smacking noises from your vocalist.

Once your performer is comfortable and ready for a great performance, it’s time to set up the microphones.

Vocal microphone techniques

Microphone distance

First, dial in your performer’s distance from the microphone. Micing from farther away can help smooth out a vocal and make it sound more natural, or help with a very loud vocalist. Micing closer in can result in a more intimate sounding recording, or a dryer/focused sounding vocal that matches well with contemporary musical styles.

In the home setting, micing farther away might not be a viable option, without also baking a lot of unflattering room noise into your recordings.

Placing your mic too close can cause you to pick up strange mouth noises, and result in a recording that’s perhaps a little too dynamic, which can require extra work to sit evenly in the mix.

Be aware of the proximity effect: certain types of microphones emphasize lower frequencies the closer they’re placed to a source. Use this to your advantage to help fill out a thinner sounding vocalist, or watch out for adding too much woofyiness and mud when close micing a fuller sounding vocalist.

It’s always a balancing act. Try finding the sweet spot of vocal mic placement by starting with test recordings made about 12 inches from your vocalist’s mouth, then slowly move the mic closer, an inch or two at a time. I often end up finding the sweet spot in the 6-8 inch (ish) area.

Microphone angle

Once you’ve got your microphone distance dialed in, optimize your microphone angle. I like to start by positioning the microphone slightly above mouth level, between nose and eye height, angled slightly down towards the performers mouth.

Breath noises and puffs of air from plosive syllables often radiate at a downward angle from the mouth, so this placement is a good starting point for minimizing these types of problems in a natural way, at the microphone level.

Troubleshooting sibilance

If you’re getting too many sibilant sounds in your vocal, you can try angling the microphone anywhere from 15-30 degrees off-axis from the mouth. This works because sibilant sounds (S’s, T’s, and the like) radiate directionally, while the overall vocal sound radiates more broadly. So, angling your mic off-axis can move the microphone out of the direct path of sibilant sounds.

In part two of this series, we’ll go over proper gear choices for capturing great vocals.