The Stereo Bus Blog - Daily Music Production Tips

This post focuses on the process of getting the vocal chain right for the given performer.

The signal chain for vocals is probably one of the most important production choices in pop music.  Of course, it helps to have a healthy selection of devices to choose from.  Every voice has unique qualities, some of which should be emphasized and some of which should be de-emphasized.  The tools available to accomplish this are, in order of affectiveness: microphone selection, mic placement, and preamp selection.

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This post focuses on capturing ambience by playing back and re-recording sounds in acoustic spaces.

The idea of piping sounds into a space and retracking it isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination.  Before the advent of reverb processors it was common practice to route audio to speakers in reverb chambers to achieve ambient effects.  Now it seems rather quaint to do so, but there are a good number of engineers who simply don’t like using artificial ambience.  And real rooms offer a very different, tangible process as opposed to the knob twiddling of ‘verb processors.

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This post is going to focus on how to achieve a variety of tones by setting up specifically chosen ‘color’ microphones in your studio.

The key to quality audio is sometimes given the unimaginative name of ‘the good rule’. This essentially amounts to: good instruments > good microphones and preamps > good recording hardware = a good sound. Also known as ‘trash-in, trash-out’, it’s critical that the earlier things are in the signal chain the more important it is that they sound right. Digital does a great job of documenting what you feed it, whether it sounds great or awful. It isn’t the least bit flattering. From a purist perspective, your audio will almost always sound better if you can get the sound you want without compression or EQ - just by mic placement, instrument choice, and other such recording-chain choices.

One secret of those who either own their own studios or have time to set up shop in a studio for a project is to have carefully chosen ‘color’ microphones scattered around the rooms. By mixing in these microphones to the main mic on a subject, one can achieve a wild variety of sounds without having to grab an EQ. Hard drive space is cheap and most DAWs offer more tracks than the average pop producer will ever use so, if you have the time and the mic locker - why not? It’ll seem awkward at first but you’ll love the flexibility it offers and the purity of the sonic palette.

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