What Makes a Good Recording?

This past Tuesday we began recording vocals inside the DAS. Now, let's talk about what makes a good vocal recording. In some cases this can all be personal opinion, but there are also things we should be looking out for when we're making these recordings. There are things to keep in mind if you're in the seat of either the Engineer or the Talent.

As an engineer it is very important to pay attention to the the sound quality you're getting. You want to pay attention to things such as whether or not the vocals are being recorded too quiet or too loud and if their voice is being recorded to "dark" or "high". With vocals that are too loud or quiet, we can simply adjust the volume on our output or gain. However "dark" and "high" vocals can be from a combination of things. One of these is the type of voice a person has. There may be instances where you will record someone who has a very deep voice (Barry White) or a higher voice (Alicia Keys). Now I used a man and a woman as an example because men more frequently have deeper voices than women. So now that we have established 2 different types of voices, let's consider the different types of studio microphones. Studio microphones, often referred to as Condenser Microphones, come in various styles. However, appearance isn't the only thing different about these mics. What's inside also counts. There are microphones designed for these different kinds of voices. They are designed for these types of voices because of the way they record certain frequencies. They might help add clarity to a voice that has a lot of bass or help make a softer voice sound more "full". Then there's also "transparent" microphones which try to make as little adjustments to the frequency as possible to give you a real "exact" recording. Today we'll experiment with 2 different microphones.

Now there's also your preamplifier. This preamp that we're using is what gives power to our condenser microphone. Some preamps do more than just give power to the mic. They might also give us control over compression or E.Q. to help us adjust frequencies should we need to. We'll take a look at these things in the DAS today.


Now what should you consider on the talent side? It is referred to as Mic Technique. Mic Technique can be considered knowing the right amount of distance to be from the microphone, the right voice intonation to use, speaking clearly, etc. All of the things that give a believable performance. This is important for all who record. Voice actors, performing artists, narrators, etc.






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