Recording Vocals : Part Three : Preamps and Compressors by Breck Alan
Part Three of the compelling Five Part Series "Recording Vocals" by Breck Alan will explore the role of microphone preamps, compressors and eqs in the vocal recording process.
Recording Vocals (Part Three – Preamps and compressors) click here to download article by Breck Alan
The elusive “magic” vocal track is an age-old drama in the recording world and no matter how good technology is getting, recording vocals is still an art form in and of itself. As much as we’d all like a magic bullet that covers all vocalists and musical styles, the truth is that recording vocals can be very different from situation to situation. There are several factors involved. In Parts One and Two of this series we talked about the “Room” and the “Mic.” In Part Three we will discuss mic preamps and compressors.
There are a couple more key ingredients of utmost importance in making virtually any mic, both high and low-end, sound great and fit into a track: Microphone preamps (mic pre) and compressors. These two pieces of equipment are easily as important as the mic you choose and in some cases more so. These two pieces of gear, used in a series from the mic, to the pre-amp, to the compressor, will let you dial in a much hotter and much more controlled signal than you will get without them. It would be silly to not mention that they also add a lot of pizzazz and personality to the track you’re recording and can really help define a good vocal.
The job of the microphone preamp is to boost the signal and match the impedance of the mic to the line input of your recording device. Most high-end mic pres only have a few features. Input gain, Phase inversion and sometimes a 10 – 20 db pad. Input gain is obviously to amplify the signal of the mic coming in to the needed level. With a lot of great old mic pres it can also affect the color of the sound. If you drive the input harder on many of the vintage designs you can often dirty up and smooth out the sound in a desirable way. Some of these pres also have a separate output so that once you get the desired level of input gain you can adjust the output without further changing the sound. The phase inversion is to reverse phase of the mic in stereo micing situations. The pad is to soften the blow of loud sources like guitar amps and drums so that you don’t overdrive and distort the input stage of the mic pre. Additional features sometimes include a high pass filter used for rolling off the very low frequencies where rumble often occurs, and impedance adjustments for more closely matching mics with pres. Some mic pres also include a built in DI (direct input) for recording directly from instruments such as bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar with pick ups and keyboards. Some mics pres also have built in equalizers to help you get very specific about sculpting your sound. If it’s a great sounding eq (which is rare) and you know what you’re doing (which just takes some practice) an eq in the vocal signal chain can be great. If it’s a bad eq it will potentially hurt more than help, as we as humans are very sensitive to frequencies in the mid range of our hearing and bad eqs cause weird phase smearing that is unsettling and overall not pleasing. So if in doubt, it’s best not to record (anything really) with eq in the signal path, because once it’s there, it’s there to stay. It is however almost always helpful (with vocals) to roll off the bass around 50-60 Hz to eliminate rumble. If you don’t do it while tracking, you’ll probably want to do it while mixing.
Classic mic preamps for vocals might include the Neve 1073 or 1272, API 312 and 512, Telefunken V72 and V76, Universal Audio 610, various Langevine, RCA, Helios and EMI models. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery or proof of anything in terms of usefulness, then the Neve and API models are certainly the most imitated preamps on the market. That said if I had to think of probably the most beloved vocal preamp by the widest group of producers, singers and engineers of so many styles, I would have to go with the Telefunken V72. I too love the V72 and use it much of the time, but it’s great to have the flexibility of some of the other classic pres for those times when you just seem to need that something different or your first choice just isn’t working as well with the specific track as you’d like.
All of the preamps listed here would be referred to as “color pres.” This means they are not entirely neutral sonically but tend to lend something powerful or flattering to vocals that make them a desirable choice. A lot of the classic mic pres are used as much to ad a sonic footprint to the sound as they are to boost the signal. Like microphones, mic pres are often referred to as bright or dark. This is why the various combinations of mics, pres, and compressors can be an exciting way to paint with multiple colors during the recording process. There are those that prefer to record everything with very neutral colors and save adding the color for mixdown. If you’re mixing on a console (or with a summing bus) with lots of outboard gear this can work but if not, best to make some color choices during tracking.
The job of the compressor is to help control the dynamics (difference in soft to loud) of the vocals. Great singers tend to have a lot of range in dynamics and it’s very hard to get a strong recording signal without at least some compression. Great compression on vocals is both a matter of taste and an art form. It’s always best to start with too little (as long as you are at least stopping the peaks from clipping) because compression is something that can’t be undone later. We’ll talk more about using the compressor with vocals in part four of this series (Tracking and Mixing Vocals). As with the preamps listed above, a lot of the classic vocal compressors are used as much to ad a sonic footprint to the sound as they are to compress the signal. These are usually referred to as color compressors. The color comes from a softening by the use of transformers to in effect, ad harmonic distortion to the original signal. This type of distortion can be pleasing to our ears when the blend is right with the rest of the track. The classic vocal compressors might include the Teletronics LA 2A and LA 3A, Urie 1176, Gates Sta-Level, Neve 2254 and 33609, and various RCA and EMI models (as usual these lists are incomplete). These are such classics that there are several other companies new and old that make variations on the theme. The most copied vocal compressors would probably be the LA 2A, the 1176 and the Sta-Level.
This chain of gear, which will often also include an EQ, can be found as separate pieces of equipment or built together and referred to as a “channel strip.” This comes from the days of recording consoles with rows and rows of buttons. Each of those rows generally included a mic pre (or sometimes line amp), an EQ, auxiliary sends (to other gear) and sometimes a compressor (referred to as dynamics). Over the years engineers often preferred individual pieces of gear other what was built into the console, so individual pieces of equipment (what we now refer to as outboard gear) gave rise to companies that specialized in certain areas.
Join us in Part Four of this series to discuss the art of “Tracking and Mixing Vocals.”
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Comments
Robert Lunte email - www.thevocaliststudio.com
This is certainly one of the best series of content we have seen from the Council. Great stuff Breck!