Vocal recording

Recording Room

We all know that studio time costs some money. While some people can afford this easily, others might not. They rather choose for the budget option: Home recording. Which is perfectly fine, but it has to be done right & in the right room. What is the right room you say? Here are some tips:

1. Make sure you put your microphone at least 1 meter (3.28 feet) from walls. Walls cause early reflections which your mic might pick up not giving your vocal a natural sound. This can not be easily fixed at the mix, unless heavy processing is done. This does something with the quality (for the negative side)
2. Don't do it in an empty room, which causes an echo/reverb you don't want (unless you want it ofcourse). 
3. Stuff the room with: pillows, a thick curtain, a couch. You name it, aslong as its absorbing. This will treat the room acoustically & reducing all unwanted reflections.
4. If you are in a room with a lot of background noises, then a reflection filter might be an option. 

Vocal Mistakes

1. Do not eat or drink dairy or heavy sugar before a recording session.

Why: Dairy(&Sugar) causes more of so called: Mucus (Thick Saliva coat). Which will reduce your vocal cords. You don't want that before your studio session.
2. Don't use alcohol before your session. It does the above too + if you drink too much, you might not reach that pitch you usually do reach.

Microphone usage

1. To get more bass into your voice, stand closer to your microphone. This is called: Proximity effect. As you stand further, your vocal will be thinned out.
2. Use a Pop Filter for your microphone. This will reduce the heavy audio POPS of words with the P/S/T/K etc. 

Hope these gems will help you out next time on the recording session!